 I propose in this chapter to discuss a curious and apparently anomalous group of base-moral instincts and intellectual deficiencies that are innate rather than acquired by tracing their analogies in the world of Brutes and examining the conditions to which they have been evolved. They are the slavish aptitudes from which the leaders of men are exempt, but which are characteristic elements in the disposition of ordinary persons. The vast majority of persons of our race have a natural tendency to shirk from the responsibility of standing and acting alone. They exalt the vox popularly, even when they know it to be the utterance of a mob of nobodies into the vox day, and they are willing slaves to tradition, authority and custom. The intellectual deficiencies corresponding to these moral flaws are shown by the rareness of free and original thought as compared with the frequency and readiness with which men accept the opinions of those in authority as binding on their judgment. I shall endeavour to prove that the slavish aptitudes in man are a direct consequence of his gregarious nature, which itself is a result of the conditions both in his primeval barbarism and of the forms of his subsequent civilisation. My argument will be that gregarious brute-animals possess a want of self-reliance and a mock degree that the conditions or lives of these animals have made a want of self-reliance a necessity to them, and that by the law of natural selection the gregarious instincts and their accompanying slavish aptitudes have gradually become evolved. Then I shall argue that our remote ancestors have lived under parallel conditions, and that other causes peculiar to human society have acted up to the present day in the same direction, and that we have inherited the gregarious instincts and slavish aptitudes which have been needed under past circumstances, although in our advancing civilisation they are becoming of more harm than good to our race. It was my fortune and earlier life to gain the intimate knowledge of certain classes of gregarious animals. The urgent need of the camel for the close companionship of his fellows was a never-exhausted topic of curious admiration to me during tedious days of travel across many North African deserts. I also happen to hear and read a great deal about the still-mourn Mark Gregarious instincts of the Elama, but the social animal into whose psychology I am conscious of having penetrated most thoroughly is the ox of the wild parts of western South Africa. It is necessary to insist upon the epithet wild, because an ox of tame bearantage has different natural instincts, for instance, an English ox is far less gregarious than those I am about to describe, and affords a proportionally less valuable illustration to my argument. The oxen of which I speak belong to the Damaras, and none of the ancestry of these cattle had ever been broken to harness. They were watched from a distance during the day, as they roamed about the open country, and at night they were driven with cries to enclosures, into which they rushed, much like a body of terrified wild animals driven by husband into a trap. Their scarletample was such as to make it impossible to lay hold of them by other means than by driving the whole herd into a clump, and thus sowing the leg of the animal it was desired to seize, and throwing him to the ground with dexterous force. With the oxen cows of this description, whose nature is no doubt shared by the bulls, I spend more than a year in the closest companionship. I had nearly a hundred of the beasts broken in for the wagon, for pecs and for the saddle. I travelled an entire journey of exploration on the back of one of them, with others by my side either labouring at their tasks or walking in leisure, and while others, again, who were wholly unbroken, and who served the purpose of an itinerant lardo. At night, when there had been no time to erect an enclosure to hold them, I lay down in their midst, and it was interesting to observe how readily they then availed themselves of the neighborhood of the campfire, and of men, conscious of the protection they afforded from prowling carnivora, whose cries and roars, now distant, now near, continually broke upon the stillness. These opportunities of studying the disposition of such peculiar cattle were not wasted upon me. I had only too much leisure to think about them, and the habits of the animal strongly attracted my curiosity. The better I understood them, the more complex and worthy of study did their minds appear to be. But I am now concerned, only with their blind gregarious instincts, which are conspicuously distant from the ordinary social desires. In the latter they are deficient, thus they are not amiable to one another, but show on the whole more expressions of spite and disgust than of forbearance or fondness. They do not suffer from an ennui which society can remove, because their course-feeding and their ruminant habits make them somewhat stolid. Neither can they love society as monkeys do, for the opportunities it affords of a fuller and more varied life, because they remain self-absorbed in the middle of their herd, while the monkeys revel together in frolics, scrambles, fights, loves and chattering. Yet although the ox has so little affection for or individual interest in his fellows, he cannot endure even a momentary serence from his herd. If he is separated from it by a stratagem or force, he exhibits every sign of mental agony. He strives for all his might to get back again, and when he succeeds, he plunges into the middle to bathe his whole body with the comfort of close companionship. This passionate terror at segregation is a convenience to the herdsmen, whom he rest assured in the darkness or in the mist at the whole herd's shape whenever he can get a glimpse of a single ox. It is also a cause of great inconvenience to the traveller in ox wagons, who constantly feels himself in a position towards his oxen, like that of a host to a company of bashful gentlemen at the time when he's trying to get them to move from the drawing room to the dinner table. And no one will go first, but everyone backs and gives plays to his neighbour. The traveller finds great difficulty in procuring animals capable of acting the part of four oxen to his team, the ordinary members of the wild herd being wholly unfitted by nature to move so in prominent and isolated position, even though, as is the custom, a boy is always in front to persuade or pour them onwards. Therefore, a good four ox is an animal of an exceptionally independent disposition. Men who break in wild cattle for harness watch assiduously for those who show a self-reliant nature, by grazing apart or ahead of the rest, and these they break in for four oxen. The other cattle may be indefinitely devoted to ordinary harness purposes or to slaughter, but the born leaders are far too rare to be used for any less distinguished service than that which they learn are capable of fulfilling, but are still more acceptable degree of merit may sometimes be met with among the many thousands of Tamara cattle. It is possible to find an ox who may be ridden, but indeed it's freely as a horse, for I've never heard of a feat like that, but all other events wholly apart from the companionship of others, and an accomplished rider will even succeed in urging him out at a trot from the very middle of his fellows. With respect to the negative side of the scale, I do not recollect definite instances. I can recall general impressions of oxen showing a deficiency from their average ox standard of self-reliance, about equal to the excess of that quality found in ordinary four oxen. Thus I recollect there was some cattle of a peculiarly centripetal instinct who ran more madly than the rest into the middle of the herd when they were frightened, and I have no reason to doubt from general recollections that the law of deviation from an average would be explicable to independence of character among cattle, as one might expect it theoretically to be. The conclusion to which we are driven is that few of the Damaro cattle have enough odd originality and independence of disposition to pass on aid through their daily risks in a totally comfortable manner. They are essentially slavish, and seek no better lot than to be led by any one of their number who has enough self-reliance to accept that position. No ox ever dares to out-contrary to the rest of the herd, but he accepts their common determination as an authority binding on his conscience. An incapacity of relying on one's self and a faith in others are precisely the conditions that compel brutes to congregate and live in herds, and again it is essential to their safety in a country infested by large carnivora that they should keep closely together in herds. No ox grazing alone could live for