54 PSYCHOLOGY. 



"It is a mistake to suppose that sharp sight is accompanied by clear 

 visual memory. I have not a few instances in which the independence 

 of the two faculties is emphatically commented on ; and I have at least 

 one clear case where great interest in outlines and accurate appreciation 

 of straightness, squareness, and the like, is unaccompanied by the 

 power of visualizing. Neither does the faculty go with dreaming. I 

 have cases where it is powerful, and at the same time where dreams 

 are rare and faint or altogether absent. One friend tells me that his 

 dreams have not the hundredth part of the vigor of his waking fancies. 



" The visualizing and the identifying powers are by no means nec- 

 essarily combined. A distinguished writer on metaphysical topics as- 

 sures me that he is exceptionally quick at recognizing a face that he 

 has seen before, but that he cannot call up a mental image of any face 

 with clearness. 



" Some persons have the power of combining in a single perception 

 more than can be seen at any one moment by the two eyes. . . , 



" I find that a few persons can, by what they often describe as a 

 kind of touch-sight, visualize at the same moment all round the image 

 of a solid body. Many can do so nearly, but not altogether round that 

 of a terrestrial globe. An eminent mineralogist assures me that he is 

 able to imagine simultaneously all the sides of a crystal with which he 

 is familiar. I may be allowed to quote a curious faculty of my own in 

 respect to this. It is exercised only occasionally and in dreams, or 

 rather in nightmares, but under those circumstances I am perfectly 

 conscious of embracing an entire sphere in a single perception. It ap- 

 pears to lie within my mental eyeball, and to be viewed centripetally. 



' ' This power of comprehension is practically attained in many cases 

 by indirect methods. It is a common feat to take in the whole sur- 

 roundings of an imagined room with such a rapid mental sweep as to 

 leave some doubt whether it has not been viewed simultaneously. Some 

 persons have the habit of viewing objects as though they were partly 

 transparent ; thus, if they so dispose a globe in their imagination as to 

 see both its north and south poles at the same time, they will not be 

 able to see its equatorial parts. They can also perceive all the rooms of 

 an imaginary house by a single mental glance, the walls and floors being 

 as if made of glass. A fourth class of persons have the habit of recall- 

 ing scenes, not from the point of view whence they were observed, but 

 from a distance, and they visualize their own selves as actors on the 

 mental stage. By one or other of these ways, the power of seeing the 

 whole of an object, and not merely one aspect of it, is possessed by 

 many persons. 



"The place where the image appears to lie differs much. Most per- 

 sons see it in an indefinable sort of way, others see it in front of the eye, 

 others at a distance corresponding to reality. There exists a power 

 which is rare naturally, but can, I believe, be acquired without much 

 difficulty, of projecting a mental picture upon a piece of paper, and of 



