Francis Galton

“ The waking vision is like what one sees in the open street in broad daylight, when every object is distinctly impressed on the memory. The two kinds of imagery differ also as regards voluntariness, the image being entirely subservient to the will, the visions entirely independent of it. They differ also in point of suddenness, the images being formed comparatively slowly as memory recalls each detail, and fading slowly as the mental effort to retain them is relaxed; the visions appearing and vanishing in an instant. ”

“ 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 my own faculty in this respect. It is exercised only occasionally and in dreams, but under those circumstances I am perfectly conscious of embracing an entire sphere in a single perception. ”

“ Conscious actions are motived, and motives can make themselves attended to, whether consciousness be present or not. Consciousness seems to do little more than attest the fact that the various organs of the brain do not work with perfect ease or coöperation. Its position appears to be that of a helpless spectator of but a minute fraction of a huge amount of automatic brain-work. The unconscious operations of the mind may be likened to the innumerable waves that travel by night, unseen and in silence, over the broad expanse of an ocean. ”

“ The exciting cause of emotion, whatever it be, a fright, a suspense, a scold, an insult, a grief, must be believed to be genuine, or the tests would be worthless. It is not possible to sham emotion thoroughly. A good actor may move his audience as deeply as if they were witnessing a drama of real life, but the best actor can not put himself into the exact frame of mind of a real sufferer. If he did, the reflex and automatic signs of emotion excited in his frame would be so numerous and violent that they would shatter his constitution long before he had acted a dozen tragedies. ”

“ The use of measuring man in his entirety is to be justified by exactly the same arguments as those by which any special examinations are justified, such as those in classics or mathematics; namely, that every measurement tests, in some particulars, the adequacy of the previous education, and contributes to show the efficiency of the man as a human machine at the time it was made. It is impossible to be sure of the adequacy in every respect of the rearing of a man, or of his total efficiency, unless he has been measured in character and physique, as well as in intellect. ”

“ Twenty-nine of the words gave rise to the same thought in every one of the four trials, thirty-six to the same thought in three out of the four trials, fifty-seven to two out of the four, and there were only one hundred and sixty-seven ideas that occurred no more than once. Thus we see how great is the tendency to the recurrence of the same ideas. It is conspicuous in the reiteration of anecdotes by old people, but it pervades all periods of life to a greater extent than is commonly understood, the mind habitually rambling along the same trite paths. ”

“ Although a perfect stranger to you, and living on the reverse side of the globe, I have taken the liberty of writing to you on a small discovery I have made in binocular vision in the stereoscope. I find by taking two ordinary carte-de-visite photos of two different persons' faces, the portraits being about the same sizes, and looking about the same direction, and placing them in a stereo-scope, the faces blend into one in a most remarkable manner, producing in the case of some ladies' portraits in every instance a decided improvement in beauty. ”

“ The art 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 concur in their due proportions. It is wonderful how much the vividness of a recollection is increased when two or more lines of association are simultaneously excited.
It is a mistake to suppose that a powerful exercise of the will can vivify a faint image. The action of the will is negative, being limited to the suppression of what is not wanted and would be in the way. ”

“ Let me take the present opportunity of saying that one effect of Weber's law is that a true composite never appears true, and is never what our uncorrected senses teach us to expect. If we mix a very dark gray with a very light gray, we might on first thoughts expect that their mixture would appear to be a medium gray, but Weber's law tells us that the eye judges differently, and we find, in trying the experiment, that the mixture is brighter than we had expected. ”

“ Since an early age the flight of roses has annually grown smaller, swifter, and farther off, till by the time I was grown up my vision had become a speck, so instantaneous that I had hardly time to realize that it was there before the fading sparks showed that it was past. ”

“ Examiners are not, I believe, much stricken with the sense of awe and infinitude when they apply their foot-rules to the intellectual performances of the candidates whom they examine; neither do I see any reason why we should be awed at the thought of examining our fellow-creatures as best we may in respect to other faculties than intellect. On the contrary, I think it anomalous that the art of measuring intellectual faculties should have become highly developed, while that of dealing with other qualities should have been little practiced or even considered. ”

“ Many poets and painters have had the visualizing faculty in an extraordinary degree, while it is in the brains of poets and painters generally that we find the artistic power to reside of producing pictures that are not copies of any individual, but represent the characteristics of large classes. Painters and poets create blended portraits in profusion, and we, who are not gifted as they are, can nevertheless understand and appreciate their works. In other words, their blended images are well-defined representations of what we ourselves had already conceived in a dim and confused way. ”

“ Our bookish education tends unduly to repress this valuable gift of nature. A faculty that is of importance in all technical and artistic occupations, that gives accuracy to our perceptions, and justness to our generalizations, is starved by disuse, instead of being cultivated in the way that will bring most return. I believe that a serious study of the best method of developing the faculty of visualizing is one of the many pressing desiderata the new science of education.—Fortnightly Review. ”

“ That the visionary tendency is much more common among sane people than is generally suspected. In early life, it seems to be a hard lesson to an imaginative child to distinguish between the real and visionary world. If the fantasies are habitually laughed at, the power of distinguishing them becomes at length learned; any incongruity or nonconformity is noted, the vision is found out and discredited, and is no further attended to. In this way the tendency to see them is blunted by repression. Therefore, when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep quiet ”

“ Is man, with his power of choice and freedom of will, so different from a conscious machine that any proposal to measure his moral qualities is based upon a fallacy? If so, it would be ridiculous to waste thought on the matter; but if our temperament and character are durable realities, and persistent factors of our conduct, we have no Proteus to deal with in either case, and our attempts to grasp and measure them are reasonable. ”

