Part 5

Enough has been said to show how very delicate a problem we have here to deal with. And if scientific men are still busy settling the point how the problem can be best dealt with, it seems hopeless for the amateur to dabble in the matter.

I have purposely chosen a problem of peculiar complexity and delicacy in order to illustrate the importance of that training which makes the mental eye of the observer quick to analyse the phenomenon to be dealt with so as to take in all its conditions. Yet there are many parts of this work of observing the child's mind which do not make so heavy a demand on technical ability, but can be done by any intelligent observer prepared for the task by a reasonable amount of psychological study. I refer more particularly to that rich and highly interesting field of exploration which opens up when the child begins to talk. It is in the spontaneous utterances of children, their first quaint uses of words, that we can best watch the play of the instinctive tendencies of thought. Children's talk is always valuable to a psychologist; and for my part I would be glad of as many anecdotal records of their sayings as I could collect.

Here, then, there seems to be room for a relatively simple and unskilled kind of observing work. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that even this branch of child-observation requires nothing but ordinary intelligence. To begin with, we are all prone, till by special training we have learned to check the inclination, to read far too much of our older thought and sentiment into children. As M. Drox observes, "we are the dupes of ourselves when we observe the babe."

Again, there is a subtle source of error connected with the very attitude of undergoing examination which only a carefully trained observer of childish ways will avoid. A child is very quick in spying whether he is being observed, and as soon as he suspects that you are specially interested in his talk he is apt to try to produce an effect. This wish to say something startling, wonderful, or what not, will, it is obvious, detract from the value of the utterance.

But once more the saying which it is so easy to report has had its history, and the observer who knows something of psychology will look out for facts, that is to say, experiences of the child, suggestions made by others' words which throw light on the saying. No fact is really quite simple, and the reason why some facts look so simple is that the observer does not include in his view all the connections of the occurrence which he is inspecting. The unskilled observer of children is apt to send scraps, fragments of facts, which have not their natural setting. The value of psychological training is that it makes one as jealously mindful of wholeness in facts as a housewife of wholeness in her porcelain. It is, indeed, only when the whole fact is before us, in well-defined contour, that we can begin to deal with its meaning. Thus although those ignorant of psychology may assist us in this region of fact-finding, they can never accomplish that completer and exacter kind of observation which we dignify by the name of Science.

One may conclude then that women may be fitted to become valuable labourers in this new field of investigation, if only they will acquire a genuine scientific interest in babyhood, and a fair amount of scientific training. That a large number of women will get so far is I think doubtful: the sentimental or æsthetic attraction of the baby is apt to be a serious obstacle to a cold matter-of-fact examination of it as a scientific specimen. The natural delight of a mother in every new exhibition of infantile wisdom or prowess is liable to blind her to the exceedingly modest significance of the child's performances as seen from the scientific point of view. Yet as I have hinted, this very fondness for infantile ways, may, if only the scientific caution is added, prove a valuable excitant to study. In England, and in America, there are already a considerable number of women who have undergone some serious training in psychology, and it may not be too much to hope that before long we shall have a band of mothers and aunts busily engaged in noting and recording the movements of children's minds.

I have assumed here that what is wanted is careful studies of individual children as they may be approached in the nursery. And these records of individual children, after the pattern of Preyer's monograph, are I think our greatest need. We are wont to talk rather too glibly about that abstraction, "the child," as if all children rigorously corresponded to one pattern, of which pattern we have a perfect knowledge. Mothers at least know that this is not so. Children of the same family will be found to differ very widely (within the comparatively narrow field of childish traits), as, for example, in respect of matter-of-factness, of fancifulness, of inquisitiveness. Thus, while it is probably true that most children at a certain age are greedy of the pleasures of the imagination, Nature in her well-known dislike of monotony has taken care to make a few decidedly unimaginative. We need to know much more about these variations: and what will best help us here is a number of careful records of infant progress, embracing examples not only of different sexes and temperaments, but also of different social conditions and nationalities. When we have such a collection of monographs we shall be in a much better position to fill out the hazy outline of our abstract conception of childhood with definite and characteristic lineaments.