many days unless he was protected far more assiduously and closely than is possible to barbarians. The Damaro owners confide perhaps 200 cattle to a couple of half-starved youths who pass their time in dozing or in grubbing up roots to eat. The owners know that it is hopeless to protect the herd from lions, so they leave it to take its chance. And as regards human marauders, they equally know that the largest number of cattle watchers they could spare could make no adequate resistance to an attack. They therefore did not send more than two, who are enough to run home and give the alarm to the whole male population of the tribe to run in arms on the tracks of their plundered property. Consequently, as I began by saying that cattle have to take care of themselves against the wild beasts, and they would infallibly be destroyed by them if they had not safeguards of their own, which are not easily to be appreciated at first sight of their full value. We shall understand them better by considering the precise nature of the danger that an ox runs. When he is alone it is not simply that he is too defenseless, but that lies easily surprised. A crouching lion feels cattle who turn boldly upon him, and he does so with reason. The horns of an ox or antelope are able to make an ugly wound in the poor chest of a spring beast when he receives its thrust, in the same way that an overeager puggalist meets his adversary's counter-hit. Hence it is that a cow who has carved by the wayside and has been temporarily abandoned by the caravan is never seized by lions. The incident frequently occurs, and as frequently are the cow and calf eventually brought safe to the camp, and yet there is usually evidence in footprints that they are having sustained a regular siege from the wild beasts, but she is so restless and eager for the safety her young that no beast of prey can approach her unawares. This state of exaltation is of course exceptional. Cattle are obliged in the ordinary course of life to spend a considerable part of the day with their herds buried in the grass, where they can either seen or smell what is about them. A still larger part of their time must be spent in placid rumination, during which they cannot possibly be on the alert, but a herd of such animals, when considered as a whole, is always on the alert. At almost every moment some eyes, ears and noses will command all approaches. At the start or cry of alarm of a single beast is a signal to all these companions. To live gregariously become a fiber and a vast sentient web overspreading many acres. It is to become the possessor of faculties always awake, of eyes that see in all directions, of ears and nostrils that explore a broad belt of air. It is also to become the occupier of every bit of vantage ground once the approach of a wild beast might be overlooked. The protective sense of each individual who chooses to live in companionship are multiplied by a large factor and he thereby receives maximum of security and a minimal cost of restlessness. When we isolate an animal who has been accustomed to a gregarious life, we take away his sense of protection, for he feels himself exposed to danger from every part of the circle around him, except the one point at which his attention is momentarily fixed and he knows that disaster may easily creep up to him from behind. Consequently he is glanced his restless and anxious and has turned his succession to different quarters. His movements are hurried and agitated and he becomes a prey to the extremist terror. There can be no room for doubt that it is suitable to the well-being of cattle in a country infested with beasts of prey to live in close companionship and being suitable. It follows from the law of natural selection that the development of gregarious and therefore slavish instincts must be favoured in such cattle. It also follows from the same law that the degree in which those instincts are developed is on the whole the most conductive to their safety. If they were more gregarious, they would crowd so closely as to interfere with each other when grazing the scattered pasture of demoral land. In lispric areas they would be too widely scattered to keep his efficient watch against the wild beasts. I now proceed to consider more particularly why the range of deviation from the average is such that we find about one ox out of 50 to possess sufficient independence of character to serve as a pretty good four ox. Why is it not one in five or one in five hundred? The reason undoubtedly is that natural selection tends to give but one later to each suitably sized herd and to repress super abundant leaders. There is a certain size of herd most suitable to the geographical and other conditions of the country. It must not be too large or the scattered puddles which form their only watering places for a great part of the year will not suffice and there are similar drawbacks in respect to pasture. It must not be too small or it would be comparatively insecure. That's a trip of five animals is far more easily to be approached by a stalking husband than one of twenty and a latter than one of a hundred. We have seen that it is the oxen who graze apart as well as those who lead the herd who are recognized by the trainers of cattle as gifted with enough independence of character to become four oxen. They're even preferred to the actual leaders of the herd. They dare to move more alone and therefore their independence is undoubted. The leaders are safe enough from lions because their flanks and rear are guarded by their followers but each of those who graze apart and who represent the superbunny supply of self-reliant animals have one flank and the rear exposed and it is precisely these whom the lions take. Looking at the matter in a broad way we must justly assert that wild beasts trim and prune every herd into compactness and tend to reduce it into a closely united body with a single well protected leader. That the development of independence of character in cattle is thus suppressed below its otherwise natural standard by the influence of wild beasts is shown by the great display of self-reliance among cattle whose ancestry for some generations have not been exposed to such danger. What has been said about cattle in relation to wild beasts applies with more or less obvious modifications to barbarians in relation to their neighbors. But I insist on a close resemblance in the particular circumstance that many savages are so unambuable and morose as to have hardly any object in associating together besides that of mutual support. If we look at the inhabitants of the very same country as the oxen I've described we shall find them congregate into multitudes of tribes all more or less a war with one another. We shall find that few of these tribes are very small and few very large and that it is precisely those that are exceptionally large or small whose condition is the least stable. A very small tribe is sure to be overthrown, slaughtered, or driven into slavery by its more powerful neighbour. A very large tribe falls to pieces through its own unwieldiness because by the nature of things it must be either deficient in centralization or straightened in food or both. A barbarian population is obliged to live dispensably since a square mile of land will support only a few hunters or shepherds. On the other hand a barbarian government cannot be long maintained unless its chief is brought into frequent contact with his dependents. And this is geographically impossible when his tribe is so scattered as to cover a great extent of territory. The law of selection must discourage every razor barbarians which supplies self-reliant individuals in such large numbers as to cause tribes of moderate size to lose their blind desire of aggregation. It must equally discourage a breed that is incompetent to supply such men in sufficient abundant radio that the rest of the population to ensure the existence of tribes of not too large a size. It must not be supposed that Gregaio's instincts are equally important for all forms of savage life. But a hold from what we know of the clannish fighting habits of our forefathers that they were every witch as applicable to the earlier ancestors of our european stock as they are still to a large part of the black population of Africa. There is more over an extraordinary power of tyranny invested in the chiefs of tribes and nations of men that so vastly outweighs the inactrallous power possessed by the leaders of animal herds as to rank as a special attribute of human society eminently conductive to slavishness. If any brutano herd makes a self obnoxious to the leader, the leader attacks him and there is a free fight between the two. The other animal is looking on the wild but if a man makes himself obnoxious to his chief is attacked not by the chief