HUMAN FACULTY
Measurement of mental powers—Gentiles—Number forms—Visions
of sane persons—Experiments on self—Classification
by judgment—Sandow—Weight of cattle—First and second
prizes—Arithmetic by smell—Influences of gesture, voice, etc.
After I had become satisfied of the inheritance of all the mental
qualities into which I had inquired, and that heredity was a far more
powerful agent in human development than nurture, I wished to explore
the range of human faculty in various directions in order to ascertain
the degree to which breeding might, at least theoretically, modify the
human race. I took the moderate and reasonable standpoint that whatever
quality had appeared in man and in whatever intensity, it admitted of
being bred for and reproduced on a large scale. Consequently a new race
might be created possessing on the _average_ an equal degree of quality
and intensity as in the exceptional case. Relative infertility might of
course stand in the way, but otherwise everything seemed to show that
races of highly gifted artists, saints, mathematicians, administrators,
mechanicians, contented labourers, musicians, militants, and so forth,
might be theoretically called into existence, the average excellence of
each race in its particular line being equal to that of its most highly
gifted representative at the present moment.
I desired to plan a laboratory in which Human Faculty might be measured
so far as possible, and, after much inquiry and trouble, drew up and
sent a printed circular to experts, showing in outline what seemed to me
feasible, and drawing attention to desiderata. Useful replies reached me
from many quarters.
There was no one to whose intelligent co-operation I then owed more
than Professor Croom Robertson (1842-1892) of University College. His
genius and temperament were of the most attractive Scottish type—exact,
sane, and very genial. He was well known by his work on Hobbes, and as
the founder and Editor of the periodical _Mind_, in which his critical
notices of current philosophical literature were soon recognised as of
especial weight. He was a thorough friend, whose death left a void in my
own life that has never been wholly filled.
The leading ideas of such a laboratory as I had in view, were that
its measurements should effectually “sample” a man with reasonable
completeness. It should measure _absolutely_ where it was possible,
otherwise _relatively_ among his class fellows, the quality of each
selected faculty. The next step would be to estimate the combined effect
of these separately measured faculties in any given proportion, and
ultimately to ascertain the degree with which the measurement of sample
faculties in youth justifies a prophecy of future success in life, using
the word “success” in its most liberal meaning.
The method of centiles (or of per-centiles as I originally called it)
was devised to give greater precision to the meaning of “class-place.”
The familiar phrases of top of his class, near the top, half-way down
it, and the like, express a great deal, but they express much more if
used in connection with the size of the class. A useful way of reducing
classes of all sizes to a common one is as follows. The names of the
individuals are entered in the order of their class-places in a long
column, beginning with the highest. The names are separated by lines
which resemble the rungs of a ladder, and will here be called rungs for
distinction. The interval between the lowest and highest rungs is divided
along the sides of the ladder into equal parts to form a scale, usually
one of 100 parts. In this the lowest rung stands at 0° and the highest
at 100°. Such divisions are called centiles. If the divisions are not in
hundredths, but otherwise as tenths, eighths, or quarters, they are still
called by words ending in “-ile,” as decile, octile, and quartile. The
marks corresponding to the class-places at each centile, decile, octile,
or quartile, are independent of the size of the class, except in that
small degree to which all statistical deductions are liable when derived
from different samples of the same store of material.
The diagram opposite explains the process. For reasons of space it is
adapted here to a class of only twelve individuals, but it is applicable
equally well to classes however large, and the larger the better.
The method of centiles affords a convenient and compact way of comparing
the amounts of specified faculties in different individuals. All this is
an old tale now, but I had to take a great deal of trouble before it was
clearly thought out and well tested.
+------------+-----------+----------+------------------------------+
| | | | |
| | | | Divisions of Scale. |
| | Marks | Class- +------------------------------+
| Names. | or | Place. | | |
| | Measures. | | | |
| | | | Quarters. | Hundredths |
| | | | | (Centiles).|
+------------+-----------+----------+-----------------+--- 0° ---+
| | | 1st | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 2nd | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 3rd | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+--Lower quartile-+-- 25° --+
| | | 4th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 5th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 6th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+-Middle quartile-+-- 50° --+
| | | 7th | (Median) | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 8th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 9th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+--Upper quartile-+-- 75° --+
| | | 10th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 11th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+ | |
| | | 12th | | |
+------------+-----------+----------+-----------------+-- 100° --+
As it may interest persons to know how they would stand among the
visitants to a large London Exhibition, I give a brief extract on next
page from my published table (_Nature_, January 8, 1885),[86], concerning
those measured at the International Health Exhibition.