“ A common form of vision is a phantasmagoria, or the appearance of a crowd of phantoms, perhaps hurrying past like men in a street. It is occasionally seen in broad daylight, much more often in the dark; it may be at the instant of putting out the candle, but it generally comes on when the person is in bed, preparing to sleep, but is by no means yet asleep. I know no less than three men, eminent in the scientific world, who have these phantasmagoria in one form or another. ”

“ It is very instructive to note the first appearance of a generic image, and to watch the way in which the mind carves images out of the medley of its available material. It can not grasp an image of any complexity unless the elements of which it consists form a congruous composition, that is to say, one whose parts are connected by such easy lines of association that the mind runs rapidly over the whole of it, and takes it all in by what seems to be a single glance. ”

“ Looking at the patterns of the papered walls of our room we see, whenever our fancy is active, all kinds of forms and features; we often catch some strange combination which we are unable to recall on a subsequent occasion, while later still it may suddenly flash full upon us. A composite portrait would have much of this varied suggestiveness. ”

“ It feels its way, easily diverted by associations based on what has just been noticed, and so, by the unconscious practice of a system of "trial and error," at last finds a track that will suit—one that is easy to follow, and that also makes a complete picture. The process is essentially the same as that of getting a clear idea from out of a confused multitude of facts. The fancy picture is dwelt upon, all that is incongruous with it becomes disregarded, while all deficiencies in it are supplied by the fantasy. ”

“ In my memoir, read about a year ago before the Anthropological Institute, on composite portraits, I used a phrase, which I wrote with a little misgiving, which I have since quoted, and which I wish now to amend. I desired briefly to convey the idea that composite portraits were in a true sense generalizations and analogous to the images stamped on the brain, as already described, and I used these words: "A composite portrait represents the picture that could rise before the mind's eye of an individual who had the gift of pictorial imagination in an exalted degree." ”

“ Neither the religious nor the scientific man will consent to sacrifice his opinions to material gain, to political ends, nor to pleasure. Both agree in the love of intellectual pursuits, and in the practice of a simple, regular, and laborious life, and both work in a disinterested way for the public good. A strong evidence of this fundamental agreement is found in the number of sons of clergymen who have distinguished themselves as scientific investigators; it is so large that we must deplore the void in the ranks of science caused by the celibacy of the Catholic clergy. ”

“ Many are like those to whom St. James alludes when he speaks of "a man beholding his natural face in a glass, who beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." It will be more to my point to show how perfect the visualizing faculty sometimes is, at the same time that the images may be moved with the utmost facility in the field of the mind's eye, which is a first step toward their blending together. ”

“ Knowing also as I do, from considerable experience of composites, what monstrous and abortive productions may result from ill-sorted combinations of portraits, and how much care in selection and nicety of adjustment is required to produce the truest possible generic image, I cease to wonder at the numerous shortcomings in our generalizations and at their absurd and frequent fallacies. The human mind is a most imperfect apparatus for the elaboration of true general ideas. ”

“ We recollect very few of the incidents in our youth, though perhaps in old age we shall think very frequently of that little. Let any man try to write his autobiography, say between the ages of five and six, and he will find that he has exhausted everything he can recollect of that period in a very few pages. Let him meet, for the first time after very many years, with some friend of his boyhood, and talk over some interesting event in which they were both engaged, and of which his recollection is so vivid that he believes he can have forgotten none of its incidents. ”

“ The objects of their memory are conspicuous images; they can retain them for a long time before the eye of their mind, they can dismiss or change them at will, and they can, if they please, subject them to careful examination from every side. I do not know any faculty that varies so much as this in different persons. None can vary more, because its range lies between perfection and nothingness. It is sometimes absolutely deficient, for there are persons who never see mental images even in dreams, and there are others who are said to have lost the power of seeing them. ”

“ I have seen many route maps made by travelers in past years, when the scientific exploration of the world was much less advanced than it is now, and I can confidently say that I have never known of any traveler, white, brown, or black, civilized or uncivilized, in Africa, Asia, or Australia, who, being unprovided with surveying instruments, and trusting to his memory alone, has produced a chart comparable in extent and accuracy to that of this barbarous Esquimau. ”

“ If a person gifted with the visualizing power in perfection should pose his eye in the place of the object-glass of the camera, would the generic image in his brain be identical with the photographic composite? (I am assuming, for argument's sake, that the photograph gives a true rendering of any optical image, which, in strictness, it does not.) ”

“ Whenever the mind has halted in a vain effort to make the image more comprehensive without injuring its congruity, the dead-lock is relieved by the sudden obliteration of a large part of it, leaving a vacancy which is filled by some one of the competing associations overcoming the others, and presenting itself within the narrow field of view of our full consciousness and attention. ”

“ Generic images begin, at least according to my own experience, by being exceedingly imperfect and vague because they are very comprehensive. Then limitations commence, each of which is the cause of a more distinct picture being formed, and so the mind runs first through genera, then through species, continually seeking more congruity and clearer definition, but at each step with a loss of comprehensiveness. If allowed to do so, it descends to individuals. ”

“ It is therefore evident, though the absurdity was maintained by Locke, that we can not accomplish this; and, this being impossible, we can not represent to ourselves the class man by any equivalent notion, or idea. All that we can do is to call up some individual image and consider it as representing, though inadequately representing, the generality. This we can easily do, for as we can call into imagination any individual, so we can make that individual image stand for any or for every other which it resembles, in those essential points which constitute the identity of the class. ”

“ I have found that the peculiarities of visualization, such as the tendency to see Number-forms, and the still rarer tendency to associate color with sound, is strongly hereditary, and I should infer, what facts seem to confirm, that the tendency to be a seer of visions is equally so. Under these circumstances we should expect that it would be unequally developed in different races, and that a large natural gift of the visionary faculty might become characteristic not only of certain families, as among the second-sight seers of Scotland, but of certain races, as that of the gypsies. ”