galton.org 135
Psychometric Experiments
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my mind from dwelling on my first experiences, in order that it might
retain as much freshness as possible for a second experiment, I repeated
the walk, and was struck just as much as before by the variety of the ideas
that presented themselves, and the number of events to which they
referred, about which I had never consciously occupied myself of late
years. But my admiration at the activity of the mind was seriously
diminished by another observation which I then made, namely, that there
had been a very great deal of repetition of thought. The actors in my
mental stage were indeed very numerous, but by no means so numerous as
I had imagined. They now seemed to be something like the actors in
theatres where large processions are represented, who march off one side
of the stage, and, going round by the back, come on again at the other. I
accordingly cast about for means of laying hold of these fleeting thoughts,
and, submitting them to statistical analysis, to find out more about their
tendency to repetition and other matters, and the method I finally adopted
was the one already mentioned. I selected a list of suitable words, and
wrote them on different small sheets of paper. Taking care to dismiss
them from my thoughts when not engaged upon them, and allowing some
days to elapse before I began to use them, I laid one of these sheets with
all due precautions under a book, but not wholly covered by it, so that
when I leaned forward I could see one of the words, being previously
quite ignorant of what the word would be. Also I held a small
chronograph, which I started by pressing a spring the moment the word
caught my eye, and which stopped of itself the instant I released the
spring; and this I did so soon as about a couple of ideas in direct
association with the word had arisen in my mind. I found that I could not
manage to recollect more than two ideas with the needed precision, at
least not in a general way; but sometimes several ideas occurred so nearly
together that I was able to record three or even four of them, while
sometimes I only managed one. The second ideas were, as I have already
said, never derived from the first, but always direct from the word itself;
for I kept my attention firmly fixed on the word, and the associated ideas
were seen only by a half glance. When the two ideas had occurred,
