Inquiries into human faculty and its developmentGalton, Francis
Science
Inquiries into human faculty and its development
Galton, Francis
Ability; Eugenics
There can, however, be no doubt as to the utility of the visualising
faculty when it is duly subordinated to the higher intellectual
operations. A visual image is the most perfect form of mental
representation wherever the shape, position, and relations of
objects in space are concerned. It is of importance in every
handicraft and profession where design is required. The best workmen
are those who visualise the whole of what they propose to do, before
they take a tool in their hands. The village smith and the carpenter
who are employed on odd jobs employ it no less for their work than
the mechanician, the engineer, and the architect. The lady's maid
who arranges a new dress requires it for the same reason as the
decorator employed on a palace, or the agent who lays out great
estates. Strategists, artists of all denominations, physicists who
contrive new experiments, and in short all who do not follow routine,
have need of it. The pleasure its use can afford is immense. I have
many correspondents who say that the delight of recalling beautiful
scenery and great works of art is the highest that they know; they
carry whole picture galleries in their minds. Our bookish and wordy
education tends to repress this valuable gift of nature. A faculty
that is of importance in all technical and artistic occupations,
that gives accuracy to our perceptions, and justness to our
generalisations, is starved by lazy disuse, instead of being
cultivated judiciously in such a way as will on the whole bring the
best return. I believe that a serious study of the best method of
developing and utilising this faculty, without prejudice to the
practice of abstract thought in symbols, is one of the many pressing
desiderata in the yet unformed science of education.
NUMBER-FORMS.
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