6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



haunted by the chess-board at night. An artist painting an im- 

 aginary portrait saw the figure in his walks, saw it move, at length 

 came to believe in its reality, and became insane. The creations 

 of genius are sometimes similarly realized : Dickens walked the 

 streets with " Little Nell " at his side. All such phenomena are 

 likely to appear as visual ; in dreaming, these are decidedly most 

 frequent and prominent (in fact, we call a dream a "^ vision ") ; in 

 hypnotism an imaginary visual sensation is easily induced ; in in- 

 cipient as in pronounced insanity, visual illusions and hallucina- 

 tions are the most usual. 



All these facts illustrate the leading role that vision plays in 

 mental life — or, to speak physiologically, the high development of 

 the cortical sight-center in man and its associative dominance over 

 other cortical centers — as well as the great variety of its develop- 

 ment in different individuals. Next to sight, the intellectually 

 most valuable sense is hearing ; that it owes much of this im- 

 portance to its function as the medium of spoken language goes 

 without saying. As in sight, so in hearing, the ease of perception 

 and the clearness and accuracy of one's remembrance of musical 

 or other sounds are subject to wide individual variations. Again, 

 there are persons who possess this " auditizing " power to an un- 

 usual degree ; to this class belong Mozart, who remembered the 

 " Miserere " of the Sistine Chapel after two hearings ; Beethoven, 

 composing and silently repeating to himself whole symphonies 

 after his deafness ; " Blind Tom," performing any musical comj^o- 

 sition, however fantastic, after a single hearing, and so on. In 

 ordinary experience, many persons reveal their dependence on 

 auditory impressions by repeating things out loud to remember 

 them, by closing their eyes and assuming the attitude of listening 

 when trying to recall a word, and so on. Among the blind I 

 have found many a good example of this type of mind, just as 

 good visualizers are probably abundant among the deaf-mutes. 

 A good illustration of the difference between what I shall term a 

 " visionaire " and an " auditaire " is furnished by the conversation 

 between the two dramatists, Legouvd and Scribe. " When I write 

 up a scene," said Legouv^ to Scribe, " I hear it ; you see it ; for 

 every phrase I write, the voice of the character speaking it strikes 

 my ear. You are the theatre itself; your actors walk and act 

 under your eyes ; I am of the audience, you of the spectators." 

 " Nothing could be truer," said Scribe. 



Instances in which certain forms or colors call up certain 

 sounds are on record, though they occur much less frequently than 

 the reverse. In one case the sight of the full moon looked at 

 through a red glass has the sound of I joined to o. In dreams, 

 hearing enters next frequently to sight (though in many cases the 

 tactual-motor sensations predominate) ; in hypnotism an auditory 



