320 COLOURED THINKING 



of heredity also from father to son. But these related 

 coloured hearers did not see the same colours for the same 

 sound, nor did the two coloured thinkers think in the same 

 colours. From the writer's inquiries, coloured thinking is 

 certainly congenital even when it cannot be proved to be 

 hereditarj'. This point will come up again in connexion 

 with the origin of the condition, but we may at present note 

 that those who have studied the subject are unanimous in 

 denying that at any rate coloured thinking is due to environ- 

 mental influences. 



It may be now asked what manner of people are they 

 who are coloured hearers or coloured thinkers or both. The 

 late Mr. Galton told us that they are rather above than 

 below the average intelligence. The writer's observation 

 would, in the main, confirm this; they are at least invariably 

 well educated persons who confess to being coloured thinkers. 

 In his book, Mr. Galton gave a few names of distinguished 

 persons of his acquaintance, and his list might be brought 

 up to date by the addition of some names quite as distinguished. 

 But all persons who have coloured hearing or coloured think- 

 ing are not necessarily distinguished — ^a large number, as 

 we have seen, are yet children — but they are all probably 

 more or less sensitive. Possibly they are more given to 

 introspection than is the ordinary person. At any rate, 

 what is quite certain is that both synsesthetes and psj'cho- 

 chromsesthetes belong to the group of strong visuals or 

 "seers"' as Galton called them. Seers are persons who visual- 

 ize or exteriorize their concepts either as uncoloured forms 

 or as coloured in some way or other. The uncoloured thought- 

 forms are A*ery curious, some of which Galton gave as examples 

 in the appendix to his work. One distinguished neurologist 

 always sees the numerals 1 to 100 in the form of a ladder 

 sloping upwards from left to right into the sky. As this 

 concept is not coloured, it cannot be called a psychochrome, 

 but it might be called a psychogram. A psychogram is, 



