EYE-MINDEDNESS AND EAR-MINDEDNESS. 605 



ber of repetitions necessary to commit a paragraph or a string of 

 words too long to be retained after a single bearing or a single 

 reading ; bere, as everywhere, care must be taken to have tbe para- 

 graphs of equal difficulty, and to repeat the test a number of 

 times. Dr. Ebbinghaus * has made a valuable study of the mem- 

 ory, tracing a curve of forgetfulness, and establishing many in- 

 teresting conclusions by this method ; while Mr. Joseph Jacobs f 

 and others have used the maximum number of sounds repeatable 

 after a single hearing, which they call the " span," as a test of the 

 growth of mental power with the increase of years, and as a mark 

 of the narrow intellect of idiots. The successive corrections and 

 improvements, until a perfect repetition is possible, are often full 

 of interest. The " auditaire " reaches this stage sooner by having 

 the passage, etc., read, the " visionaire " by reading it ; in addition 

 I find that the former has all along (both in I, II, and III) a tend- 

 ency to remember the last words best, while the latter retains the 

 first most readily. One must also observe by which method the 

 sense is best retained when the exact words are forgotten ; more- 

 over, it may be noted that the one confuses words allied in 

 sound, the other words are in appearance, and so on. 



II. All the various processes described under I can be repeated 

 with the list of words, numerals, paragraphs, and the rest, so long 

 that error is sure to arise. It is not necessary to give details. 

 These errors are often highly amusing as well as instructive. The 

 fleetness with which an impression which you feel perfectly sure 

 of firmly possessing while listening or reading, suddenly disap- 

 pears with a blank in its place, is very startling. After an inter- 

 val, only the most prominent words or ideas are left. Of three per- 

 sons subjected to a variety of tests, one retained most and more of 

 what the eye had taken in, the second nearly equally of each, with 

 a preponderance of the visual, while the third (myself) was a de- 

 cided " auditaire." This suggests the remark that a tyjje of mind 

 to which all the avenues of perception are almost equally attract- 

 ive is doubtless common. In fact, M. Binet,]: who has much inter- 

 esting matter to offer on this topic, regards this indifferent type 

 as the normal type, representing a harmonious development of all 

 the sensory faculties. But here, as elsewhere, specialization has 

 its advantages ; and, moreover, if the tests are carefully made, I 

 suspect a noticeable superiority in favor of sight will be the most 

 usual result. It is not impossible to imagine the tests so arranged 

 as to give roughly quantitative estimates of the relative impor- 



* Hermann Ebbinghaus, "Ueber das Gedachtniss," Leipsic, 1885. An excellent mono- 

 graph. 



•)• " Mind," January, 1887; an article by Mr. Jacobs d alii and another by Messrs. 

 Galton and Bain. 



X Alfred Biuet, " La Psychologic du Raisonnement," Paris, 1886. 



