COUNTING UNCONSCIOUSLY. 



223 



nothing more than to estimate, but this must be done with the utmost 

 attention. 



Whoever has for any length of time tried seriously to guess cor- 

 rectly will be surprised to find that his guesses will soon grow to be 

 generally correct, whereas at the start they were often erroneous. 

 Only when the number of objects seen exceeds nine will mistakes 

 again occur more frequently. However, further practice in estimat- 

 ing greater numbers of small objects will soon cause considerable 

 improvement even here. Many, however, do not succeed in estimat- 

 ing correctly beyond ten, probably because the attention is not suffi- 

 ciently concentrated at the time, and as it is necessary, at the start at 

 least, that one's whole attention be closely given ; only after having 

 attained some degree of proficiency will the exercise of this power no 

 longer prove fatiguing. 







In order to practice this kind of counting, dots and small circles 

 were drawn on white paper squares. Some of these dots were arranged 

 symmetrically, others were irregularly placed. These were glanced 

 at for a moment, and proved of considerable aid in acquiring the art. 

 A good deal depends on the arrangement of the dots. A card-player 



