galton.org 21
Sensitivity
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always employed; but as the reverse is the case, the opposite supposition
is likely to be the true one.
Ladies rarely distinguish the merits of wine at the dinner-table, and
though custom allows them to preside at the breakfast-table, men think
them on the whole to be far from successful makers of tea and coffee.
Blind persons are reputed to have acquired in compensation for the
loss of their eyesight an increased acuteness in their other senses; I was
therefore curious to make some trials with my test apparatus, which I will
describe in the next chapter. I was permitted to do so on a number of boys
at a large educational blind asylum, but found that, although they were
anxious to do their best, their performances were by no means superior to
those of other boys. It so happened that the blind lads who showed the
most delicacy of touch and won the little prizes I offered to excite
emulation, barely reached the mediocrity of the various sighted lads of the
same age whom I had previously tested. I have made not a few
observations and inquiries, and find that the guidance of the blind depends
mainly on the multitude of collateral indications to which they give much
heed, and not in their superior sensitivity to any one of them. Those who
see do not care for so many of these collateral indications, and habitually
overlook and neglect several of them. I am convinced also that not a little
of the popular belief concerning the sensitivity of the blind is due to
exaggerated claims on their part that have not been verified. Two
instances of this have fallen within my own experience, in both of which
the blind persons claimed to have the power of judging by the echo of
their voice and by certain other feelings, the one when they were
approaching objects, even though the object was so small as a handrail,
and the other to tell how far the door of the room in which he was
standing was open. I used all the persuasion I could to induce each of
these persons to allow me to put their assertions to the test; but it was of
no use. The one made excuses, the other positively refused. They had
probably the same tendency that others would have who happened to be
defective in any faculty that their comrades possessed, to fight bravely
against their disadvantage, and
