I
now use are different and complex. They are fully explained in the
Appendix for the use of those who may care to know about them.

The effect of composite portraiture is to bring into evidence all
the traits in which there is agreement, and to leave but a ghost of
a trace of individual peculiarities. There are so many traits in
common in all faces that the composite picture when made from many
components is far from being a blur; it has altogether the look of
an ideal composition.

It may be worth mentioning that when I take any small bundle of
portraits, selected at hazard, I have generally found it easy to
sort them into about five groups, four of which have enough
resemblance among themselves to make as many fairly clear composites,
while the fifth consists of faces that are too incongruous to be
grouped in a single class. In dealing with portraits of brothers and
sisters, I can generally throw most of them into a single group, with
success.

In the small collection of composites given in the Plate facing p. 8,
I have purposely selected many of those that I have previously
published, and whose originals, on a larger scale, I have at various
times exhibited, together with their components, in order to put the
genuineness of the results beyond doubt. Those who see them for the
first time can hardly believe but that one dominant face has
overpowered the rest, and that they are composites only in name. When,
however, the details are examined, this objection disappears. It is
true that with careless photography one face may be allowed to
dominate, but with the care that ought to be taken, and with the
precautions described in the Appendix, that does not occur. I have
often been amused when showing composites and their components to
friends, to hear a strong expression of opinion that the
predominance of one face was evident, and then on asking which face
it was, to discover that they disagreed. I have even known a
composite in which one portrait seemed unduly to prevail, to be
remade without the component in question, and the result to be much
the same as before, showing that the reason of the resemblance was
that the rejected portrait had a close approximation to the ideal
average picture of the rest.

These small composites give a better notion of the utmost capacity
of the process than the larger ones, from which they are reduced.
In the latter, the ghosts of individual peculiarities are more
visible, and usu