At the same time I gladly allow that other modes of observation are possible and in their way useful. This applies to older children who pass into the collective existence of the school-class. Here something like collective or statistical inquiry may be begun, as that into the contents of children's minds, their ignorances and misapprehensions about common objects. Some part of this inquiry into the minds of school children may very well be undertaken by an intelligent teacher. Thus it would be valuable to have careful records of children's progress carried out by pre-arranged tests, so as to get collections of examples of mental activity at different ages. More special lines of inquiry having a truly experimental character might be carried out by experts, as those already begun with reference to children's "span of apprehension," i.e., the number of digits or nonsense syllables that can be reproduced after a single hearing, investigations into the effects of fatigue on mental processes, into the effect of number of repetitions on the certainty of reproduction, into musical sensitiveness and so forth.

Valuable as such statistical investigation undoubtedly is, it is no substitute for the careful methodical study of the individual child. This seems to me the greatest desideratum just now. Since the teacher needs for practical reasons to make a careful study of individuals he might well assist here. In these days of literary collaboration it might not be amiss for a kindergarten teacher to write an account of a child's mind in co-operation with the mother. Such a record if well done would be of the greatest value. The co-operation of the mother seems to me quite indispensable, since even where there is out-of-class intercourse between teacher and pupil the knowledge acquired by the former never equals that of the mother.

FOOTNOTES:

The great advantage which the female observer of the infant's mind has over her male competitor is clearly illustrated in some recent studies of childhood by American women. I would especially call attention to a study by Miss M. W. Shinn, (University of California series) Notes on the Development of a Child (the writer's niece), where the minute and painstaking record (e.g. of the child's colour-discrimination and visual space exploration) points to the ample opportunity of observation which comes more readily to women.

"Mental Development in the Child and the Race," chap. III.

TWINS, THEIR HISTORY AS A CRITERION OF THE RELATIVE POWERS OF NATURE AND NURTURE

FRANCIS GALTON

The exceedingly close resemblance attributed to twins has been the subject of many novels and plays, and most persons have felt a desire to know upon what basis of truth those works of fiction may rest. But twins have many other claims to attention, one of which will be discussed in the present memoir. It is, that their history affords means of distinguishing between the effects of tendencies received at birth, and of those that were imposed by the circumstances of their after lives; in other words, between the effects of nature and of nurture. This is a subject of especial importance in its bearings on investigations into mental heredity, and I, for my part, have keenly felt the difficulty of drawing the necessary distinction whenever I tried to estimate the degree in which mental ability was, on the average, inherited. The objection to statistical evidence in proof of its inheritance has always been: "The persons whom you compare may have lived under similar social conditions and have had similar advantages of education, but such prominent conditions are only a small part of those that determine the future of each man's life. It is to trifling accidental circumstances that the bent of his disposition and his success are mainly due, and these you leave wholly out of account--in fact, they do not admit of being tabulated, and therefore your statistics, however plausible at first sight, are really of very little use." No method of enquiry which I have been able to carry out--and I have tried many methods--is wholly free from this objection. I have therefore attacked the problem from the opposite side, seeking for some new method by which it would be possible to weigh in just scales the respective effects of nature and nurture, and to ascertain their several shares in framing the disposition and intellectual ability of men. The life history of twins supplies what I wanted. We might begin by enquiring about twins who were closely alike in boyhood and youth, and who were educated together for many years, and learn whether they subsequently grew unlike, and, if so, what the main causes were which, in the opinion of the family, produced the dissimilarity. In this way we may obtain much direct evidence of the kind we want; but we can also obtain yet more valuable evidence by a converse method. We can enquire into the history of twins who were exceedingly unlike in childhood, and learn how far they became assimilated under the influence of their identical nurtures; having the same home, the same teachers, the same associates, and in every other respect the same surroundings.

My materials were obtained by sending circulars of enquiry to persons who were either twins themselves or the near relations of twins. The printed questions were in thirteen groups; the last of them asked for the addresses of other twins known to the recipient who might be likely to respond if I wrote to them. This happily led to a continually widening circle of correspondence, which I pursued until enough material was accumulated for a general reconnaissance of the subject.

The reader will easily understand that the word "twins" is a vague expression, which covers two very dissimilar events; the one corresponding to the progeny of animals that have usually more than one young one at a birth, and the other corresponding to those double-yolked eggs that are due to two germinal spots in a single ovum. The consequence of this is, that I find a curious discontinuity in my results. One would have expected that twins would commonly be found to possess a certain average likeness to one another; that a few would greatly exceed that degree of likeness, and a few would greatly fall short of it; but this is not at all the case. Twins may be divided into three groups, so distinct that there are not many intermediate instances; namely, strongly alike, moderately alike, and extremely dissimilar. When the twins are a boy and a girl, they are never closely alike; in fact, their origin never corresponds to that of the above-mentioned double-yolked eggs.

