MENTAL IMAGERY. 71 



ent positions. If they see an object equally often in many positions, 

 the memories confuse one another. They are less able to visualize the 

 features of intimate friends than those of persons of whom they have 

 caught only a single glance. Many such persons have expressed to me 

 their grief at finding themselves powerless to recall the looks of dear 

 relations whom they had lost, while they had no difficulty in recollect- 

 ing faces that were uninteresting to them. 



Others have a complete mastery over their mental images. They 

 can call up the figure of a friend, and make it sit on a chair or stand 

 up at will ; they can make it turn round and attitudinize in any way, 

 as by mounting it on a bicycle or compelling it to perform gymnastic 

 feats on a trapeze. They are able to build up elaborate geometric 

 structures bit by bit in their mind's eye, and add, subtract, or alter at 

 will and at leisure. This free action of a vivid visualizing faculty is 

 of much importance in connection with the higher processes of thought, 

 though it is commonly abused, as may be easily explained by an exam- 

 ple. Suppose a person suddenly to accost another with the following 

 words : " I want to tell you about a boat." What is the idea that the 

 word " boat " would be likely to call up ? I tried the experiment with 

 this result. One person, a young lady, said that she immediately saw 

 the image of a rather large boat pushing off from the shore, and that 

 it was full of ladies and gentlemen, the ladies being dressed in white 

 and blue. It is obvious that a tendency to give so specific an inter- 

 pretation to a general word is absolutely opposed to philosophic 

 thought. Another person, who was accustomed to philosophize, said 

 that the word " boat " had aroused no definite image, because he had 

 purposely held his mind in suspense. He had exerted himself not to 

 lapse into any one of the special ideas that he felt the word boat was 

 ready to call up, such as a skiff, Avherry, barge, launch, punt, or dingy. 

 Much more did he refuse to think of any one of these with any par- 

 ticular freight or from any particular point of view. A habit of sup- 

 pressing mental imagery must, therefore, characterize men who deal 

 much with abstract ideas ; and, as the power of dealing easily and 

 firmly with these ideas is the surest criterion of a high order of intel- 

 lect, we should expect that the visualizing faculty would be starved by 

 disuse among philosophers, and this is precisely what I have found on 

 inquiry to be the case. 



Here, however, a fresh consideration comes in, which shows that 

 the tendency to visualize is liable to be over-corrected, especially by 

 those who are accustomed but not obliged to visualize in hard and per- 

 sistent forms, and that they lose thereby the only means of obtaining 

 a correct mental picture of a species or race. I proved two years ago* 

 that a generalized picture did as a matter of fact admit of being pro- 

 duced. I threw magic-lantern portraits of different persons on the top 



* "Journal Anthropological Institute," "Composite Portraits," vol. viii, ISVS, p. 132. 

 "Journal Royal Institution," "Generic Images," ix, 1879, p. 161. 



