The first question to be taken up was the influence of right and left positions on choice.  A long series of experiments was undertaken with a line 80x10 mm. on one side and a line 160x10 mm. on the other, in which the positions of these were reversed, and each in turn taken as fixed and variable, with a view to determining the effect of right and left positions.  No definite conclusions emerged; and in the following experiments, most of which have been made for both right and left positions, the results will be treated as if made for one side alone, and, where averages are taken, will be considered as indifferently left or right.

The experiments of Dr. Pierce were made for only one position of the fixed line—­at 12 cm. distance from the center.  The characteristic of the following experiments is their reference to all positions of the fixed line.  For instance a fixed line, 10 cm. in length at 12 cm. distance from the center, might be balanced by a line 5 cm. in length at 20 cm. distance.  But would the distance be in the same proportion for a given distance of the fixed line of say 20 or 25 cm.?  It is clear that only a progressive series of positions of the fixed line would suggest the changes in points of view or tendencies of choice of the subject.  Accordingly, for all the experiments the fixed line or other object was placed successively at distances of 20, 40, 60 mm., etc., from the center; or at 40, 80 mm., etc., according to the character of the object, and for each of these fixed points the subject made one or two choices.  Only an understanding of the direction in which the variable series moved gave in many cases an explanation for the choice.

Each choice, it should be added, was itself the outcome of a long series of trials to find the most pleasing position.  Thus, each subject made only about ten choices in an hour, each of which, as it appears in the tables, represents a large number of approximations.

B.  Experiments on Size.

I have said that different tendencies or types of choice in arrangement appeared.  It will be convenient in the course of explaining in detail the method of experiment, to discuss at the same time the meaning of these types of choice.

From analysis of the pictures, the simplest suggestion of balance appeared in the setting off against each other of objects of different sizes;—­an apparent equivalence of a large object near the center with a small object far from the center; thus inevitably suggesting the relations of the mechanical balance, or lever, in which the heavy short arm balances the light long arm.  This was also the result of Dr. Pierce’s experiments for one position of his fixed line.  The experiments which follow, however, differ in some significant points from this result.  The instrument used was the one described in the preceding section.  On one side, in the middle of the vertical strip, was placed the ‘fixed’ line, denoted