single head but by the overpowering force of his executive. The rebellious individual has to brave a disciplined host. There are spies who will report his doings, a local authority who will send detachment of soldiers to drag him to trial, there are prisons ready built to hold him, civil authorities wielding legal powers of stripping him of all his possessions and official executioners prepared to torture or kill him. The tyrannies under which men have lived, whether under rude barbarian chiefs, under the great despotism of half civilized oriental cultures or under some of the more polished but little less severe governments of modern days, must have had a fateful influence in eliminating a defensive character from the human race. Think of Austria, of Naples and even of France under the polling of the Third. It was stated in 1870 that according to papers found at the tyrannies 26,642 persons had been arrested in France for political offenses since the 2nd of December 1851 and that 14,110 have been transported, exiled or detained in prison. I have already spoken in her hereditary genius of the large effects of religious persecution in comparatively recent years on the natural character of races. I shall not say more about it here, but it must not be omitted from the list of steady influences continuing through ancient historical times down in some degree to the present day in destroying the self-reliant and therefore the noble races of men. I hold that the blind instincts evolved under these long continued conditions have been ingrained into our breed and that they are a bar to our enjoying the freedom which the forms of modern civilization are otherwise capable of giving us. A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than a derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves clinging to one another through fear and for the most part incapable of self-government and begging to be led but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men knitted to one another by innumerable ties in a strong, tense and elastic organization. The character of the corporate action of a nation in which each man judges for himself might be expressed to possess statistical constancy. It would be the expression of the dormant character of a large number of separate members of the same race and ought therefore to be remarkably uniform. Vocalness and national character is principally due to the several members of the nation exercising no independent judgment but allowing themselves to be led hither and thither by the successive journalists, orators and sentimentalists who happen for the time to have the chance of directing them. Our present national dispositions make it possible for us to attain the ideal standard of a nation of men or judging so belief for themselves and therefore the slavishness of the mass of our countrymen in morals and intellect must be admitted fact in all schemes of regenerative policy. The hereditary tank due to the primeval barbarism of our race and maintained by latter influences will have to be bred out of it before our descendants can rise to the position of free members of an intelligent society. And I may add that the most likely nest at the present time for self- reliant natures is to be found in states founded and maintained by immigrants. Servility has its romantic side. In the utter devotion of a slave to the lightest wishes and the smallest comforts of his master, and in that of a loyal subject to those of his sovereign, but such devotion cannot be called a reasonable self-sacrifice, is rather abnegation of the trust imposed on man to use his best judgment and to act in the way he thinks the wisest. Trust and authority is a trait of the character of children of weekly women and of the sick and infirm, but it is out of place among members of a thriving resolute community during the 50 more years of their middle life. Those who have been born in a free country feel the atmosphere of paternal government very oppressive. The hearty and earnest political and individual life which is found when every man has a continued sense of public responsibility and knows that success depends on his own right judgment and exertion is replaced under despotism by an indolent reliance upon what its master may direct, and by demoralizing conviction that personal advancement is best secured by solicitations and favour. Intellectual Differences It is needless for me to speak here about the differences in intellectual power between the different men and different races or about the convertibility of genius as shown by different members of the same gifted family achieving eminence in varied ways, as I've already written at length on these subjects in hereditary genius and in intestines of Englishmen of science. It is, however, well to remark that during the 14 years that have elapsed since the former book was published, numerous fresh instances have risen of distinction been attained by members of the gifted families whom I quote as instances of hereditary, thus strengthening my arguments. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Mental Imagery Anecdotes find their way into print from time to time of persons whose visual memory is so clear and sharp as to present mental pictures that may be scrutinized with nearly as much ease as prolonged attention as if they were real objects. I became interested in the subject and made a rather extensive inquiry into the mode of visual presentation in different persons so far as could be gathered from their respective statements. It seemed to me that the results might illustrate the essential differences between the mental operations of different men that they might give some clue to the origin of visions and that the course of the inquiry might reveal some previously unnoticed facts. It has done all this more or less and I will explain the results in the present and in the three following chapters. It is not necessary to trouble the reader with my early alternative steps to find out what I desire to learn. After inquiry had been fairly stated it took the form of submitting a certain number of printed questions to a large number of persons, see appendix E. There is hardly any more difficult tasks than that of framing questions which are not likely to be misunderstood, which admit of easy reply and which cover the ground of inquiry. I did my best in these respects without forgetting the most important part of all, namely to tend to my correspondence to write freely in fuller explanation of their replies and on cognate topics as well. These separate letters have proved more instructive and interesting by far than their replies to the set questions. The first group of a rather long series of queries related to the illumination, definition and colouring of the mental image and were framed thus. Before addressing a self to any of the questions on the opposite page, think of some definite object, suppose it is your breakfast table as you sat down to it this morning and consider carefully the picture that rises before your mind's eye. 1. Illumination Is the image dim or fairly clear? Is its brightness comparable to that of the actual scene? 2. Definition Are all the objects pretty well defined at the same time? Or is the place of sharpest definition at any one moment more contracted than it is in a real scene? 3. Colouring Are the colours of the china, the toast, bread crust, mustard, peat, marsley, or whatever may have been on the table quite distinct and natural? The earliest results of my inquiry amazed me. I had begun by questioning friends in the scientific world as they were the most likely class of men to give accurate answers concerning this faculty or visualising to which novelists imposed continually allude, which has left an abiding mark on the vocabulary's very language and which supplies the material out of which dreams and the well-known hallucinations of sick people are built. To my astonishment, I found that the great majority of the men of science to whom I first applied protested that mental imagery was unknown to them, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words mental imagery really expressed what I believed everybody supposed them to mean. They had no more notion of its true nature than a colourblind man who is not disowned his defect as the nature of colour. They had a mental deficiency of which they were unaware and naturally, enough supposed that those who affirmed they possessed it were romancing. To illustrate their mental attitude, it would be sufficient to quote a few lines from the letter of one of my correspondence who writes, These questions presuppose a scent to some sort of proposition regarding the mind's eye and the images of which it sees. This points to some initial fallacy. It is only by a figure of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene