galton.org 85
Number-Forms
85
It is only approximately correct (if the term “correct” be at all applicable).
The numbers seem to approach more closely as I ascend from 10 to 20,
30, 40, etc. The lines embracing a hundred numbers also seem to approach
as I go on to 400, 500, to 1000. Beyond 1000 I have only the sense of an
infinite line in the direction of the arrow, losing itself in darkness towards
the millions. Any special number of thousands returns in my mind to its
position in the parallel lines from 1 to 1000. The diagram was present in
my mind from early childhood; I remember that I learnt the multiplication
table by reference to it at the age of seven or eight. I need hardly say that
the impression is not that of perfectly straight lines, I have therefore used
no ruler in drawing it.”
J. S. “The figures are about a quarter of an inch in length, and in ordinary
type. They are black on a white ground. The numeral 200 generally takes the
place of 100 and obliterates it. There is no light or shade, and the picture is
invariable.”
In some cases, the mental eye has to travel along the faintly-marked
and blank paths of a Form, to the place where the numeral that is wanted
is known to reside, and then the figure starts into sight. In other cases all
the numerals, as far as 100 or more, are faintly seen at once, but the figure
that is wanted grows more vivid than its neighbours; in one of the cases
there is, as it were a chain, and the particular link rises as if an unseen
hand had lifted it. The Forms are sometimes variously coloured,
occasionally very brilliantly (see Plate IV.). In all of these the definition
and illumination vary much in different parts. Usually the Forms fade
away into indistinctness after 100; sometimes they come to a dead stop.
The higher numbers very rarely fill so large a space in the Forms as the
lower
