Language is full of faded metaphors which show how the things of the mind are conceived in images formed through the senses. Those who address popular audiences clothe their thoughts in figures of speech based upon the mental pictures in which the common people carry on their thinking. The ability to think in the language of science and philosophy is a later development, and those who by disuse or neglect impair their power to think in sense-images pay a penalty in losing, or never acquiring, the power to move the multitudes.
The power to think in mental pictures, or through the sense-impressions which memory recalls, varies in different persons. Occasionally the sense of touch is very active; the child in such cases manifests a desire to handle everything within reach, and undoubtedly gains impressions of peculiar strength answering its desire to know. A limited number of children in every school get their best impressions through the ear, and hence are said to be ear-minded; but the far larger proportion are eye-minded to the extent of connecting their most accurate knowledge with images obtained through vision. Similar peculiarities exist among older persons. A friend claims that he hears the voices of speakers while reading the proof-sheets of their speeches. Another friend claims that he cannot bring up a mental picture of the faces of his children and his friends, but he writes out strains of music which he thinks and hears while seated on railway cars. The power of bringing up a vivid picture of the breakfast-table, or of some scene of special interest, is possessed by many persons. They live over again in memory the delights of travel, and enjoy scenery through the vivid mental pictures stored away in the treasure-house of memory. The ability to appreciate the best literature in prose and poetry depends largely upon the power of visualizing the realities at the basis of the descriptions and figures of speech. Francis Galton thinks that the perspicuous style of French literature and the wonderful manual skill of the French people is due to their power of thinking in visual images. He says,—
“The French appear to possess the visualizing faculty in a high degree. The peculiar ability they show in prearranging ceremonials and fêtes 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.”[29]