96.  It is only as a figure of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene as a “mental image” which I can “see” with my “mind’s eye.” ...  The memory possesses it, and the mind can at will roam over the whole, or study minutely any part.

97.  No individual objects, only a general idea of a very uncertain kind.

98.  No.  My memory is not of the nature of a spontaneous vision, though I remember well where a word occurs in a page, how furniture looks in a room, etc.  The ideas not felt to be mental pictures, but rather the symbols of facts.

99.  Extremely dim.  The impressions are in all respects so dim, vague, and transient, that I doubt whether they can reasonably be called images.  They are incomparably less than those of dreams.

100.  My powers are zero.  To my consciousness there is almost no association of memory with objective visual impressions.  I recollect the breakfast-table, but do not see it.

These quotations clearly show the great variety of natural powers of visual representation, and though the returns from which they are taken have, as I said, no claim to be those of 100 Englishmen taken at haphazard, nevertheless, to the best of my judgment, they happen to differ among themselves in much the same way that such returns would have done.  I cannot procure a strictly haphazard series for comparison, because in any group of persons whom I may question there are always many too indolent to reply, or incapable of expressing themselves, or who from some fancy of their own are unwilling to reply.  Still, as already mentioned, I have got together several groups that approximate to what is wanted, usually from schools, and I have analysed them as well as I could, and the general result is that the above returns may be accepted as a fair representation of the visualising powers of Englishmen.  Treating these according to the method described in the chapter of statistics, we have the following results, in which, as a matter of interest, I have also recorded the highest and the lowest of the series:—­

Highest.—­Brilliant, distinct, never blotchy.

* * * * *

First Suboctile.—­The image once seen is perfectly clear and bright.

First Octile.—­I can see my breakfast-table or any equally familiar thing with my mind’s eye quite as well in all particulars as I can do if the reality is before me.

First Quartile—­Fairly clear; illumination of actual scene is fairly represented.  Well defined.  Parts do not obtrude themselves, but attention has to be directed to different points in succession to call up the whole.

Middlemost.—­Fairly clear.  Brightness probably at least from one-half to two-thirds of the original.  Definition varies very much, one or two objects being much more distinct than the others, but the latter come out clearly if attention be paid to them.