236 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Of these results Galton writes that they 



"hmve forcibly shown to me the great iraperfection in my generalising poweni; and I am sure 

 that most {lersomt would tind the sHiiie if they niiul<> .similar trials. Nothing is a suror sign of 

 high intellectual capacity than the power of <|iiickly .seizing and ea.sily manipulating ideas of a 

 Very alwtract nature. Commonly we grasp thein very imj)erfectly, and hold on to their skirts 

 with great difficulty. In comparing the order in which the ideas pre>ient<id thcm8elv<>s, 1 lind 

 that a decided precedence is assumed hy the Histrionic ideas, whenever they occur; that vertial 

 ■asociations occur first and with great <|uickness on many occasions, but on the whole they are 

 only a little more likely to occur first than secx>nd ; and that Imagery is decidedly more likely 

 to be the stvond, than the first of the associations cidlod up by a word. In short, gesture- 

 language appeals the most (juickly to our feelings." (pp. 161-2.) 



"Perhaps the strongest of the impressions left by these experiments regards tli(> multi- 

 fariousness of the work done by the mind in a state of half-unconsciousness, and the valid 

 rwuion they afford for l)elieving in the e.xistence of still deeper strata of mtMitnl operations, 

 sank wholly below the level of a)n.sciousne.s.s, which may account for such mental phenomena 

 as cannot otherwise be explained'. We gain an insight l>y these exj>eriment8 into the 

 marvellous numlier and nimbleness of our mental associations, and we also learn that they are 

 very far indeed from being infinite in their variety. We find that our working stock of ideas 

 is narrowly limited, but that the mind continually recurs to them in conducting its ojx-rations, 

 therefore its tracks necessarily become more detine<i and its tlexiliility diminished as age 

 advances." (p. 162.) 



There can be little doubt that Galton broke new ground in these papers 

 both as to substance and method. But they prinluced little repercus.«ion 

 among English psychologists; not improbably becau.se it is an easier task to 

 experiment on another's mind than on one's own mind. 



(lalton's work of 1879 undoubtedly turned his thoughts to Mental 

 Imagery, and he issued in November of that year a schedule containing 

 Questions on the F'aculty of Visualising'. On the data obtained from this 

 questionnaire Galton published in Mitul for July, 1880, a paper entitled: 

 "Statistics of Mental Imagery'." The scope of this paper was twofold : 

 namely to indicsite how very varied is the intensity of visualising in tlie male 

 membei-s of tlie Engli.sh Race and to indicate i>ow Gallon's method of ranking 

 or of percentiles (see our Chapter XII) could be applied to such psychometric 

 statistics. 



' In the A'tnttefiith Century (ip. 433) Galton writes: "The unconscious operations of the 

 mind fre<]uently far transcend the conscious ones in intellectual impin-tance. .Sudden inspira- 

 tions and tho.se tliishings out of resulUs which cost a great deal of conscious elFort to ordinary 

 people, but are the natural outcome of what is known as genius, are undoubtedly products of 

 unconscious cerebration. Con.scious actions are motived, and motives can make themselves 

 attended to, whether consciousness Ijc present or not. Consciousness seems to do little more 

 than attest the fact that the various organs of the brain do not work with perfect ease or 

 coojK-ration. Its {xxsition appears to be that of a helpless spectator of but a minute fraction 

 of a huge amount of automatic brain work." 



' Galton suggested the morning's breakfast Uible as an object for visualisation anil re- 

 quested answers to the following questions: (1) Illumination? (2) Definition? (3) Comph-tc- 

 nessl (4) Colouring? (.")) Extent of Field of View? He then turned to various concrete 

 examples of visual i.sation and aske<l his examinees to state whether they could visualise 

 (6) Printed pages? (7) Furniture? (8) Persons? (9) .Scenery? (10) Geography? (11) Military 

 Movementst (12) Mechanism? (13) Geometry? (14) Numerals? (l.")) Card Playing? (IG) Chess? 

 There is no doubt that the answers he received under (14) were the original source of his 

 later work on "Visualised Numerals." 



• Vol. V, pp. 301-18. 



