Psychological Investigations 245
opinion change and grow favourable to supernaturalism and the seers of visions come to the front. It is not that a faculty previously non-existent has been suddenly evoked, but that a faculty long smothered in secret has been suddenly allowed freedom to express itself, and it may be to run into extravagance owing to the removal of reasonable safeguards." (p. 655.)
We may consider here Galton's last published experimental investigation on introspection. In 1884, the year after the. appearance of the Inquiries into Human Faculty, he issued in Mind' a paper entitled : "Free-will, Observations and Inferences." The experiment was actually made in 1883,"during the
somewhat uneventful but pleasant months of a summer spent in the country." Galton explains his aims in the following words
"The cases appear rare in which any of the numerous writers on Free-will have steadily, and for a long time together, watched the operations of their own mind whenever it was engaged in such an act, and discussions on Free-will have certainly been much more frequent than systematic observations of it. Consequently for my own information, I undertok a course of introspective inquiry last year; it was carried on almost continuously during six* weeks, and has been proceeded with, off and on, for many subsequent months. As the results were not what I expected and as they were very distinct, I publish them, of course on the understanding that I profess to speak only of the operations of my own mind. If others will do the same, we shall be hereafter in a position to generalise.
My course of observation was that, whenever I caught myself engaged in a feat of what might fairly be called Free-will, I checked myself and recalled the antecedents and noted any circumstances that might have influenced my decision and forthwith wrote down an account of the whole transaction. After I had collated several notes I found that the variety of processes to be observed was small: I therefore discontinued my notes, but maintained the observations, until I felt satisfied that I could describe as much of what goes on in my own mind as falls within the ken of its consciousness.
I may say that, after some preliminary maladroitness had been overcome, I did not find the task difficult, nor even irksome; not nearly so much as in other introspective inquiries I have made. It is true that facility in any kind of introspection is difficult to acquire; it depends on the establishment of a habit something like that of writing in the midst of [other] avocations. When the latter has once been attained, the writer recovers the thread of thought that has been dropped at each interruption, and rarely finds it broken. So it is with introspection." (p. 406.)
Galton at once discards acts of `Will' as distinguished from free-will as they are usually automatic; tenacity of purpose does not denote free-will, and is not usually considered to be a high order of psychical activity'.
Vol. ix, pp. 406-13.
2 The Galtons were "done up by London whirl and grief for Mr Spottiswoode's death and the funeral- in the Abbey, July 5th, and I became so unwell at the Jenkinsons that we began our summer outing at Boscombe and Bournemouth and spent a pleasant month meeting pleasant people. All the time I was on starvation diet. Then we went to Newton Abbot near Torquay and visited Totnes and Dartmouth and Torquay; also a pleasant time, and with nice dry weather such as one seldom enjoys in England. Still I prefer a foreign climate and think it suits my tiresome ailment better." L. G.'8 Record.
Galton's sister Adele Bunbury died on Dec. 31st and Montagu Butler's first wife Georgina during this year, so that the Galtons lost three close connections in the year following Darwin's death. FrancisGaltonwrotean obituary notice of Spottiswoodeforthe Royal Geographical Society (Proceedings N.`M. S., 1883, Vol. v, pp. 489-91) and concluded it with the words: "his name will assuredly take its place in the national memory as one of those upon, whose ability, moral character, and resolute work, the credit of the English nation is mainly founded." Spottiswoode and Galton had been joint Honorary Secretaries of the Royal Geographical Society and intimate friends for many years.
s obstinate as a mule" or more vulgarly "as obstinate as a pig" are cited by Galton to express his meaning.
