Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development by Francis Galton
page 46 of 387 (11%)
page 46 of 387 (11%)
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of the first moment to the merchant that he should be rightly advised
on the real value of what he is about to purchase or to sell. If the sensitivity of women were superior to that of men, the self-interest of merchants would lead to their being [3] always employed; but as the reverse is the case, the opposite supposition is likely to be the true one. [Footnote 3: See "Remarks on Idiocy," by E.W. Graham, M. D., _Medical Journal_, January 16, 1875.] Ladies rarely distinguish the merits of wine at the dinner-table, and though custom allows them to preside at the breakfast-table, men think them on the whole to be far from successful makers of tea and coffee. Blind persons are reputed to have acquired in compensation for the loss of their eyesight an increased acuteness in their other senses; I was therefore curious to make some trials with my test apparatus, which I will describe in the next chapter. I was permitted to do so on a number of boys at a large educational blind asylum, but found that, although they were anxious to do their best, their performances were by no means superior to those of other boys. It so happened that the blind lads who showed the most delicacy of touch and won the little prizes I offered to excite emulation, barely reached the mediocrity of the various sighted lads of the same age whom I had previously tested. I have made not a few observations and inquiries, and find that the guidance of the blind depends mainly on the multitude of collateral indications to which they give much heed, and not in their superior sensitivity to any one of them. Those who see do not care for so many of these collateral indications, and |
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