790 KEPOKT — 1887. 



It 13 very common for children to mistake east for west, north for south, 

 and even to make still more ridiculous errors which appear on reflection to be quite 

 impossible. Yet these errors remain often unobserved until the youth is eighteen or 

 nineteen years old, when he begins to think the matter out for himself, from finding 

 that he is continually making absurd mistakes, but then it is too late for him to do 

 more than know that he is liable to the error, for on an emergency it will crop up 

 in spite of himself. 



I am aware of one instance in which an educated surveyor when thinking of 

 London invariably placed the portions about Regent Street and Charing Cross 

 in an inverted position while picturing all the rest correctly, and it was onlj' 

 by an effort that he could turn this portion upside down into its place. 

 Another, when thinking suddenly of Paris, always placed it to the north of London, 

 and another always thought of the west end of London as being towards the 

 eastern coast. 



Out of thirty cases of well-instructed men at an age between eighteen and 

 twenty, I have found that about eighteen were imder the impression that while 

 the sun rises in the east, the stars rise in the west, from having learned that the 

 sun has a proper motion among the stars. 



I fancy there are few educated men who have not grown up with some curious 

 errors with reference to geographical facts which have bothered them all their 

 lives, and which they have found it impossible to get rid of even when they have 

 discovered where the errors lay, and I believe that many of the numerous blunders 

 and accidents which constantly occur on railways, with shipping, machinery, &c., 

 and the causes of which cannot be accounted for, are really to be ascribed to some 

 early error in learning geography or the knowledge of common things, errors which, 

 when attention and watch over self is suddenly withdrawn, influence the actions 

 in a contrary direction to that which is right. 



As an instance of the natural liability to error, even apart from those which 

 may be ingrained while under instruction, I may allude to the feeling when the 

 eyes are shut when travelling by rail or carriage that tlie vehicle is going in an 

 opposite direction to that in which it actually moves, to the impression when 

 approaching or leaving land in a boat or balloon that the earth is moving and that 

 oneself is stationary ; even when on horseback under excessive fatigue in the 

 dark the traveller has been known to imagine that the horse was moving rapidly 

 backwards. The effect of excessive fatigue from physical exertion has somewhat 

 the same result as a want of self-control from bad training of the mind, and 

 perhaps those who have ridden for many hours on horseback or in a coach may 

 have noticed how in the dark a fixed lamp may be seen to make various fantastic 

 signals due to the motion of the horse or coach transferred by the eye to the lamp. 

 As another instance of the difficulty of self-control I may mention a case in which 

 a man well instructed in taking astronomical observations and in the rudiments 

 of astronomy could not divest himself of the idea, which he had gained as a child, 

 that the moon shines with light of her oven, and that her phases are due to the 

 earth getting between her and the sun, this error continually interfering with 

 his mental astronomical pictures, though when his attention was specially called 

 to the subject he was aware of the error which intruded itself so constantly in his 

 views of the heavenly bodies. The difficulties regarding ea,st and west, north and 

 south probably arise from a multiplicity of causes, such as the southern side of the 

 Mediterranean being the northern coast of Africa, or the southern view of a house 

 being obtained by looking towards it in a northerly direction, and these difficulties 

 as to orientation do not only occur in modern times, but are to be found in ancient 

 writings. Another constant source of error is inverting names unconsciously, such 

 as speaking of Jupiter's rings and Saturn's belts. As an instance of this I mention 

 a case in which, a lecture being given on the Franco-Prussian War, the lecturer 

 inadvertently in the middle of his lecture used the word ' Prussian ' for ' French,' 

 and vice versa continually throughout, and though he was quite aware of some 

 anomaly every now and then, he could not ascertain where he was in error until 

 near the end of his lecture. Another source of error which cannot be too carefully 

 guarded against results from placing the celestial globe by the side of the terrestrial 