as a mental image which I can see with my mind's eye. I do not see it any more than a man sees the thousand lines of sulphurlies which under due pressure he is ready to repeat the memory possesses it, etc. Much of the same result followed enquiries made for me by a friend among members of the French Institute. On the other hand, when I spoke to persons whom I met in general society, I found an entirely different disposition to prevail. Many men and a yet larger number of women and many boys and girls declared that they habitually saw mental imagery and that was perfectly distinct to them and full of colour. The more I pressed and cross-questioned them, prefacing myself to be incredulous, the more obvious was the truth of their first assertions. They described their imagery in minute detail and they spoke in a tone of surprise in my apparent hesitation in accepting what they said. I felt that I myself should have spoken exactly as they did. If I had been describing a scene that lay before my eyes in broad daylight to a blind man who persisted in doubting the reality of vision. Reassured by this happier experience, I recommended to inquire among scientific men and soon found scattered instances of what I sought, though in by no means the same abundance as elsewhere. I then circulated my questions more generally among my friends and through their hands and obtained the replies that are the main subject of this and of the three next chapters. They were from persons of both sexes and of various ages and the end from occasional correspondence in nearly every civilised country. I have also received batches of answers from various educational establishments both in England and America which were made after the masters had fully explained the meaning of the questions and interested the boys in them. These have the merit of returns derived from a general census which my other data lack because I cannot for a moment suppose that the writers of the letter are a haphazard proportion of those to whom they were sent. Indeed I know some who disavowing all possession of the power and of many others who possessing it in too faint a degree to enable them to express what their experiences really were in a manner satisfactory to themselves sent no returns at all. Consequently statistical similarity was however observed between the sets of returns furnished by the school boys and those sent by my separate correspondence. And I may add that they accord in this respect with the oral information I have elsewhere obtained. The conformity of replies from so many different sources which was cleared from the first the fact of their apparent trustworthiness being on the whole much interested by cross-examination though I could give one or two amusing instances of breakdown. And the evident effort made to give accurate answers have convinced me that it is a much easier matter than I had anticipated to obtain trustworthier replies to psychological questions. Many persons, especially women and intelligent children take pleasure in introspection and strive their very best to explain their mental processes. I think that a delight in self-dissection must be a strong ingredient and the pleasure that many are set to take in confessing themselves to priests. Here then are two rather notable results. The one is the proved facility of obtaining statistical insight into the processes of other persons' minds. Whatever a priority objection may have been made as to its possibility and the other is our scientific men as a class have feeble powers of visual representation. There is no doubt whatever on the latter point however it may be accounted for. My own conclusion is that an over-ready perception of sharp mental pictures is antagonistic to the acquirement of habits of highly generalized and abstract thought especially when the steps of reasoning are carried on by words as symbols. And I did the faculty of saying the pictures was ever possessed by men who think hard it is very apt to be lost by disuse. The highest minds are probably those in which it is not lost but subordinated and it's ready for use on suitable occasions. I am however bound to say that the missing faculty seems to be replaced so serviceably by other modes of conception. Chiefly I believe connected with the incipient motor sense not of the eyeballs only but of the muscles generally that men who declare themselves entirely deficient in the power of seeing mental pictures can nevertheless give lifelike descriptions of what they have seen and can otherwise express themselves as if they were gifted with a vivid visual imagination. They can also become painters of the rank of royal academicians. The facts I am now about to relate are obtained from the returns of 100 adult men of whom 19 are fellows of the royal society mostly of very high repute and at least twice. And I think I may say three times as many more persons of distinction in various kinds of intellectual work. As already remarked these returns taken by themselves do not profess to be of service in a general statistical sense but they are of much importance in showing how men of exceptional accuracy express themselves when they are speaking of mental imagery. They also testify to the variety of experiences to be met with in a moderately light circle. I will begin by giving a few cases the highest of the medium and of the lowest order of the faculty of visualizing. The 100 returns were first classified according to the order of the faculty as judged by the best of my ability from the whole of what was said in them and of what I know from other sources of the writers and the number of prefix to which quotation shows its place in the class list. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Vividness of Mental Imagery From returns finished by 100 men at least half of whom are distinguished in science or in other fields of intellectual work. Cases where the faculty is high 1. Brilliant, distinct, never blotchy 2. Quite comparable to the real object I feel as though I was dazzled e.g. when recalling the sun to my mental vision 3. In some instances quite as bright as an actual scene 4. Brightness as in the actual scene 5. Thinking of the breakfast table this morning or the objects in my mental picture are as bright as the actual scene 6. The image once seen is perfectly clear and bright 7. Brightness at first quite comparable to actual scene 8. The mental image appears to correspond in all respects with reality I think it is as clear as the actual scene 9. The brightness is perfectly comparable to that of the real scene 10. I think the illumination of the imaginary image is nearly equal to that of the real one 11. All clear and bright all the objects seem to me well defined at the same time 12. I can see my breakfast table or any equally familiar thing with my mind's high quite as well in all particulars as I can do if the reality is before me 13. Cases where the faculty's mediocre 46. Fairly clear and not incomparable in illumination with that of the real scene especially when I first catch it apt to come fainter when more particular attention to 47. Fairly clear not quite comparable to that of the actual scene some objects are more sharply defined than others the more familiar objects coming more distinctly in my mind 8. Fairly clear is a general image details rather misty 49. Fairly clear but not equal to the scene defined but not sharply not all seen with equal clearness 50. Fairly clear brightness probably at least one half to two-thirds of original the writers are physiologists definition varies very much one or two objects being much more distinct than the others but later comes out clearly of attention be paid to them 51. Image of my breakfast table fairly clear but not quite as bright as the reality all together it is pretty well defined the part where I sit and it's surrounding so pretty well so 52. Fairly clear but brightness not comparable to that of the actual scene the objects are sharply defined some of them are salient and others insignificant a dim but by separate efforts I can take a visualized inventory of the whole table 53. Details of breakfast table when the scene is reflected on are fairly defined and complete but I have had a familiarity of many years with my own breakfast table and the above would not be the case with the table scene casually unless there was some striking peculiarity in it 54. I can recall any single object or group of objects but not the whole table at once the things recorded generally clearly defined our table is a long one I can my mind pass my eyes all down the table and see the different things distinctly but not the whole table at once cases where the faculty is at the lowest 89. Dim and indistinct yet I can give an account of this morning's breakfast table split herrings, broiled