I have received about eighty returns of cases of close similarity, thirty-five of which entered into many instructive details. In a few of these not a single point of difference could be specified. In the remainder, the colour of the hair and eyes were almost always identical; the height, weight, and strength were generally very nearly so, but I have a few cases of a notable difference in these, notwithstanding the resemblance was otherwise very near. The manner and address of the thirty-five pairs of twins is usually described as being very similar, though there often exists a difference of expression familiar to near relatives but unperceived by strangers. The intonation of the voice when speaking is commonly the same, but it frequently happens that the twins sing in different keys. Most singularly, that one point in which similarity is rare is the handwriting. I cannot account for this, considering how strongly handwriting runs in families, but I am sure of the fact. I have only one case in which nobody, not even the twins themselves, could distinguish their own notes of lectures, etc.; barely two or three in which the handwriting was undistinguishable by others, and only a few in which it was described as closely alike. On the other hand, I have many in which it is stated to be unlike, and some in which it is alluded to as the only point of difference.

One of my enquiries was for anecdotes as regards the mistakes made by near relatives between the twins. They are numerous, but not very varied in character. When the twins are children, they have commonly to be distinguished by ribbons tied round their wrist or neck; nevertheless the one is sometimes fed, physicked, and whipped by mistake for the other, and the description of these little domestic catastrophes is usually given to me by the mother, in a phraseology that is somewhat touching by reason of its seriousness. I have one case in which a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in their bath, and the presumed A is not really B, and vice versa. In another case an artist was engaged on the portraits of twins who were between three and four years of age; he had to lay aside his work for three weeks, and, on resuming it, could not tell to which child the respective likenesses he had in hand belonged. The mistakes are less numerous on the part of the mother during the boyhood and girlhood of the twins, but almost as frequent on the part of strangers. I have many instances of tutors being unable to distinguish their twin pupils. Thus, two girls used regularly to impose on their music teacher when one of them wanted a whole holiday; they had their lessons at separate hours, and the one girl sacrificed herself to receive two lessons on the same day, while the other one enjoyed herself. Here is a brief and comprehensive account: "Exactly alike in all, their schoolmasters never could tell them apart; at dancing parties they constantly changed partners without discovery; their close resemblance is scarcely diminished by age." The following is a typical schoolboy anecdote: Two twins were fond of playing tricks, and complaints were frequently made; but the boys would never own which was the guilty one, and the complainants were never certain which of the two he was. One head master used to say he would never flog the innocent for the guilty, and another used to flog both. No less than nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or her reflection in a looking-glass, and addressing it, in the belief it was the other twin in person. I have many anecdotes of mistakes when the twins were nearly grown up. Thus: "Amusing scenes occurred at college when one twin came to visit the other; the porter on one occasion refused to let the visitor out of the college gates, for, though they stood side by side, he professed ignorance as to which he ought to allow to depart."

Children are usually quick in distinguishing between their parents and his or her twin: but I have two cases to the contrary. Thus, the daughter of a twin says: "Such was the marvellous similarity of their features, voice, manner, etc. that I remember, as a child, being very much puzzled, and I think, had my aunt lived much with us, I should have ended by thinking I had two mothers." The other, a father of twins, remarks: "We were extremely alike, and are so at this moment, so much so that our children up to five and six years old did not know us apart."

I have four or five instances of doubt during an engagement of marriage. Thus: "A married first, but both twins met the lady together for the first time, and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place, and neither the lady nor her parents could tell which was which." I have also a German letter, written in quaint terms, about twin brothers who married sisters, but could not easily be distinguished by them. In the well-known novel by Mr. Wilkie Collins of "Poor Miss Finch," the blind girl distinguishes the twin she loves by the touch of his hand, which gives her a thrill that the touch of the other brother does not. Philosophers have not, I believe, as yet investigated the conditions of such thrills; but I have a case in which Miss Finch's test would have failed. Two persons, both friends of a certain twin lady, told me that she had frequently remarked to them that "kissing her twin sister was not like kissing her other sisters, but like kissing herself--her own hand, for example."