Suppose the reader to be a male adult, and the strength of his pull as
with a bow to be 78 lbs., he will learn that his class-place in that
particular is at the seventieth centile. In other words, that of those
measured at the above Exhibition about[6] 70 per cent. were weaker and 30
per cent. stronger.
This little table contains excellent material for comparing the powers of
the two sexes.
_From Measurements made at the Anthropometric Laboratory in the
International Health Exhibition of 1884._
+-------------------+-------------+----+-----------------------------+
| | | | Centiles. |
| Subject of | Unit of | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Measurement. | Measure. |Sex.| | | | | |
| | | | 10° | 30° | 50° | 70° | 90° |
+-------------------+-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|Height standing, } |Inches {| M. | 64·5| 66·5| 67·9| 69·2| 71·3|
| without shoes } | {| F. | 59·9| 62·1| 63·3| 64·6| 66·4|
| | | | | | | | |
|Span of arms |Inches {| M. | 66·1| 68·2| 69·9| 71·4| 73·6|
| | {| F. | 59·5| 61·7| 63·0| 64·5| 66·7|
| | | | | | | | |
|Weight in indoor } |Pounds {| M. | 125| 135| 143| 150| 165|
| clothing } | {| F. | 105| 114| 122| 132| 142|
| | | | | | | | |
|Breathing capacity |Cubic inches{| M. | 177| 199| 219| 236| 277|
| | {| F. | 102| 124| 138| 151| 177|
| | | | | | | | |
|Strength of pull } |Pounds {| M. | 60| 68| 74| 78| 89|
| with a bow } | {| F. | 32| 36| 40| 44| 51|
+-------------------+-------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
One of my many inquiries related to what I called “Number Forms”; it
originated in this way. Mr. George Bidder, Q.C., son of the engineer
who in his youth was the famous “calculating boy” (1806-1878), and who
inherited and transmitted much of his father’s remarkable powers, wrote
in a postscript of a letter to me in response to other inquiries, that he
himself habitually saw numbers in his mind’s eye, arranged in a peculiar
form, of which he sent a drawing. It began with the face of a clock,
numbered I. to XII., and then tailed off, much like the tail of a kite,
into an undulating curve, having 20, 30, 40, etc., at each bend. This
prompted me to ask others whom I met whether he or she saw anything of
the kind, and I received affirmative replies from a few girls.
I then went to my Club and successively asked the same question of every
friend whom I saw, but invariably met with a more or less contemptuous
negative. Nothing daunted, I inquired further, and soon found a goodly
number of distinguished persons who perceived these curious forms, no two
of them alike. After prolonged questioning in many directions I gathered
enough material for a memoir, and being determined to publish it in a way
that could not be pooh-poohed, I selected six well-known friends out of
those who said that they saw them, and having assured myself that they
would speak to the veracity of their several diagrams, I invited them all
to a good dinner, and took them to the meeting of the Anthropological
Institute on March 9, 1880, where the diagrams were hung up. These were
G. Bidder, Col. Yule, Rev. G. Henslow, Prof. Schuster, J. Roget, and Mr.
Wood Smith. They acted faithfully up to their assurances, and so the fact
of the existence of Number-Forms was solidly established. Their remarks
are published in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_[63]. I
possessed a collection of most curious forms, not a few of them appearing
in three dimensions and drawn in perspective; many of them were coloured.
Before quitting this subject I may be allowed to tell a tale thereon.
I had to deliver a lecture at the British Association, in which these
Number-Forms were to be spoken of, and did a rash thing. It was that
after describing their character and frequency, I said, “Now, will every
person in this large meeting who is conscious of seeing a Number-Form,
hold up his hand?” There was a dead silence; those who should have
responded were too shy to move, and not a hand was raised. I suddenly
bethought myself of a tale that had not long since appeared in the
_Times_, as told by a German soldier to his comrades over a bivouac fire,
to account for a want of solidarity in the French resistance. It was
this, and I told it with some variations to the meeting:—
“The Chief Rabbi of Dantzig was a wealthy and hospitable man. (I repeat
what I read, and beg pardon if the tale was applied to the wrong person.)