chickens, bacon, rolls rather light colored to marmalade faint green plates with stiff pink flowers the girls dresses etc etc I can also tell where all the dishes were and where the people sat I was on a visit but my imagination is sealed and pectoral except when sleeping and waking when I sometimes see rather visit forms 90. Dim and not comparable in brightness to the real scene badly defined with blockers of light very incomplete 91. Dim poor definition could not sketch from it I have a difficulty in seeing two images together 92. Usually very dim I cannot speak of its brightness but only of its faintness not well defined or very incomplete 93. Dim imperfect 94. I'm very rarely able to record any object whatever with any sort of distinctness very occasionally an object or image will record itself but even then it is more like a generalized image than an individual image I'm certain to be almost tested to visualizing power as under control 95. No power of visualizing between sleeping, waking, illness and in health with eyes closed some remarkable scenes have occasionally presented themselves but cannot recall them when awake with eyes open and my daylight or under any circumstances whatever when a copy could be made of them on paper I've drawn both men and places many days or weeks after seeing them but it was by an effort of memory acting on study at the time and assisted by trial and error on the paper or canvas whether in black yellow or color afterwards 96. There's only a vigorous speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene as a mental image which I can see my mind's eye the memory possesses it and the mind can it will roam over the hall or study minutely any part 97. No individual objects only a general idea of a very uncertain kind 98. No. My memory is not the nature of Spottani's vision though I remember well where a word occurs in a page how furniture looks in a room etc the idea is not felt to be mental pictures but rather the symbols of facts 99. Extremely dim the impressions are in all respects so dim, vague and transient and I doubt whether they can reasonably be called images they're incomparably less than those of dreams 100. My powers are zero to my consciousness there is almost no association in memory with objective visual impressions I re-click the breakfast table but do not see it these quotations clearly show the great variety of natural powers of visual representation know the returns from which they are taken have and as I said no claim to be those of 100 Englishmen taken at haphazard nevertheless to the best of my judgment they happen to differ among themselves in much the same way as such returns would have done I cannot procure a strictly haphazard series for comparison because in any group of persons whom I may question there are always many too indolent to reply or incapable of expressing themselves or whom from some fancy of their own are unwilling to reply still as already mentioned I have got together several groups that approximate to what is wanted usually from schools I've analyzed them as well as I could and the general result is that the above returns may be accepted as a fair representation of the visualizing powers of Englishmen treating these according to the method described in the chapter statistics we have the following results in which there's a matter of interest I have also recorded the highest and the lowest of the series highest brilliant distinct never blotchy first sub-octile the image once seen is perfectly clear and bright first octile I can see my breakfast table or any equally familiar thing with my mind's eye quite as well in all particulars as I can do if the reality is before me first quartile fairly clear the illumination of actual scene is fairly represented well-defined parts do not obtrude themselves but attention has to be directed to different points in succession to call up the whole middlemost fairly clear brightness probably at least from one half to two-thirds the original definition verised very much one or two objects being much more distinct than the others but the latter come out clearly of attention to be paid to them last quartile dim so they're not comparable to the actual scene I have to think separately of the several things on the table to bring them clearly before the mind's eye and when I think of some things the others fade away in confusion last octile dim and not comparable in brightness to the real scene barely defined with blotches of light very complete very little of one object is seen at one time last sub-octile I'm very rarely able to recall any object whatever with any sort of distinctness very occasionally an object or image will recall itself but even then it is more like a generalized image than an individual one I seem to be almost destitute of visualizing power that is under control lowest my powers are zero to my consciousness there is almost no association in memory with objective visual impressions I recollect the table but do not see it I now proceed to color as specified in the third of my questions and annex the selection from the returns classified on the same principle as in the preceding paragraph end of chapter 19 end of section three section four of an inquiries into human faculty in its development by Francis Calton this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Leon Harvey chapter 20 color representation highest perfectly distinct bright and natural first sub-octile white cloth blue china arrogant coffee pot buff stand with sienna drawing toast all clear first octile all details seem perfectly first quartile colors distinct and natural till I begin to puzzle over them middlemost fairly distinct they're not certain that they are accurately record last quartile natural but very indistinct last octile faint can only recall colors by specific effort for each last sub-octile power is nil lowest power is nil it may seem surprising that one out of every 16 persons who are accustomed to use accurate representations should speak of their mental imagery is perfectly clear and bright but it is so and many details are added in various returns emphasizing the assertion one of the commonest of these is to the effect if I could draw I'm sure I could draw perfectly from my mental image that some artists such as Blake have really done so at beyond dispute but I have little doubt that there is an unconscious exaggeration in these returns my reasons for saying so is that I have also returns from artists who say as follows my imagery is so clear that if I had been unable to draw I should have unhesitantly said that I could draw from it I'll form my sponsor of the present day as use that expression he finds deficiencies and gaps when he tries to draw from his mental vision there is perhaps some analogy between these images and those of faces in the fire one may often fancy an exceedingly well-marked face or other object in the burning coals but probably everybody will find as I have done that it is impossible to draw it for as soon as its outlines are seriously studied the fancy flies away mr. flinders bit tree a contributor of interesting experiments on kindred subjects to nature informs me that he habitually works out sums by aid of an imaginary sliding rule which he sets in the desired way and reads off mentally he does not usually visualize the whole rule but only that part of it which he is at the moment concerned c plate to figure 34 where however the artist has put in the divisions very correctly I think this is one of the most striking cases of accurate visualizing power it is possible to imagine I have a few returns from chess players who play games blindfolded but the powers of such men to visualize the separate boards with different sets of men on the different boards some ivory some wooden so forth are well known and I need not repeat them I will rather give the following extract from an article in the poor more gazette 27th june 1882 on the recent chess tournament at Vienna the modern feats of blindfolded play without sight of board really surpassed those of 20 years ago poor morphe the american was the first to made an essential study this kind of display playing some seven or eight games blindfolded and simultaneously against various inferior opponents and making lucrative exhibitions in this way his abilities in this line created a scare among other rivals who had not practiced this test of memory since this day many chess players who are gifted with strong and clear memory and power of picturing to the mind the ideal board and men have carried this branch of exhibition play far beyond morty's pitch and contemporaneously with its development has become acknowledged that skill in blindfolded play is not an absolute test of similarly relative powers over the board edgy blackburn and zucca tort can play as many as 16 or even 