s of different persons are mutually unintelligible. These
strange "visions," for such they must be called, are extremely vivid
in some cases, but are almost incredible to the vast majority of
mankind, who would set them down as fantastic nonsense; nevertheless,
they are familiar parts of the mental furniture of the rest, in
whose imaginations they have been unconsciously formed, and where
they remain unmodified and unmodifiable by teaching. I have received
many touching accounts of their childish experiences from persons
who see the Number-Forms, and other curious visions of which I have
spoken or shall speak. As is the case with the colour-blind, so with
these seers. They imagined at first that everybody else had the same
way of regarding things as themselves. Then they betrayed their
peculiarities by some chance remark that called forth a stare of
surprise, followed by ridicule and a sharp scolding for their
silliness, so that the poor little things shrank back into themselves,
and never ventured again to allude to their inner world. I will
quote just one of many similar letters as a sample. I received it,
together with much interesting information, immediately after a
lecture I gave to the British Association at Swansea, in which I had
occasion to speak of the Number-Forms. The writer says:--

"I had no idea for many years that every one did not imagine numbers
in the same positions as those in which they appear to me. One
unfortunate day I spoke of it, and was sharply rebuked for my
absurdity. Being a very sensitive child I felt this acutely, but
nothing ever shook my belief that, absurd or not, I always saw
numbers in this particular way. I began to be ashamed of what I
considered a peculiarity, and to imagine myself, from this and
various other mental beliefs and states, as somewhat isolated and
peculiar. At your lecture the other night, though I am now over
twenty-nine, the memory of my childish misery at the dread of being
peculiar came over me so strongly that I felt I must thank you for
proving that, in this particular at any rate, my case is most common."

The next sort of vision that flashes unaccountably into existence is
the instant association in some persons of colour with sound, which
was spoken of in the last chapter, and on which I need not say more
now.

A third curious and abiding fantasy of certain persons is invariably
to connect visualised pictures with words, the same picture to the
same wor