mosphere. To the particles of these gases he ascribed definite form, and represented by diagram his idea of the constitution of the air. About 1803 Dalton began to picture atoms as of different sizes. He formed visual images of molecules of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide, of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, of ethylene and ethane. In his laboratory note-book during the autumn of 1803 he made entry of his symbols for hydrogen (O), oxygen (O), nitrogen (0), carbon (), sulphur (), and several of their compounds, as (●), (10), (0●0), (000), etc. Dalton could not accept with equanimity the less graphic method of representing chemical elements and compounds. As late as 1837 he wrote: "Berzelius's symbols are horrifying: a young student in chemistry might as soon learn Hebrew as make himself acquainted with them. They appear like a chaos of atoms and to equally perplex the adepts of science, to discourage the learner, as well as to cloud the beauty and simplicity of the Atomic Theory." Would the development of modern chemistry have proceeded more rapidly if the symbols of Dalton, which appeal to the imaginative thinker, had triumphed over the symbols of Berzelius, which appeal to the conceptual thinker?

Kekulé has left an intimate record, worth reproducing in extenso, of his own experience as a scientific discoverer.

Genius has been spoken of, and the Benzene Theory has been designated a work of genius. I have often asked myself what, exactly, is genius, in what does it consist? It is said that genius recognizes the truth without knowing the proof of it. I do not doubt that from the most remote times this idea has been entertained. "Would Pythagoras have sacrificed a hecatomb if he had not known his famous proposition till he found proof?"

It is also said that genius thinks by leaps and bounds. Gentlemen, the waking mind does not so think. That is not granted to it. Perhaps it would be of interest to you if I should place before you some highly indiscreet statements as to how I arrived at certain ideas of mine. During my stay in London, I lived for a long time in Clapham Road in the vicinity of the Common. My evenings, however, I spent with my friend Hugo Müller at Islington at the opposite end of the metropolis. We used to talk of all sorts of things, mostly, however, of our beloved chemistry. One beautiful summer evening I was riding on the last omnibus through the deserted streets usually so filled with life. I rode as usual on the outside of the omnibus. I fell into a revery. Atoms flitted before my eyes. I had always seen them in movement, these little beings, but I had never before succeeded in perceiving their manner of moving. That evening, however, I saw that frequently two smaller atoms were coupled together, that larger ones seized the two smaller ones, that still larger ones held fast three and even four of the smaller ones and that all whirled around in a bewildering dance. I saw how the larger atoms formed a row and one dragged along still smaller ones at the ends of the chain. I saw what Kopp, my revered teacher and friend, describes so charmingly in his

2 Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 1890, pages 1305-1307.

"Molecularwelt"; but I saw it long before him. The cry of the guard, "Clapham Road," waked me from my revery; but I spent a part of the night writing down sketches of these dream pictures. Thus arose the structural theory.

It was very much the same with the Benzene Theory. During my stay in Ghent, Belgium, I occupied pleasant bachelor quarters in the main street. My study, however, was in a narrow alleyway and had during the day time no light. For a chemist who spends the hours of daylight in the laboratory this was no disadvantage. I was sitting there engaged in writing my text-book; but it wasn't going very well; my mind was on other things. I turned my chair toward the fireplace and sank into a doze. Again the atoms were flitting before my eyes. Smaller groups now kept modestly in the background. My mind's eye, sharpened by repeated visions of a similar sort, now distinguished larger structures of varying forms. Long rows frequently close together, all, in movement, winding and turning like serpents! And see! What was that? One of the serpents seized its own tail and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. I came awake like a flash of lightning. This time also I spent the remainder of the night working out the consequences of the hypothesis. If we learn to dream, gentlemen, then we shall perhaps find truth

"To him who forgoes thought,
Truth seems to come unsought;
He gets it without labor.".

We must take care, however, not to publish our dreams before submitting them to proof by the waking mind. "Countless germs of mental life fill the realm of space but only in a few rare minds do they find soil for their development; in them the idea, of which no one knows whence it came, lives as an active process." As I have told you before, at certain times certain ideas are in the air. We hear now from Liebig that the germs of ideas are like the spores of bacilli which fill the atmosphere. Why did the germs of the Structural and Benzene ideas, which have been in the air for a period of twenty-five years, find a soil particularly favorable to their development in my head?

Kekulé thought that the answer to his own question lay partly in the effect of his early study of architecture, which had imparted to his mind an irresistible need of sensory presentation. He could not rest satisfied with an explanation of chemical phenomena unless he could support it by means of definite visual imagery.

