Colour vision : $b Being the Tyndall Lectures delivered in 1894 at the Royal Institution

Delivered originally as a trio of hour‑long lectures in 1894, these notes bring together the physics of light and the biology of the eye to explain how we perceive colour. The author, a former Royal Engineer and former secretary of the Royal Society’s Colour Vision Committee, frames the subject for listeners who have only a modest amount of time, focusing on the experimental results that can be described without demanding extensive physiological expertise.

The work opens with a clear, non‑technical sketch of the eye’s structure before moving on to the historical theories of Young, Helmholtz and others, showing where they succeeded and where they fell short. Throughout, vivid coloured plates and detailed diagrams illustrate laboratory findings and unusual cases of defective colour perception, making the material both visual and understandable. Listeners will come away with a solid grasp of the physical principles underlying colour vision and an appreciation for the early scientific attempts to decode one of our most everyday mysteries.