Pt<i/r/iof)H/ii'(t/ linumtiijatuniM 239 



most useful, an<l the piirtiiubir furiiiH of it wliioh wii ou}{lit to aim »t (k'vclopiii({, and I nhall 

 adduco eviiluncn to hIiuw llmt llu- viHUiillNiii); faculty udinitM of ImI' ' it<><|, altliough no 



attt'iiipt has (>v»tr yi-t Ih!<iii iniulr, im far as I know, to hriiiK it Hy ly «n<l altot;<>thor 



under control." (p. 313.) 



Ciiilttui !i|i|ili('.s his "o^ivc ciirvi-" heii', ;i.s in Mm'/, ;iii<l (•<iiiclu<l<-> in.ii 

 "the im'(IIiiin ((uality of iiioiitiil imagery uiiioiig Kiigli.sliim'ii may l»o IfiieHy 

 described as fiiirly vivid but incomulete." (Jwiiig to the flatneBS of the 

 curve Ijetweeii the (juartiles, our author holds that it should Ik; feiisiblc to 

 educate the liu;ulty among the great majority of men to the degree in which 

 it manifests itself without any education at all in at least one person 

 out of sixteen, i.e. to the suboctile value, where the image is firm an<l clwir. 

 I nuist confess that 1 do not feel convinced of the great "educai)ility " of 

 the general population in visual imagery, by the rather slender evidence 

 Galton gives from the fjayh- Ntttionulc tie Dcssiit in Paris, and from an 

 eminent engineer, who had great visual faculty in form, and acquired it by 

 practice in colour also (pp. 322-3). The visual faculty may l)e largely innate 

 ni such selected populations as engineers and artists, and may merely need 

 exercising. It is (liflicult also to reconcile Galton's view that educjition 

 could span the gai) from lower quartile to upper suboctile with his state- 

 ment in the foUowmg sentences : 



"The visualisin>; faculty is a natural gift, and like all natural gifts, Ims a teiideiiry to Ix? 

 inlu'rit«l. In this faculty the tendency to inlicritance is exceptionally strong, as I have abundant 

 ovideuoe to prove, especially in respect to certain rar(! peculiarities, of which T shall speak 

 [numlwr forms and colour associations], and which when they exist at all, arc usually found 

 among two, three, or more brothers and sistere, parents, childi'en, uncles and aunts and 

 cousins'." (p. 314.) 



From families Galton turns to races, and while fuhnitting the difficulty in 

 civilisetl races of the modification by eduaition considers that the French 

 possess the visualising fiictor in a high degree, noting their power of pre- 

 arranging ceremonials and fetes, and their genius for tactics and strategy, 

 which show that they are able to foresee effects with unusual clejirness. 

 Their phrase "figurez-vous" or "picture to yourself," he says, seems to express 

 their dominant mode of j)erception. Galton next turns to uncivilised races 

 and stresses the cave drawings of the Bushmen of South Africa. He con- 

 siders that the drawings of uncivili.sed races are largely the products of 

 "mental imagery." This he justifies from a letter to hunself frouj Dr Mann, 

 of the Cape, who in I860 observed a Bushman lad at work: 



"Ho invariably l)egan by jotting down upon paper or on a slate, a nuinlwr of isolated dot.s 

 which presenttMl no connection or trace of outline of any kind to the uninitiated eye, but 

 lotikinl like the stars scattered promiscuously in the sky. Having with much deliberation 

 satisfied himself of the sufficiency of these dots, he forthwith In-gan to run a free bold line from 

 one to the other, and as he did so the form of an animal— horse, buflfalo, elephant or some kind 

 of ant«lopo — gradually developed itself. This was invariably done with a free hand, and with 

 such unerring accuracy of touch that no correction of a line was at any time attempted. I 

 undersUxHl from this lad that this was the plan which was invariably pursued by his kindred 

 in making their clever pictures." (p. 316.) 



' Oalton states that the fact that scattered members of the same family had number forms 

 was often discovered for the first time by his own inquiries. 



