276 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



The following experiments on Human Faculty 

 are worth recording ; they have not been published 

 before. In the days of my youth I felt at one time a 

 passionate desire to subjugate the body by the spirit, 

 and among other disciplines determined that my will 

 should replace automatism by hastening or retarding 

 automatic acts. Every breath was submitted to 

 this process, with the result that the normal power of 

 breathing was dangerously interfered with. It seemed 

 as though I should suffocate if I ceased to will. I 

 had a terrible half- hour; at length by slow and 

 irregular steps the lost power returned. My dread 

 was hardly fanciful, for heart-failure is the suspension 

 of the automatic faculty of the heart to beat. 



A later experiment was to gain some idea of the 

 commoner feelings in Insanity. The method tried 

 was to invest everything I met, whether human, 

 animal, or inanimate, with the imaginary attributes 

 of a spy. Having arranged plans, I started on my 

 morning's walk from Rutland Gate, and found the 

 experiment only too successful. By the time I had 

 walked one and a half miles, and reached the cab- 

 stand in Piccadilly at the east end of the Green Park, 

 every horse on the stand seemed watching me, 

 either with pricked ears or disguising its espionage. 

 Hours passed before this uncanny sensation wore off, 

 and I feel that I could only too easily re-establish it. 



The third and last experiment of which I will 

 speak was to gain an insight into the abject feelings 

 of barbarians and others concerning the power of 

 images which they know to be of human handiwork. 

 I had visited a large collection of idols gathered by 

 missionaries from many lands, and wondered how 



