Francis Galton correspondence, 1880 June 7

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Summary

Creators:
Galton, Francis, 1822-1911
Extent:
1 unknown (1 sheet)
Language:
English .

Background

Scope and content:

In a letter to "Lady Mary", written from the Hotel Cherbourg-Vichy, Allier, France on 7 June 1880, Francis Galton alludes to his work on people who produced mental maps of numbers, which he called "number forms" or "visualized numerals": "Your note has just reached me at Vichy, where my wife has been banished on account of health for 3 weeks, so, amongst other pleasures, we lost that of being at the R. Soc. [Royal Society] conversazione where I would have been very glad to have heard [M?] Martineau's account. I hope you have not lost their first separate pencil sketches. They would be of very great interest to me, because it is rare that the shape of the number-form agrees closely in two relations. The hereditary tendency to form some forms is very strong, and that to make a particular form is independent, so that there is a double or compound chance against a particular form being inherited. I am still collecting these cases, wherever they are exceptional, for although my memoir with about 35 illustrations is in type and done with (though not yet published) I suppose that I shall write a book before long about mental imagery general[l]y and sh[oul]d of course revise and add to what has been published before." He continues: "Just now I am busy in Hallucinations. It is a most curious subject. I feel sure that much more may be theorized about their origin than has yet been done. ..."

Galton's first paper on visualized numerals was published shortly before this letter was written (Nature, 15 January, 1880, v.21, p.252-256). His reference to a typeset, unpublished book may be his "The visions of sane persons" (1881), although it is his "Inquiries into human faculty and its development "(London: MacMillan and Co., 1883) which includes 64 illustrations of mental maps of numbers.

Handwritten in ink on unlined blue paper. Unaccompanied by postal cover.

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