One day his house caught fire and even the contents of his good cellar
suffered. The Jews took counsel what to do for their beloved Rabbi. First
a handsome subscription was proposed, but overruled; then another idea
was mooted, then another, each less costly than the preceding; and at
the last it was agreed that every Jew should visit the house on a day
to be fixed, and bring with him a bottle of Eau de Vie de Dantzig (the
original said ‘wine’). That after an appropriate speech of greeting to
the Rabbi, he should descend into the cellar and empty his bottle into
a vat prepared for the purpose. The day came, the Chief Rabbi prepared
a sumptuous collation, and listened with delight to the flattering
addresses of his guests; then, when the ceremony was concluded, he
went down to the cellar with his family, all of them brimful of kindly
feelings, to taste the result. He turned the tap, a beautifully clear
fluid ran into his glass; he lifted it with gratitude to his lips, when
suddenly his countenance fell; he sipped a second time and exploded in
wrath, for the fluid was pure water. The fact was that each Jew had said
to himself, ‘What matters it whether I put in a spirit which costs money,
or water which costs nothing? My own contribution will make no sensible
difference to the total result.’ As every Jew acted on this principle,
the result was pure water.
“Now each of you who perceive Number-Forms has acted in a similar way,
so there has been no response to my request; but I cannot let the matter
drop, therefore I call on Professor S——, whom I see on the platform, and
who, I know, perceives these Forms, to hold up his hand, and I trust then
that you who have hitherto abstained through shyness will do so likewise.”
The appeal succeeded; up went Professor S——’s hand, and up went a
multitude of scattered hands all about the body of the hall.
* * * * *
In 1881 I gave one of the Friday Evening Lectures at the Royal
Institution on the Visions of Sane Persons[65], in which I dwelt on the
far greater frequency than was supposed, of hallucinations and illusions
among individuals in normal health, as ascertained through numerous
inquiries verbally or by letter. It very often happened that the verbal
reply to my question took a form like this, “No, no; I’ve never had any
hallucination”; then, after a pause, “Well, there certainly was one
curious thing,” etc. etc.
One afternoon at tea-time, before a meeting of the Royal Society, Sir
Risdon Bennett (1809-1891), a well-known physician, President of the
College of Physicians in 1876, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, drew me
apart and told me of a strange experience he had had very recently. He
was writing in his study separated by a thin wall from the passage, when
he heard the well-known postman’s knock, followed by the entrance into
his study of a man dressed in a fantastic medieval costume, perfectly
distinct in every particular, buttons and all, who, after a brief time,
faded and disappeared. Sir Risdon said that he felt in perfect health;
his pulse and breathing were normal, and so forth, but he was naturally
alarmed at the prospect of some impending brain disorder. Nothing,
however, of the sort had followed. The same appearance recurred; he
thought the postman’s knock somehow originated the hallucination.
I begged him to publish the curious case fully with his name attached,
as it would then become a classical example, but he hesitated; however,
he did ultimately publish it at some length in a medical paper, but
signed only with his initials. I wholly forget its date. If any reader
interested in these things should come across the paper, these imperfect
but vivid recollections of mine may corroborate such impressions as he
would have of its veracity, for I heard the story at length, very shortly
after the event, told me with painstaking and scientific exactness, and
in tones that clearly indicated the narrator’s earnest desire to be
minutely correct. I purposely omit many details, doubting the accuracy
of my own memory in those respects. There can be no impropriety now in
publishing the name hitherto withheld.
I gave in the lecture many examples of guiding “stars” and the like,
and referred to the fact that the visionary temperament has manifested
itself largely at certain historical times, and under certain conditions
of national life, and endeavoured to account for this by the following
considerations:—
That the visionary tendency is much more common among sane people than is
generally suspected.
In early life it seems to be a hard lesson for an imaginative child
to distinguish between the real and the visionary world. If the
fantasies are habitually laughed at and otherwise discouraged, the
child soon acquires the power of distinguishing them; any incongruity
or nonconformity is quickly noted, the fact of its being a vision is
found out; it is discredited, and no further attended to. In this way
the natural tendency to see visions is blunted by repression. Therefore,
when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions
keep quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they
hide their experiences, which only come to light through inquiries such
as those I have been making. But let the tide of opinion change and grow
favourable to supernaturalism, then 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.
The following experiments on Human Faculty are worth recording; they
have not been published before. In the days of my youth I felt at one
time a passionate desire to subjugate the body by the spirit, and among
other disciplines determined that my will should replace automatism by
hastening or retarding automatic acts. Every breath was submitted to
this process, with the result that the normal power of breathing was
dangerously interfered with. It seemed as though I should suffocate if
I ceased to will. I had a terrible half-hour; at length by slow and
irregular steps the lost power returned. My dread was hardly fanciful,
for heart-failure is the suspension of the automatic faculty of the heart
to beat.
