GENERIC IMAGES. 539 



tistical tables out of which averages are deduced. There can not be 

 a more perfect example than they afford, of what the metaphysicians 

 mean by generalizations, when the objects generalized are objects of 

 vision, and when they belong to the same typical group, one important 

 characteristic of which is that medium characteristics should be far 

 more frequent than divergent ones. It is strange to notice how com- 

 monly this conception has been overlooked by metaphysicians, and 

 how positive are their statements that generalizations are impossible, 

 and that the very idea of them is absurd. I will quote the lucid 

 writing of Sir W. Hamilton to this effect, where he epitomizes the 

 opinions of other leading metaphysicians. I do so the more readily 

 because I fully concede that there is perfect truth in what he says, 

 when the objects to be generalized are not what a cautious statistician 

 would understand by the word generic. 

 Sir "W. Hamilton says : * 



Take, for example, the term man. Here we can call up no notion, no idea, 

 corresponding to the universality of the class, or term. This is manifestly im- 

 possible. For as man involves contradictory attributes and as contradictions 

 can not exist in one representation, an idea or notion adequate to man can not 

 be realized in thought. The class man includes individuals, male and female, 

 white and black and copper-colored, tall and short, fat and thin, straight and 

 crooked, whole and mutilated, etc., and the notion of the class must therefore 

 at once represent all and none of these. It is therefore evident, though the 

 absurdity was maintained by Locke, that we can not accomplish this; and, this 

 being impossible, we can not represent to ourselves the class man by any equiva- 

 lent notion, or idea. All that we can do is to call up some individual image 

 and consider it as representing, though inadequately representing, the generality. 

 This we can easily do, for as we can call into imagination any individual, so we 

 can make that individual image stand for any or for every other which it resem- 

 bles, in those essential points which constitute the identity of the class. This 

 opinion, which, after Hobbes, has been in this country maintained among others 

 by Berkeley, Hume, Adam Smith, Campbell, and Stewart, appears to me not 

 only true but self-evident. 



If Sir W. Hamilton could have seen and examined these composite 

 portraits, and had borne in mind the well-known elements of statistical 

 science, he would certainly have written very differently. No doubt, 

 if what we are supposed to mean by the word man is to include women 

 and children and is to relate only to their external features and mea- 

 surements, then the subject is not suitable for a generic picture, other 

 than of a very blurred kind, such as a child might daub with a paint- 

 brush. If, however, we take any one of the principal races of man 

 and confine our portraiture to adult males, or adult females, or to chil- 

 dren whose ages lie between moderate limits, we ought to produce a 

 good generic representation. 



It will, I trust, be quite understood that, although for the sake of 



* " Lectures," ii., 297. 



