Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/424

 412 FEANCIS GALTON: FEEE-WILL OBSEEVATIONS, ETC. kind as the very simple but suggestive instrument, the kaleido- scope. Leonardo da Vinci and Turner both recognised the need of the imagination for something to work upon, for they, and doubtless very many other painters have done the same, systematically watched chance-groupings of objects to gain pictorial suggestions. This "something" need not be external; it may be due to any casual activity of a part of the brain, set in motion by causes alien to that connected series of physiological actions of which the previous chain of thought was the psychical counterpart. These alien causes may be of innumerable kinds, ranging from what might be described as mere fidget, to the results of grave lesions, the consequence of accident or disease. In illustration of what I mean, I give the following example of a visual hallucination being traced to its origin. My correspon- dent wrote to me at length about two classes of mental imagery to which she had been subject for at least 16 years. The one was always present in the dark, when she closed her eyes. It was an assemblage of rapidly moving dots with occasional specks of light. The other occurred at the moment of waking, and was seen behind the still closed lids, though sometimes it persevered like a real object after the eyes had been opened in full daylight. It took the form of some beautiful pattern either of lacework or rich carpetry, full of elaborate details. Then she goes on to say : " Well, one morning I discovered how these patterns were formed. When I awoke but kept my eyes shut, I saw a confused mass of little dots, shapeless but rapidly moving ; suddenly they separated into lines at regular intervals, then followed cross-lines forming diamonds, and in an instant there was the pattern of a carpet, with clusters of roses and leaves at the points, and a smaller rose at the side." I infer that audible hallucinations and every other form of sudden presentation, every new idea, have an analogous source to these visual ones. Moreover, as the imagination works in obscure depths out of the usual ken of consciousness, there seems reason for supposing that the " something " upon which it works may in most cases be equally beyond its view. It is also certain that those who introspect, and those who study the genesis of dreams, succeed in discovering plain causes for numerous images and thoughts that had seemed to have risen spontaneously. If these explanations are correct, as I feel assured they are, we must understand the word " spontaneity " in the same sense that a scientific man understands the word " chance ". He thereby affirms his ignorance of the precise causes of an event, but he does not in any way deny the possibility of determining them. The general results of my introspective inquiry support the views of those who hold that man is little more than a conscious machine, the larger part of whose actions are predictable. As regards such residuum as there may be, which is not automatic