PSYCHOMETRIC FACTS. -j-jg 



The usual faintness of highly generalized ideas is forcibly brought 

 home to us by the sudden increase of vividness that our conception of 

 a substantive is sure to receive when an adjective is joined to it that 

 limits the generalization. Thus it is very diflficult to form a mental 

 conception corresponding to the word " afternoon " ; but if we hear 

 the words " a wet afternoon," a mental picture arises at once that has 

 a fair amount of definition. If, however, we take a step further and 

 expand the phrase to " a wet afternoon in a country house," the mind 

 becomes crowded with imagery. 



The more we exercise our reason, the more we are obliged to deal 

 with the higher order of generalizations and the less with visual image- 

 ry ; consequently our power of seeing the latter becomes blunted by 

 disuse. Probably, also, the mind becomes less able to picture things to 

 itself as we advance in age. I am sure there is wide difference between 

 my mental imagery now and what it was when I was a child. It was 

 then as vivid and as gorgeous as in a dream. 



It is a perfect marvel to me, when watching the working of my 

 mind, to find how faintly I realize the meaning of the words I hear or 

 read, utter or write. If our brain- work had been limited to that part 

 of it which lies well within our consciousness, I do not see how our 

 intellectual performances would rise much above the level of those of 

 idiots. For instance, I just now opened a railway prospectus, and the 

 following words caught my eye, the purport of which was taken in 

 block, " An agreement will be submitted for the consideration and ap- 

 proval of the proprietors on Friday next " ; yet I am certain that I had 

 not, and I doubt if I could easily obtain, a good general idea corre- 

 sponding to any one of the six principal words in the passage, *' agree- 

 ment," " submitted," " consideration," " approval," " proprietors," and 

 " Friday." If I puzzle over the words in detail until I fully realize 

 their meaning, I lose more than I gain ; there is time for the previous 

 words ta slip out of mind, and so* I fail to grasp the sentence as a 

 whole. 



The more I have examined the workings of my own mind, whether 

 in the walk along Pall Mall, or in the seventy-five words, or in any 

 other of the numerous ways I have attempted but do not here describe, 

 the less respect I feel for the part played by consciousness. I begin 

 with others to doubt its use altogether as a healthful supervisor, and 

 to think that my best brain-work is wholly independent of it. The 

 unconscious operations of the mind frequently far transcend the con- 

 scious ones in intellectual importance. Sudden inspirations and those 

 flashings out of results which cost a great deal of conscious effort to 

 ordinary people, but are the natural outcome of what is known as 

 genius, are undoubted products of unconscious cerebration. Conscious 

 actions are motived, and motives can make themselves attended to, 

 whether consciousness be present or not. Consciousness seems to do 

 little more than attest the fact that the various organs of the brain do 



