G44 ^r. F, Galton [May 13, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 13, 1881. 



Frederick J. Bramwell, Esq. F.E.S. in the Chair. 



Francis Galton, Esq. F.E.S. 



The Visions of Sane Persons. 



[Reprinted, with slight revisions, from the ' Fortnightly Review,' June 1881.] 



In the course of some recent inquiries into visual memory, I was 

 greatly struck by the frequency of the replies in which my informants 

 described themselves as subject to " visions." Those of whom I speak 

 were sane and healthy, but were subject notwithstanding to visual 

 presentations, for which they could not account, and which in a few 

 cases reached the level of hallucinations. This unexpected prevalence 

 of a visionary tendency among persons who form a part of ordinary 

 society seems to me suggestive and worthy of being put on record. 



Many of my facts are derived from personal friends, of whose 

 accuracy I have no doubt. Another group comes from correspond- 

 ents who have written at length with much painstaking, and whose 

 letters appear to me to bear internal marks of scrupulous truth- 

 fulness. A third part has been collected for me by many kind 

 friends in many countries, each of whom has made himself or herself 

 an independent centre of inquiry ; and the last, and much the most 

 numerous portion consists of brief replies by strangers to a series of 

 questions contained in a circular that I drew up. I have gone over 

 all this matter with great care, and have cross-tested it in many ways 

 whilst it was accumulating, just as any conscientious statistician 

 would, before I began to form conclusions. I was soon convinced of 

 its substantial trustworthiness, and that conviction has in no way 

 been shaken by subsequent experience. In short, the evidence of the 

 four groups I have just mentioned is quite as consistent as could have 

 been reasonably desired. 



In speaking of the tendency among sane and healthy persons to 

 see images flash unaccountably into existence, it must be recollected 

 that the images vary greatly in distinctness. Some are so faint and 

 evanescent as to appear unworthy of serious notice ; others leave a 

 deep impression, and others again are so vivid as actually to deceive 

 the judgment. All of these belong to the same category, and it is 

 the assurance of their common origin that affords the justification I 

 need for directing scientific attention to what many may be inclined 

 to contemptuously disregard as the silly vagaries of vacant minds. 



