e points of the compass,
real or imaginary. I have received full and curious descriptions
from very different sources of this strong geographical tendency,
and in one or two cases I have reason to think it allied to a
considerable faculty of geographical comprehension.

The power of visualising is higher in the female sex than in the male,
and is somewhat, but not much, higher in public schoolboys than in
men. After maturity is reached, the further advance of age does not
seem to dim the faculty, but rather the reverse, judging from
numerous statements to that effect; but advancing years are
sometimes accompanied by a growing habit of hard abstract thinking,
and in these cases--not uncommon among those whom I have
questioned--the faculty undoubtedly becomes impaired. There is
reason to believe that it is very high in some young children, who
seem to spend years of difficulty in distinguishing between the
subjective and objective world. Language and book-learning certainly
tend to dull it.

The visualising faculty is a natural gift, and, like all natural
gifts, has a tendency to be inherited. In this faculty the tendency
to inheritance is exceptionally strong, as I have abundant evidence
to prove, especially in respect to certain rather rare peculiarities,
of which I shall speak in the next chapter, and which, when they
exist at all, are usually found among two, three, or more brothers
and sisters, parents, children, uncles and aunts, and cousins.

Since families differ so much in respect to this gift, we may
suppose that races would also differ, and there can be no doubt that
such is the case. I hardly like to refer to civilised nations,
because their natural faculties are too much modified by education
to allow of their being appraised in an off-hand fashion. I may,
however, speak of the French, who appear to possess the visualising
faculty in a high degree. The peculiar ability they show in
prearranging ceremonials _fetes_ of all kinds, and their undoubted
genius for tactics and strategy, show that they are able to foresee
effects with unusual clearness. Their ingenuity in all technical
contrivances is an additional testimony in the same direction, and
so is their singular clearness of expression. Their phrase,
"figurez-vous," or "picture to yourself," seems to express their
dominant mode of perception. Our equivalent of "imagine" is ambiguous.

It is among uncivilised races that natural differences in the
visua