20 blindfold games at a time and went about 80% of them at least steinitz who beats them both in match play does not say more than six blindfold at a time mason does not to our knowledge make any special art at all of this sport I have many cases of persons mentally reading off scores when playing the piano fort or manuscript when they are making speeches one statement has assured me that a certain hesitation utterance which he has at times is due to his being played by the image of his manuscript speech with its original erasures and corrections it cannot lay the ghost and he puzzles and trying to decipher it some few persons see mentally in print every word is uttered they attend to the visual equivalent and not to the sound of the words and they read them off usually as from a long imaginary strip of paper such as this unwound from telegraphic instruments the experience is different detail as to size and kind of type color of paper and so forth but are always the same in the same person a well-known frequenter of the royal institution tells me that he often craves for an absence of visual perceptions they're so brilliant and persistent the reverend george hensler speaks of their extremelessness they oscillate rotate and change it's a mistake to suppose that sharp sight is accompanied by a clear visual memory i've not a few instances which the independence of the two faculties is emphatically commented on and i've at least one clear case where great interest in outlines and accurate appreciation of straightness squareness and like is unaccompanied by the power of visualizing either does a faculty go without dreaming i have cases where it is powerful and the same time where dreams are rare and faint or altogether absent one friend tells me these dreams have not the hundredth part of the vigor of his waking fancies the visualizing and identifying powers are by no means necessarily combined a distinguished pleasure or metaphysical topics assures 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 it is needless to insist on the fact that all who have two eyes see stereoscopically and therefore somewhat round a corner children who can focus their eyes on very near objects must be able to compromise in a single mental image much more than a half of any small object they're examining animals such as hairs whose eyes are set more on the side of the head than ours must be able to perceive at one and the same instant more of a panorama than we can i find that a few persons can by what they often describe as a kind of touch site visualized at the same moment or around 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 is exercise only occasionally and in dreams or rather nightmares but under those circumstances i am perfectly conscious of embracing an entire sphere in a single perception it appears 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 fit to take in the whole surroundings of an imagine room with such a rapid mental sweep has to leave some doubt whether it has not been viewed simultaneously some people have the habit of viewing objects as though they were partially 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 recalling scenes not from the point of view whence they were observed but from a distance and they visualize their own cells as actors on the mental stage by one or other of these ways the power of seeing the whole of an object to not merely one aspect of it is possessed by many persons the place where the image appears to lie differs much most persons see it in 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 with much difficulty of projecting a mental picture upon a piece of paper and of holding it fast there so that it can be outlined with the pencil to this I shall recur images usually do not become stronger by dwelling on them the first idea is commonly the most vigorous but this is not always the case sometimes the mental view of a locality isn't separately connected with the sense of opposition as regards the points of the compass real or imaginary I have received following curious descriptions from very different sources of this strong geographical tendency and in one or two cases I reason to think it aligned to a considerable faculty of geographical comprehension the power of visualizing is higher in the female sex than in the male and is somewhat but not much higher in public schoolboys than in men after maturity is reached and further advance of age does not seem to dim the faculty or rather reverse judging from numerous statements to that effect but advancing use as somewhat accompanied by growing habit of hard abstract thinking and in these cases not uncommon among those whom I have questioned the faculty undoubtedly becomes impaired there is reason to believe that it is very high in some young children who seem to spend years of difficulty in distinguishing between the subjective and objective world language and book learning certainly tend to dull it the visualizing faculties in actual gift and like all natural gifts has a tendency to be inherited in this faculty the tendency to inheritance is exceptionally strong as I have abundant evidence to prove especially in respect to certain rather rare peculiarities which I shall speak in the next chapter and which when they exist at all I usually found among two three or more brothers sisters parents children uncles and aunts and cousins since families differ so much in respect to this gift we may suppose that races would also differ and they can be no doubt that such is the case I hardly like to refer to civilized nations because their natural faculties are too much modified by education to allow of their being appraised in an offhand fashion I may however speak of the French who appear to possess the visualizing faculty in a high degree the peculiar ability to show in pre-arranging ceremonials and feats of all kinds and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy showed that they are able to foresee events with unusual clearness their ingenuity in all tentacle contravinces is an additional testimony in the same direction and so as a singular clearness of expression their phrase figure as those or picture to yourself seems to express their dominant mode of perception are equivalent of imagine is ambiguous it is among uncivilized races their natural differences in the visualizing faculty are most conspicuous many of the main carvings and rude illustrations but only a few have the gift of carrying a picture in their mind's eye judging by the completeness and firmness of their designs which show no trace of having been elaborated in that step-by-step manner which is characteristic of drutsmen who are not natural artists among the races who are thus gifted are the commonly despised but as I confidently maintain from personal knowledge of them the much underrated bushmen of South Africa they are no doubt deficient in the natural instincts necessary to civilization for they detest a regular life they are inveterate thieves and are incapable ofwithstanding the temptation of strong drink on the other hand they have few superiors among barbarians in the ingenious methods by which they supply the wants of a difficult existence and the effectiveness and nettingness of their accoutrements one of their habits is to draw pictures on the walls of caves and men and animals and to color them with ochre these drawings were once numerous but they have been sadly destroyed by advancing colonization and few of them and indeed few wild bushmen now exist fortunately a large and valuable collection of facemiles of bushmen what was made before it became too late by mr stale of the cape colony who has very late and sent some specimens of them to this country in the hope that means might be found with the publication of the entire series among the many pictures of animals and each of the large sheets full of them I was particularly struck with one of an eland as giving a just idea of the precision and purity of their best work others again were exhibited last summer at the anthropological institute by mr hutchinson the method by which the bushmen draw is described in the following extract from a letter written to me by dr man the well known authority on south african matters of science the boy to whom he refers belong to a wild tribe living in caves in the drachenberg who plundered outlying farms and were pursued by their neighbouring colonists he was wounded and captured then sent to hospital and subsequently taken into service he was under dr man's observation in the year 1860 and has recently died to the great regret of his employer mr proudfoot to whom he became a valuable servant dr man writes as follows this led with very skillful in the proverbial bushmen art of drawing animal figures and upon several occasions i introduced him to show me how this was managed