A later experiment was to gain some idea of the commoner feelings in
Insanity. The method tried was to invest everything I met, whether human,
animal, or inanimate, with the imaginary attributes of a spy. Having
arranged plans, I started on my morning’s walk from Rutland Gate, and
found the experiment only too successful. By the time I had walked one
and a half miles, and reached the cab-stand in Piccadilly at the east end
of the Green Park, every horse on the stand seemed watching me, either
with pricked ears or disguising its espionage. Hours passed before this
uncanny sensation wore off, and I feel that I could only too easily
re-establish it.
The third and last experiment of which I will speak was to gain an
insight into the abject feelings of barbarians and others concerning the
power of images which they know to be of human handiwork. I had visited
a large collection of idols gathered by missionaries from many lands,
and wondered how each of those absurd and ill-made monstrosities could
have obtained the hold it had over the imaginations of its worshippers.
I wished, if possible, to enter into those feelings. It was difficult to
find a suitable object for trial, because it ought to be in itself quite
unfitted to arouse devout feelings. I fixed on a comic picture, it was
that of Punch, and made believe in its possession of divine attributes.
I addressed it with much quasi-reverence as possessing a mighty power
to reward or punish the behaviour of men towards it, and found little
difficulty in ignoring the impossibilities of what I professed. The
experiment gradually succeeded; I began to feel and long retained for the
picture a large share of the feelings that a barbarian entertains towards
his idol, and learnt to appreciate the enormous potency they might have
over him.
I will mention here a rather weird effect that compiling these “Memories”
has produced on me. By much dwelling upon them they became refurbished
and so vivid as to appear as sharp and definite as things of to-day.
The consequence has been an occasional obliteration of the sense of
Time, and to replace it by the idea of a permanent panorama, painted
throughout with equal vividness, in which the point to which attention
is temporarily directed becomes for that time the Present. The panorama
seems to extend unseen behind a veil which hides the Future, but is
slowly rolling aside and disclosing it. That part of the panorama which
is veiled is supposed to exist as vividly coloured as the rest, though
latent. In short, this experience has given me an occasional feeling that
there are no realities corresponding to Past, Present, and Future, but
that the entire Cosmos is one perpetual Now. Philosophers have often held
this creed intellectually, but I suspect that few have felt the possible
truth of it so vividly as it has occasionally appeared to my imagination
through dwelling on these “Memories.”
Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance,
the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their
Fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the
Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally
read. A gallery in the meeting room is supported by iron columns. The
portion of the audience as seen from the platform who are bounded by
two of these columns, and who sit on two or three of the benches, are a
convenient sample to deal with. They can be watched simultaneously, and
the number of movements in the group per minute can be easily counted
and the average number per man calculated. I have often amused myself
with noticing the increase in that number as the audience becomes
tired. The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time by the
number of my breathings, of which there are fifteen in a minute. They
are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with fifteen
fingers successively. The counting is reserved for the fidgets. These
observations should be confined to persons of middle age. Children are
rarely still, while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for
minutes together.
I will now revert to the problem with which I started, of measuring by
Classification, and will give a few instances of its employment. Some
years ago I attended a meeting in the Albert Hall, at which prizes of
much value were to be awarded to the best made men in Sandow’s gymnastic
classes, as estimated by three examiners, of whom Sir A. Conan Doyle was
one, while Sandow himself acted as referee.
I regret to have destroyed or mislaid the notes I made, so the following
description of the very instructive ceremony may be inaccurate in small
details.
The prizes were three, of an aggregate value of not far from £1000,
and given by Mr. Sandow. He had made a tour to his many centres of
gymnastic teaching in England, and picked out from each of them the man
or men who were most likely to stand well in the competition. The day
arrived; I got a good seat, and was prepared with an opera glass. The
competitors marched into the arena; they were about eighty in number,
and they were in ranks of ten abreast. They were stripped to the waist,
but calico cloths coloured something like a leopard skin were thrown
over their shoulders. So they marched round the arena, then the front
row discarded their leopard skins, and jumped each man on to one of a
row of pedestals arranged in front of the organ. The electric light was
thrown on them. The three examiners walked in front and behind, taking
notes and interchanging views. The man who was selected as the best
of this batch went to one side; the others rejoined their companions.
