86 galton.org
86
Inquiries into Human Faculty
ones, and the diminution of space occupied by them is so increasingly
rapid that I thought it not impossible they might diminish according to
some geometrical law, such as that which governs sensitivity. I took many
careful measurements and averaged them, but the result did not justify the
supposition.
It is beyond dispute that these forms originate at an early age; they are
subsequently often developed in boyhood and youth so as to include the
higher numbers, and, among mathematical students, the negative, values.
Nearly all of my correspondents speak with confidence of their Forms
having been in existence as far back as they recollect. One states that he
knows he possessed it at the age of four; another, that he learnt his
multiplication table by the aid of the elaborate mental diagram he still
uses. Not one in ten is able to suggest any clue as to their origin. They
cannot be due to anything written or printed, because they do not simulate
what is found in ordinary writings or books.
About one-third of the figures are curved to the left, two-thirds to the
right; they run more often upward than downward. They do not
commonly lie in a single plane. Sometimes a Form has twists as well as
bends, sometimes it is turned upside down, sometimes it plunges into an
abyss of immeasurable depth, or it rises and disappears in the sky. My
correspondents are often in difficulties when trying to draw them in
perspective. One sent me a stereoscopic picture photographed from a wire
that had been bent into the proper shape. In one case the Form proceeds at
first straightforward, then it makes a backward sweep high above head,
and finally recurves into the pocket, of all places! It is often sloped
upwards at a slight inclination from a little below the level of the eye, just
as objects on a table would appear to a child whose chin was barely above
it.
It may seem strange that children should have such bold conceptions
as of curves sweeping loftily upward or downward to immeasurable
depths, but I think it may be accounted for by their much larger personal
experience of the vertical dimension of space than adults. They are lifted,
tossed and swung, but adults pass their lives very much on a level, and
only judge of heights by inference
