144 galton.org
144
Inquiries into Human Faculty
from the general run of the other figures. This was wholly due to visual
imagery of scenes with which I was first acquainted after reaching
manhood, and shows, I think, that the scenes of childhood and youth,
though vividly impressed on the memory, are by no means numerous, and
may be quite thrown into the background by the abundance of after
experiences; but this, as we have seen, is not the case with the other forms
of association. Verbal memories of old date, such as Biblical scraps,
family expressions, bits of poetry, and the like, are very numerous, and
rise to the thoughts so quickly, whenever anything suggests them, that
they commonly outstrip all competitors. Associations connected with the
“abasement” series are strongly characterised by histrionic ideas, and by
sense imagery, which to a great degree merges into a histrionic character.
Thus the word “abhorrence” suggested to me, on three out of the four
trials, an image of the attitude of Martha in the famous picture of the
raising of Lazarus by Sebastian del Piombo in the National Gallery. She
stands with averted head, doubly sheltering her face by her hands from
even a sidelong view of the opened grave. Now I could not be sure how
far I saw the picture as such, in my mental view, or how far I had thrown
my own personality into the picture, and was acting it as actors might act
a mystery play, by the puppets of my own brain, that were parts of myself.
As a matter of fact, I entered it under the heading of sense imagery, but it
might very properly have gone to swell the number of the histrionic
entries.
The “afternoon” series suggested a great, preponderance of mere
catch-words, showing how slowly I was able to realise the meaning of
abstractions; the phrases intruded themselves before the thoughts became
defined. It occasionally occurred that I puzzled wholly over a word, and
made no entry at all; in thirteen cases either this happened, or else after
one idea had occurred the second was too confused and. obscure to admit
of record, and mention of it had to be omitted in the foregoing Table.
These entries have forcibly shown to me the great imperfection in my
generalising powers; and I am sure that most persons would find the same
if they made similar trials. Nothing is a surer sign of high intellectual
capacity
