Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/560

 mental images should sometimes closely resemble these portraits except in one important respect; namely, that the effect produced by the huge bulk of ordinary facts is never in proportion to their numbers. Consequently, we find that undue consideration is inevitably given in generic images to all exceptional cases. When the exceptions in excess are balanced by those in deficiency, the value of the average will not be affected, and there is always a tendency toward that result. The fault that remains wholly uncorrected is, that the great prevalence of mediocre instances is overlooked, and the number and importance of the deviations are largely over-estimated. The tendency of the mind of the child and of the savage, and in all branches of knowledge in their prescientific stage, is necessarily toward the marvelous and the miraculous.

The generic images that might arise in a mind superhumanly logical and active would be subject to no other error than this, but in the human mind it is not so. Some of the images in every presumed generic group are sure to be aliens to the genus and to have become associated to the rest by superficial and fallacious resemblances, such as common minds are especially attentive to. Again, the number of pictures that are blended together is sure to fall far short of the whole store that would be available if the memory were immeasurably stronger than it is, and more ready in its action. Knowing also as I do, from considerable experience of composites, what monstrous and abortive productions may result from ill-sorted combinations of portraits, and how much care in selection and nicety of adjustment is required to produce the truest possible generic image, I cease to wonder at the numerous shortcomings in our generalizations and at their absurd and frequent fallacies. The human mind is a most imperfect apparatus for the elaboration of true general ideas. Compared with the mind of brutes, its powers are marvelous; but for all that they fall vastly short of perfection. The criterion of a perfect mind would be the power of always creating vivid images of a truly generic kind, deduced from the whole range of its past experiences.

General impressions are the faint traces left by generic images, and have all their defects, as well as others, due to their own want of definition. They are never to be trusted. Unfortunately, when general impressions are of long standing they become fixed rules of life, and assume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently, those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain a hatred and horror of statistics. They can not endure the notion of submitting their sacred general impressions to cold-blooded verification. But it is the triumph of scientific men to rise superior to such superstitions, to devise tests by which the value of beliefs may be ascertained, and to feel sufficiently masters of themselves to discard contemptuously whatever may be found untrue.—Nineteenth Century.