Kekulé's account of the functioning of his imagination seems to stand as a unique confession in the records of scientific discovery. The history of literary composition affords us, however, numerous parallels. Professor Dilthey of Berlin has gathered some of these together under the suggestive title "Poetic Imagination and Insanity." Some literary men, like Scribe, are gifted with vivid visual imagery, others, like Legouvé, are dependent for their success on auditory images. Scott, Victor Hugo, and Browning seem to belong to the motor type. There is evidence in the case of Flaubert, as well as in that of Zola, that literary imagination may derive its data from the chemical senses. An analysis of the writings of poets like Marston and Helen Keller, defective in sight, in hearing, or in both, is of particular value in the study of literary

imagination. Artistic creation in general employs imagery in order to preserve or enhance sensory experiences and to convey to others the moods of the artist.

Is there any class of human being in whom the imagination is more held in control, more disciplined, more subordinated to the reason, than it is in the adult scientist? All the psychic processes, including instinct and inspiration (which has been described as a sort of unconscious imagination), are means of establishing useful relationships with men and things, and it is by no means surprising that the scientific discoverer, who grapples with difficult problems of adjustment, should bring the finest powers of the mind into play. The history of science assures us that the creative imagination is not the monopoly of the painter, sculptor, poet, philosopher, or theologian.

Special investigations of the mental characteristics of Kepler, Newton, Davy, Faraday, Claude Bernard, Ehrlich, Weismann and others must be undertaken before an adequate psychology of scientific discovery can be formulated. The nature of the data of each science, as well as the mental make-up of the individual discoverers must be made the subject of rigid investigation. Kekulé's pupil Van 't Hoff, who at the age of twenty-two wrote the essentials of La Chimie dans l' Espace, seems to have shared the visual imagination of his master. For Kolbe the idea that the arrangement of atoms in molecules could be determined appeared almost as fantastic as a belief in witchcraft or spiritualism. Berthelot was not less disdainful concerning Wurtz, the teacher of Van 't Hoff and Le Bel. When some friend told Berthelot not to take the atomic theory too seriously, atoms having no objective reality, Berthelot growled: "Wurtz has seen them!"

The imagination, predominant in one type of scientific discoverer and restrained or suppressed in other types, is at best only one phase of creative thought.

THE SHORTHAND ALPHABET AND THE REFORMING OF LANGUAGE

By DANIEL WOLFORD LA RUE

EAST STROUDSBURG STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

VERY writer of shorthand-and there are now legions of

EVE

them-must have wished, not only that others could write with as much ease and rapidity as himself, but also that there could be as short and accurate a system of printing as he has of writing. Why should we not make use of the shorthand alphabet not only for short writing, but also for short printing (either by hand or press), and a short, direct means to the correct pronunciation of new words?

Isaac Pitman, who invented the system of shorthand now most generally used among English speaking peoples, entertained this idea, and approved it, but never applied it. This paper presents an original plan for adapting the shorthand alphabet to printing, summarizes the results of an experiment in teaching children to read matter printed in this new form, and points out the tremendous educational and social advantages that would accrue if this new type of paper-language were in general use.

According to Isaac Pitman's analysis, there are forty sounds in the English language, twenty-four consonants, twelve simple vowels, and four diphthongs, or double vowels. Adopting (substantially) the Pitmanic symbols, we may represent these sounds as below.

This gives us a perfect alphabet, neither redundant nor defective.

In writing shorthand, the consonant characters of a word or phrase are joined together, and the vowels are placed in a certain relation to the consonant strokes, that is, at the beginning, middle, or end of them. The vowel sign has a different sound according to its position. The plan here presented for adapting this alphabet to printing introduces two variations: the consonants are kept disjoined; and the vowels are placed, not at the beginning, middle or end of consonant strokes, but in high, middle, or low position with regard to the line of print. This adapted alphabet, and matter printed in it, will be referred to as Fonoline.

An illustration will make the matter thoroughly clear. Figure 1, which presents three charts used in teaching fonoline to children, shows the symbols used in the fonoline alphabet, and the appearance of words printed in fonoline.

Although various experiments have been made in teaching reading by means of a phonetic alphabet, it appeared worth while to teach a group of beginners to read fonoline, partly to find the degree of effort necessary to learn it, partly to discover whether there would be any difficulty in passing from fonoline to a-b-c English. Should we as a race ever wish to change our alphabet (as the Chinese are doing), this latter question would probably become very important.

Accordingly, fonoline was taught to a group of twelve pupils in a first grade, whose Stanford-Binet intelligence quotients ranged from 75 to 127, with a median of 87.5. In physique and power of application, they were probably somewhat below the