among his people he invariably began by jotting down upon paper or on a slate a number of isolated dots which presented no connection or trace of outline of any kind to the uninitiated eye but looked like the stars scattered promiscuously in the sky having with much deliberation satisfied himself of the sufficiency of these dots he forthwith began to run a free bold line from one to the other and as he did so the form of an animal horse buffalo elephant or some kind of antelope gradually developed itself this was invariably done with a free hand there was such a nearing accuracy of touch that no correction of a line was at any time attempted i understood from the lad that this was the plan which was invariably pursued by his kindred in making their clever pictures it is impossible i think for a drawing to be made on this method unless the artist had a clear image in his mind's eye of what he was about to draw and was able in some degree to reject it upon the paper or slate other living racers have the gift of drawing but none more so than the eskimo i will therefore speak of these in not of the australian and Tasmanian pictures nor of the still rooted performances of the old inhabitants of Guyana nor of those of some north american tribes as it requires the eskimos are geographers by instinct and appear to see vast tracts of country mapped out in their heads from the multitude of illustrations of their map drawing powers i may mention one of those included in the journals of captain hall at page 224 which were published in 1879 by the united states government under the editorial ship of professor j e noce it is a first mile of a chart drawn by an eskimo who was a thorough barbarian in the accepted sense of the world there's to say he spoke no language besides his own uncouth tongue he was wholly uneducated according to our modern ideas and lived in what we should call a savage fashion the man drew from memory a chart of the region over which he had at one time or another gone in his canoe extended from ponds bay at latitude 73 degrees to fort church or latitude 5844 over distance of a straight line of more than 960 nautical or 1100 english miles the coast being so indented by arms of the sea that its length is six times great on comparing this rough eskimo outline with the admiralty chart of 1870 their accordance is remarkable i've seen many ms routes maps made by travelers a few years since when the scientific exploration of the world was much less advanced than it is now and i got to commonly say that i have never known of any traveler white or brown civilized ones civilized in africa asia or australia who being unprovided with surveying instruments and trusted to his memory alone has produced a chart comparable in extent in accuracy to that of this barbarous eskimo the aptitude of the eskimos to draw is abundantly shown by the numerous illustration in rink's work all the which were made by self-taught men and are thoroughly realistic so much for the wild races of the present day but even the eskimo are equaled in their power drawing by the men of old times in ages so far gone by that the interval that separates them from our own maybe measured in perhaps hundreds of thousands of years when europe was mostly ice bound a race who in the opinion of all anthropologists was closely allied to the modern eskimo lived in caves in the more habitable places many broken relics of that race have been found some few of these are of bone and grade with flints or carved into figures and among these are representations of the mammoth elk and reindeer which if made by an english laborer with the much better implements that his command would certainly attract local attention and lead to his being properly educated and in much likelihood to his becoming a considerable artist if he had intellectual powers to match it is not at all improbable that these prehistoric men had the same geographical instincts as the modern eskimo whom they closely resemble in every known respect if so it is perfectly possible that scraps of charts scratched on bone or stone of prehistoric europe when the distribution plan to see an ice was very different to what it is now may still exist buried in the ground and may reward the zeal as some future cave explorer there is abundant evidence that the visualizing faculty admits have been developed by education the testimony on which i would lay a special stress derived from the published experiences of m le cock the voice border in late director of the accolade national didis in paris which are related to his education these are memoir pittores he trained his pupils of extraordinary success beginning with the simplest figures they were made to study the models thoroughly before they tried to draw them from memory one favorite expedient was to associate the site memory with the muscular memory by making his pupils follow the distance the outlines of the figures with a pencil held in their hands after three or four months practice their visual memory became greatly strengthened they had no difficulty in summoning images at will and holding them steady and enjoying them their copies were executed with marbus fidelity as attested by a commission of the institute appointed in 1852 to inquire to the matter which the eminent painter or ace fernett was a member the present slave professor of fine arts at the university college m le cross was a pupil of m the voice border and it expressed to me his indebtedness to the system and he has assured me of his own success in teaching others in a somewhat similar way colonel among grief informs me that when wintering in 1877 near fort gary in north america young indians occasionally came to his quarters and that he found them much interested in any pictures of prints that were put before them on one of these occasions he saw an indian tracing the outline of a print from the illustrated news very carefully with the point of his knife the reason he gave for this odd maneuver was that it would remember the better how to carve it when he returned home i could mention instances within my own experience in which the visualizing faculty has become strengthened by practice notably one of an eminent electrical engineer who had the power of recalling form with unusual precision but not color a few weeks after he had replied to my questions he told me that my inquiries had induced him to practice his color memory and that he had done so with such success that he was become quite an adept at it and that the newly acquired power was a source of much pleasure to him a useful faculty easily developed by practice is that of retaining a retinal picture a scene has flashed upon the eye the memory that persists and details which escaped observation during the brief time when it was actually seen maybe analyzed and studied leisure in the subsequent vision the memories we should aim at acquiring are however such as are based on a thorough understanding of the objects observed in no case is this more surely affected than in the process of mechanical drawing where the intended structure has to be portrayed so exactly in plan elevation side view and sections that the workman has simply to copy the drawing in metal woodlestone as the case may be is undoubtedly the fact that mechanics engineers and architects usually possess the faculty of seeing mental images with remarkable clearness and precision a few dots like those used by the bushmen give great assistance in creating an imaginary picture as proved by a general habit of working out ideas by the help of marks and rude lines the use of dolls by children also testifies to the value of an object support in the construction of mental images the doll serves as a kind of skeleton for the child to clothe when fantastic attributes analyst individuality the doll has the more it is appreciated by the child who can the better utilize it as a lay figure in many different characters the chief part of strengthening visual as well as every other form of memory lies in multiplying associations the healthiest memory being that in which all the associations are logical and toward which all the senses occur in their due proportions it is wonderful how much the bitterness of recollection is increased when two or more lines of association are simultaneously excited that's the inside of a known house is much better visualized when we are looking at its outside than when we are away from it and some chess players have told me that it is easier for them to play a game from memory when they have a blank board before them than when they have not there is an absence of flexibility in the mental imagery of most persons they find the first image they have acquired of any sense is apt to hold its place tenaciously in spite of subsequent need of correction they find a difficulty in shifting their