Pn!/c/iolo(/ical Invent ig f it ioHM 279 



present state of our knowledge it should not Ije injno»Hiblo to give some 

 wiirnitij^ to those y"""<^ prisons who run ii (lunger if they follow a very 

 KtrenuouH nientiil occupiition, sucli hh thiit of tlu- school tejiclier. 



Gulton, as I have noted, remained interested for many years in psychology 

 although, as in the conespoiidiiig case of geography, his main work changed 

 its character. Any mental idio.syncrasy had special attraction for him, ami in 

 May, 1896, he puhlished a note on what he considered n very curious mental 

 i)eculi.irity'. This occurred in a certain Colonel M. who wiien in the army 

 liad seen Hogging, wounds or death without special .sensjitions. But the 

 sight or talk of an injurwl finger nail at once made him feel sick and faint, 

 and would even hring on a deadly cold perspiration. So much was this the 

 case that at a large dinia-r party in the prime of life the peixistent talk of 

 a guest about a small injury of this kind cau.sed him fii-st to turn faint and 

 then to slides under the table unconsciou.s. His mother apparently attributed 

 the idiosyncrasy to maternal impre-ssion, she having pricke<l her finger 

 (without permanent injury) shortly before his birth. Colonel M. .sjiid that 

 his father, biother, throe sisters and nephews and nieces had no analogous 

 peculiarity. He had no children; it is not directly stated that his niot/ier 

 henself had not the peculiarity. Cialton thinks it could not have come by 

 inheritance, and that 



"it would Ix' silly to suppose i\ .sickly horn)r of wouiulitd fiiigur imils or cliiws to have licen so 

 lulviiutagi'DUs to niicient iiiiiii or his brute proffenitors jis to have formerly become n riicial 

 cliiiriu'toristio tlirou<{h selection, and th(>u;jh it fell into disu.se under changed conditions and 

 apjwirently disjippeiiriHl, it wiis not utterly lost, the i)risent case showing a sudden reversion 

 to ancestnil traits. Such an argument would be nonsense." 



He looks upon the idiosyncra.sy as a mutation, and fresh evidence of the 

 wide ninge of possibilities in the further evolution of human faculty. In 

 other words he a.ssumes that it was not inherited, but would have lieen 

 transmitted had Colonel M. had oHspiing. The note is interesting as illus- 

 trating tiie working of Galton's mind. It iloes not seem to me that the 

 evidence for non-inheritance is any more adequate than in the case of 

 lluggins' dog Keppler (see our pp. G6 and 148). But an iiupiiry into the 

 hereditary character — i.e. the origin and transmissibility of such mental 

 idiosyncrasies — would be well worth making^ 



Another memoir which can be.st be considered in this chajjter is that of 

 the same year, IBDG; it deals with the problem t)f "Intelligible Signals 

 between Neighbouring Stars'." Galton tells us that in 1892 Mai-s made a 



' Nature, Vol. liv, p. 76, "A curious Idiosyncrasy." 



' For example there are [lersons who are made to feel sick by the tearing of a piece of 

 calico in their pre.senee; there are others in whom the mere ima</inalu>u of drawing a knitted 

 glove between their teeth sends a cold shiver through all their limbs; while rec-ently I heard 

 of a workman who was employee! to whitewash a nnim in which thei-e were a few skulls in a 

 glass ease throwing up his job, beeausi^ it mad(^ him "ill to work in a cliarnel house." I think 

 tiiis sort of mental discomfort extends to lower living forms; I have known dogs .seriously 

 uneasy when a dres,sed and cured dog skin was brought to their notice, and seriously dis- 

 trustful of familiar friends, if they wore gloves made from wool spun from the combings of 

 dogs' coats. 



» The Fortnightly Review, Vol. L.\, N.S. pp. 657-64. 