It would be an interesting experiment for twins who were closely alike, to try how far dogs could distinguish between them by scent.

I have a few anecdotes of strange mistakes made between twins in adult life. Thus, an officer writes: "On one occasion when I returned from foreign service my father turned to me and said, 'I thought you were in London,' thinking I was my brother--yet he had not seen me for nearly four years--our resemblance was so great."

The next and last anecdote I shall give is, perhaps, the most remarkable of those that I have: it was sent me by the brother of the twins, who were in middle life at the time of its occurrence: "A was again coming home from India, on leave; the ship did not arrive for some days after it was due; the twin brother B had come up from his quarters to receive A, and their old mother was very nervous. One morning A rushed in, saying, 'Oh, mother, how are you?' Her answer was, 'No, B, it's a bad joke; you know how anxious I am!' and it was a little time before A could persuade her that he was the real man."

Enough has been said to prove that an extremely close personal resemblance frequently exists between twins of the same sex; and that, although the resemblance usually diminishes as they grow into manhood and womanhood, some cases occur in which the resemblance is lessened in a hardly perceptible degree. It must be borne in mind that the divergence of development, when it occurs, need not be ascribed to the effect of different nurtures, but that it is quite possible that it may be due to the appearance of qualities inherited at birth, though dormant, like gout, in early life. To this I shall recur.

There is a curious feature in the character of the resemblance between twins, which has been alluded to by a few correspondents: it is well illustrated by the following quotations. A mother of twins says: "There seems to be a sort of interchangeable likeness in expression, that often gave to each the affect of being more like his brother than himself." Again, two twin brothers, writing to me, after analysing their points of resemblance, which are close and numerous, and pointing out certain shades of difference, add: "These seem to have marked us through life, though for a while when we were first separated, the one to go to business, and the other to college, our respective characters were inverted; we both think that at that time we each ran into the character of the other. The proof of this consists in our own recollections, in our correspondence by letter, and in the views which we then took of matters in which we were interested." In explanation of this apparent interchangeableness, we must recollect that no character is simple, and that in twins who strongly resemble each other every expression in the one may be matched by a corresponding expression in the other, but it does not follow that the same expression should be the dominant one in both cases. Now it is by their dominant expressions that we should distinguish between the twins; consequently when one twin has temporarily the expression which is the dominant one in his brother, he is apt to be mistaken for him. There are also cases where the development of the two twins is not strictly by equal steps; they reach the same goal at the same time, but not by identical stages. Thus: A is born the larger, then B overtakes and surpasses A, the end being that the twins become closely alike. This process would aid in giving an interchangeable likeness at certain periods of their growth, and is undoubtedly due to nature more frequently than to nurture.

Among my thirty-five detailed cases of close similarity, there are no less than seven in which both twins suffered from some special ailment or had some exceptional peculiarity. One twin writes that she and her sister "have both the defect of not being able to come down stairs quickly, which, however, was not born with them, but came on at the age of twenty." Another pair of twins have a slight congenital flexure of one of the joints of the little finger: it was inherited from a grandmother, but neither parents, nor brothers, nor sisters show the least trace of it. In another case, one was born ruptured, and the other became so at six months old. Two twins at the age of twenty-three were attacked by toothache, and the same tooth had to be extracted in each case. There are curious and close correspondences mentioned in the falling off of the hair. Two cases are mentioned of death from the same disease; one of which is very affecting. The outline of the story was that the twins were closely alike and singularly attached, and had identical tastes; they both obtained Government clerkships, and kept house together, when one sickened and died of Bright's disease, and the other also sickened of the same disease and died seven months later.

In no less than nine out of the thirty-five cases does it appear that both twins are apt to sicken at the same time. This implies so intimate a constitutional resemblance, that it is proper to give some quotations in evidence. Thus, the father of two twins says: "Their general health is closely alike; whenever one of them has an illness the other invariably has the same within a day or two, and they usually recover in the same order. Such has been the case with whooping cough, chicken-pox, and measles; also with slight bilious attacks, which they have successively. Latterly, they had a feverish attack at the same time." Another parent of twins says: "If anything ails one of them, identical symptoms nearly always appear in the other: this has been singularly visible in two instances during the last two months. Thus, when in London, one fell ill with a violent attack of dysentery, and within twenty-four hours the other had precisely the same symptoms."