The same proceeding was gone through with the second row, and so on
successively to the end. Then the selected ones came forward and stood
on the pedestals as before, and were examined still more minutely, if
possible. Finally, the first, second, and third man in order of their
estimated merit were marched to the middle of the hall to the tune of
the “Conquering Hero,” and received their costly prizes in the form of
athletic groups in gold, silver, or bronze.
The point that especially interested me was that I had done my best to
form just decisions of my own, and that I had already selected those who
came second and third as among the best three. But I had wrongly classed
the first prizeman. However, after the judges had made their award I
recognised the superior justness of their estimate to my own. The power
of classifying men correctly, by mere inspection, seemed to me much
greater after this experience than before.
A little more than a year ago, I happened to be at Plymouth, and was
interested in a Cattle exhibition, where a visitor could purchase a
stamped and numbered ticket for sixpence, which qualified him to become
a candidate in a weight-judging competition. An ox was selected, and
each of about eight hundred candidates wrote his name and address on his
ticket, together with his estimate of what the beast would weigh when
killed and “dressed” by the butcher. The most successful of them gained
prizes. The result of these estimates was analogous, under reservation,
to the votes given by a democracy, and it seemed likely to be instructive
to learn how votes were distributed on this occasion, and the value of
the result. So I procured a loan of the cards after the ceremony was
past, and worked them out in a memoir published in _Nature_[177-8]. It
appeared that in this instance the _vox populi_ was correct to within 1
per cent. of the real value; it was 1207 pounds instead of 1198 pounds,
and the individual estimates were distributed in such a way that it was
an equal chance whether one of them selected at random fell within or
without the limits of -3.7 per cent., or +2.4 per cent. of the middlemost
value of the whole.
The result seems more creditable to the trustworthiness of a democratic
judgment than might have been expected. But the proportion of the voters
who were practised in judging weights undoubtedly surpassed that of the
voters in ordinary elections who are versed in politics.
I endeavoured in the memoirs just mentioned, to show the appropriateness
of utilising the _Median_ vote in Councils and in Juries, whenever they
have to consider money questions. Each juryman has his own view of what
the sum should be. I will suppose each of them to be written down. The
best interpretation of their collective view is to my mind _certainly
not_ the average, because the wider the deviation of an individual
member from the average of the rest, the more largely would it effect
the result. In short, unwisdom is given greater weight than wisdom. In
all cases in which one vote is supposed to have one value, the median
value _must_ be the truest representative of the whole, because any other
value would be negatived if put to the vote. If it were more than the
median, more than half of the voters would think it too much; if less,
too little. My idea is that the median ought to be ascertained, which
could be very quickly done by the foreman, aided by one or two others of
the Jury, and be put forward as a substantial proposal, after reading the
various figures from which it was derived.
This is a convenient place for speaking of an analogous problem that
interested me a few years previously[159]. I have had more than once to
assist in determining how a given sum allotted for prizes ought to be
divided between the first and second men when only two prizes are given.
The same problem has to be solved by the judges of cattle shows, and it
is, if a little generalised, of very wide application. I attacked it both
theoretically and practically, and got the same results both ways. When
the number of candidates is known, and the distribution of merit follows
the well-known Gaussian law, the calculation is easy enough, but when the
number of candidates is not known it is a different matter; moreover,
the Gaussian law may not apply to the case, though it will probably do
so pretty closely. So I calculated what the ratios would be in classes
of different numbers and according to the Gaussian law. The ratio in
question is that between the excess of the first performance over the
third, and the excess of the second performance over the third. The third
being the highest that gets no prize at all, forms the starting-point of
the calculation. When the numbers of candidates were either 3, 5, 10,
20, 50, 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000, I found, to my surprise, that
the ratio was much the same. The appropriate portion of the total of one
hundred pounds which should be allotted to the first prize proved to
be seventy-five pounds, leaving twenty-five or one-third of its amount
for the second prize. Even when the number of candidates were at the
minimum of 3, the first prize would be £67; if 5, it would be £71; if 10,
it would be £73; and if 100,000, it would be £75 (to the nearest whole
figures).
Then, through the courtesy of Mr. Muir, the Chief Examiner at the
Education Office, I was allowed to examine a large number of results from
the Civil Service Examinations, and found that the average value of the
first prize should be £74. Taking groups of 50 cases, each group gave
that value pretty closely, no one differing as much as £4 from it.
