having been in existence as far back as they recollect. One states
that he knows he possessed it at the age of four; another, that he
learnt his multiplication table by the aid of the elaborate mental
diagram he still uses. Not one in ten is able to suggest any clue as
to their origin. They cannot be due to anything written or printed,
because they do not simulate what is found in ordinary writings or
books.

About one-third of the figures are curved to the left, two-thirds to
the right; they run more often upward than downward. They do not
commonly lie in a single plane. Sometimes a Form has twists as well
as bends, sometimes it is turned upside down, sometimes it plunges
into an abyss of immeasurable depth, or it rises and disappears in
the sky. My correspondents are often in difficulties when trying to
draw them in perspective. One sent me a stereoscopic picture
photographed from a wire that had been bent into the proper shape.
In one case the Form proceeds at first straightforward, then it
makes a backward sweep high above head, and finally recurves into
the pocket, of all places! It is often sloped upwards at a slight
inclination from a little below the level of the eye, just as
objects on a table would appear to a child whose chin was barely
above it.

It may seem strange that children should have such bold conceptions
as of curves sweeping loftily upward or downward to immeasurable
depths, but I think it may be accounted for by their much larger
personal experience of the vertical dimension of space than adults.
They are lifted, tossed and swung, but adults pass their lives very
much on a level, and only judge of heights by inference from the
picture on their retina. Whenever a man first ventures up in a
balloon, or is let, like a gatherer of sea-birds' eggs, over the
face of a precipice, he is conscious of having acquired a much
extended experience of the third dimension of space.

The character of the forms under which historical dates are
visualised contrast strongly with the ordinary Number-Forms. They
are sometimes copied from the numerical ones, but they are more
commonly based both clearly and consciously on the diagrams used in
the schoolroom or on some recollected fancy.

The months of the year are usually perceived as ovals, and they as
often follow one another in a reverse direction to those of the
figures on the clock, as in the same direction. It is a common
peculiarity that the months do not o