J.— PSYCHOLOGY. 173 



coming it. Were it not for this difficulty a man who had been told 

 the right way to perform the various manoeuvres employed in ski-ing 

 might very well do them fairly correctly the first time he tried (as 

 many people actually do), while no amount of strength, activity, 

 intelligence or confidence would enable him, if right-handed, to throw 

 or write properly with his left hand without long practice. 



Knack, therefore, may be regarded as the ability to impose upon one's 

 behaviour very rapidly a special well-adapted pattern. 



In throwing a ball, it has been demonstrated^ that a number of 

 muscle-groups must co-operate, simultaneously and successively, very 

 rapidly. The succession of events which make up the performance is 

 suddenly accelerated. The leisured semibreves and minims give place to 

 tense semiquavers and demisemiquavers ; the wide folds in the time- 

 fabric ruck into pleats. 



The Relatioit of Skill to Natural Aptitude. 



If such analysis of skill be admissible as a foundation for investigation, 

 aptitude for a particular form of skill may be regarded as based upon 

 well-marked and well-co-ordinated reflexes, instinctive tendencies suitable 

 to the task, adapted habits, and the power, or maybe powers, of patterning. 



This power might be partly innate, partly acquired. To produce new 

 patterns may be a mark of genius in skill. The loss of patterning-power 

 through fear, fatigue, cerebral injury, drugs or unusual physiological 

 happenings offers a fascinating series of problems, especially in their 

 relation to individual differences. 



Of high-grade skill there are two types : 



(a) Unoriginal. This skill may effect very complex and satisfactory 

 adjustment. It characterises some — perhaps most — processes in industry, 

 and many in the army and navy, where predictability of action is a sine 

 qua lion, and originality may be unpopular, inconvenient or dangerous. 



(b) Skill containing something personal, creative, unique and difficult 

 or impossible to copy. 



Psychologically interesting is the adherence of different nations, 

 different strata of society, and of the same strata at different times to 

 certain patterns in skill. The antagonism of lovers of the original waltz 

 to those of the newer kind, and of these latter, one reads, towards those 

 of the newest, is as instructive as the pained aloofness and amused in- 

 difference in the mutual regard of the two schools of figure-skating. 



The Interference of Skill-Patterns. 



Clumsiness, arising in a formerly skilled action, is sometimes due to 

 the interference of a new recently learnt pattern with an older one, to 

 which it is partly similar but to which some of its constituents are 

 antagonistic. A superlatively skilled person may establish the inde- 

 pendent status of the two patterns. But usually, unless such a separation 

 be consciously effected, they will interfere. 



An example may be taken from ski-ing. In making a certain 

 ■ Christiania swing,' at one point the ski-er must lean away from the 



* A. V. Hill, oj). cit., pp. 203 jfif. 