The subject has since been generalised and discussed in _Biometrika_
with far more mathematical skill than I possess, by both Professor
Karl Pearson and Mr. W. F. Sheppard (a former Senior Wrangler), with
practically the same result, so that if only two prizes are to be given,
whatever be the character of the competition, and whatever the number of
candidates, the first prize should in round numbers be three times the
value of the second.
* * * * *
Professor Max Müller had, in a work dated 1886 or 1887, laid an
exaggerated stress, as I considered, on language as a means of thought,
upon which I wrote some remarks in _Nature_[98], entitled “Thought
without Words,” which led to a short newspaper controversy, June 2,
between us two. My point was that I myself thought hardest when making
no mental use of words. Professor Max Müller’s definitions of what he
considered “words” seemed to me to vary, and therefore to be elusive, so
I did not and will not pursue the matter farther.
It led, however, to the idea of an experiment that seemed worth making,
which I described[128] as “Arithmetic by Smell.” When we propose to add,
and _hear_ the spoken words “two” and “three,” we instantly through
long habit _say_ “five.” Or if we _see_ those figures, we have a mental
image, and _write_ 5. Surely, Sound and Sight-symbols are not the only
Sense-symbols by which arithmetic could be performed.
Leaving aside Colour, Touch, and Taste, I determined to try Smells. The
scents chiefly used were peppermint, camphor, carbolic acid, ammonia, and
aniseed. Each scent was poured profusely on cotton wool loosely packed in
a brass tube, with a nozzle at one end. The other end was pushed tightly
into a caoutchouc tube, whose free end was stopped with a cork. A squeeze
of the tube caused a whiff of scented air to pass through the nozzle.
When the squeeze was relaxed, fresh air was sucked in and became scented
by the way. I taught myself to associate two whiffs of peppermint with
one of camphor, three of peppermint with one of carbolic acid, and so
on. Next, I practised small sums in addition with the scents themselves,
afterwards with the mere imagination of them. I banished without
difficulty all visual and auditory associations, and finally succeeded
perfectly. Thus I fully convinced myself of the possibility of doing
sums in simple addition with considerable speed and accuracy, solely by
imagined scents. I did not care to give further time to this, as I only
wanted to prove a possibility, but did make a few experiments with Taste,
that promised equally well, using salt, sugar, quinine, and citric acid.
* * * * *
I have once in my life experienced the influence of Personal Ascendancy
in that high degree which some great personalities have exercised, and
the occasion of which I speak was the more striking owing to the absence
of concurrent pomp. It was on Garibaldi’s arrival in London, where he was
hailed as a hero. I was standing in Trafalgar Square when he reached it,
driving up Parliament Street. His vehicle was a shabby open carriage,
stuffed with Italians, regardless of style in dress; Garibaldi alone
was standing. I had not been in a greatly excited or exalted mood, but
the simplicity, goodness, and nobility impressed on every lineament of
Garibaldi’s face and person quite overcame me. I realised then what
I never did before or after, something of the impression that Jesus
seems to have exercised on multitudes on more than one occasion. I am
grateful to that experience for revealing to me the hero-worshipping
potentialities of my nature.
When the late Mr. Spurgeon first made his reputation, I went, as many
others did, to hear him. I was in the gallery of his “Tabernacle,”
which was said to hold 11,000 persons, and in which certainly 9000 were
then present, as roughly counted by myself. The men had their hats on,
and conversation was unchecked. Suddenly there was a slight stir that
travelled through the crowd, and the almost childlike features of the
young preacher came into view as he rose from below and mounted the
platform. He simply raised his hand; there was a simultaneous removal
of hats and a great hush, and then the words began. It was a marvellous
instance of the commanding power of a simple gesture.
One more instance, and I have done. It occurred towards the close of
my undergraduate days at Cambridge at a festival which I will not
particularise further than to say it was partly solemn at first, and
broadened into good fellowship without any excess. Songs were sung, and
J. Mitchell Kemble, the subject of Tennyson’s early “Ode to J. M. K.,”[7]
gave time to the chorus of one of the songs by raising his arm and
moving his glass. By those most simple gestures, he drove us all into an
enthusiasm, comparable with that to which negroes are occasionally driven
by an accurately timed tom-tom. In one of Bulwer’s novels, the performer
in a barn exercises equal power over his audience by the movements of a
stick.
The human senses, when rythmically stimulated in certain exact cadences,
are capable of eliciting overwhelming emotions not yet sufficiently
investigated.