mental view of an object and examining it without pleasure in different positions if they see an object equally often in many positions the memories combine and confuse one another forming a composite blur which they cannot dissect into its components they are less able to visualize the features of intimate friends than those of persons of whom they have caught only a single glance many such persons have expressed to me their grief at finding themselves powerless to recall the looks of their dear relations whom they had lost while they had no difficulty in recollecting faces they were uninteresting to them others have a complete mastery over their mental images they can call up the figure of a friend and make it sit on a chair or stand up at will they can make a turn around and how to denies in any way has by mounted on a bicycle compelling it to perform gymnastic feats on a trapeze they're able to build up elaborate geometric structures bit by bit in their minds eye and abstract or ultra at will and at leisure this free action of a vivid visualizing faculties of much importance and the connection with the higher processes of generalizing thought there is commonly put to no such purpose as may be easily explained by an example suppose a person suddenly to a coast and other with the following words I want to tell you about a boat what is the idea that the word boat would be like to call up I tried the experiment with this result one person a young lady said that she immediately saw the image of a rather large boat pushing off from the shore and then it was full of ladies and gentlemen the ladies being dressed in white and blue is obvious that a tendency to give so specific an interpretation to a general word is absolutely opposed to philosophic thought another person who was accustomed to philosophize said that the word boat had aroused no definite image because he had purposely held his mind in suspense he had exerted himself not to lapse into any one of the special ideas that he felt the word boat was ready to call up such as skiff weary barge launch punt or dingy much more did you refuse to think of any one of these with any particular freight or form any particular point of view a habit of suppressing mental imagery must therefore characterize men who deal much with abstract ideas and is the power of dealing easily and firmly with these ideas in the shows criterion of a higher sort of intellect should expect that their visualizing faculty would be start by disuse among philosophers and this is precisely what I found unacquired to be the case but there is no reason why it should be so if the faculty is free in its action and not tried to reproduce hired and persistent forms it may then produce generalized pictures out of its past experiences quite automatically it has no difficulty in reducing images to the same scale and to our constant practice and watching objects as they approach or recede and consequently grow diminished in apparent size it readily shifts images to any desired point of the field of view only to our habit of looking at bodies in motion to the right or left upward or downward it selects images that present the same aspect even by a simple act of memory or by a feat of imagination that forces them into the desired position and it has little or no difficulty in reversing them from right to left as is seen in a looking glass in illustration of these generalized mental images let us refer to the boat and suppose the speaker to continue as follows the boat was a forward or racing boat it was passing quickly to the left just in front of me and the men were bending forward to take a fresh stroke now at this point of the story though this now ought to have a picture well before his eye it ought to have the distinctness of a real four or going to the left at the moment when many of its details still remain unheeded such as the dresses of the men and their individual features it would be the generic image of a four or formed by the combination to a single picture of a great many sight memories of those boats in the highest minds a descriptive word is sufficient to evoke crowds of shadowy associations each striving to manifest itself when they differ so much from one another as to be unfitted for combination into a single idea there will be a conflict each being prevented by the rest from the obtaining sole possession on the field of consciousness they could therefore be no definite imagery so long as you agree of all the pictures that the words suggested of objects presenting similar aspects reduced to the same size and accurately superposed result in a blur but a picture would gradually evolve as qualifications were added to the word and it would attain to the distinctness and vividness of a generic image on before the word had been so restricted as to be individualized if the intellect be slow though correct in its operations the associations will be few and their generalized image based on insufficient data if the visualizing power be faint the generalized image will be indistinct I cannot discover any close relation between high visualizing power and the intellectual faculties they're between verbal memory and those same faculties that it must afford immense help in some professions stand to reason but in ordinary social life the position of a high visualizing power as of a high verbal memory may pass quite unobserved I have to the last failed in anticipating the character of the answers that my friends would give to my inquiries judging from my previous knowledge of them though I am bound to say that having received their answers I could usually persuade myself that they were justified by my recollections of their previous sayings and conduct generally the faculties undoubtedly useful in a high degree to inventive mechanicals and the great majority of those whom I have questioned have spoken of their powers as very considerable they invent the machines as they walk and see them in height, breadth and depth as real objects and they can also see them in action in fact a periodic action of any kind appears to be easily recalled but the powers of other men are considerably less that's an engineer officer who is himself great power of visual memory and who has super intended the mathematical education of cadets doubts he have one in ten can visualize an object in three dimensions I should have thought the faculty would be common among geometricians but many of the higher seem able somehow to get on without much of it there is a curious dictum of Napoleon the first quoted in Hume's precepts of modern tactics page 15 which I can either find the original authority or do I fully understand the meaning he's reported to have said that there are some who from some physical moral peculiarity of character form a picture to blue of everything no matter what knowledge intellect courage or good qualities they may have these men are unfit to command is possible that taboo should be construed rather in the sense of pictorial composition which like an epic dramatic sentence may be very complete and effective but not altogether true they can however be no doubt as to the utility of the visualizing faculty what is duly subordinated to the higher intellectual operations a visual image is a most perfect form of mental representation wherever the shape position and relations of objects in space are concerned is of importance in every handicraft and profession what design is required the best workmen are those who visualize a whole of what they purpose to do before they take a tool in their hands the village smith and the carpenter who are employed not jobs employed no less of their work than the mechanic and the engineer and the architect the ladies made who arranges a new dress requires it for the same reason as a decorator employed on a palace or the agent who lays out great estates strategists artists of all denominations physicists who contrive new experiments and in short all who do not fully retain have need of it the pleasure its use can afford is immense i've many correspondents who say that the delight of recalling beautiful scenery and great works of art is the highest that they know they carry whole picture galleries in their minds a book a shun worthy education tends to repress this valuable gift of nature a faculty that is of importance nor tentacle artistic occupations that gives accuracy to our perceptions and justness to our generalizations is starved by lazy disuse instead of being cultivated judiciously in such a way as will on the whole bring the best return i believe that a serious study the best method of developing and utilizing this faculty without prejudice to the practice of abstract thought and symbols is one of the many pressing desiderata in the yet unformed science of education end of chapter 20 end of section four