CONSCIOUSNESS OF TIME. 



311 



much longer duration than in manhood ; and the 

 reason of this I take to be that, life being new to 

 children, they derive strong impressions from 

 numberless events which produce no such impres- 

 sions in adults. Again, a day's railway-traveling 

 in a new country appears of longer duration than 

 a day which is employed in our ordinary avoca- 

 tions, and especially so to persons who are not 

 accustomed to railway-traveling. And this is 

 doubtless due to the comparatively novel order 

 of changes in our states of consciousness which a 

 clay's railway-traveling entails. Similarly I have 

 often heard persons who habitually live in the 

 country remark that a day spent in London sight- 

 seeing appears to them very protracted. And 

 numberless other instances might be given to 

 show that when the disturbing cause which I am 

 about to consider is absent, a long series of abrupt 

 changes among vivid states of consciousness has, 

 as we should expect, a greater value in generating 

 time-consciousness than has a similar series of 

 slight changes among comparatively faint states 

 of consciousness. 



I will now proceed to state what I conceive 

 to be the disturbing cause which in numberless 

 cases gives rise to what I may term abnormal 

 time-consciousness as its effect. Every scientific 

 experimenter must be able to recall instances in 

 which it was necessary for him to note the pas- 

 sage of successive seconds during a greater or less 

 interval of time ; and, if so, he can scarcely fail to 

 remember how interminably long such an interval 

 appeared. But if any one who reads this paper 

 rhould not have had any actual experience of this 

 kind, it will be very easy for him to make a trial, 

 by laying his watch on the table and resolving to 

 keep his whole attention fixed on the movements 

 of the minute-hand for an interval of five or ten 

 minutes, without allowing any other thoughts to 

 enter his mind ; the time will then appear to him 

 incredibly long. Now, why should this be? for 

 it is evident that in such a case there are no 

 vivid or abrupt changes of conscious states ; on 

 the contrary, the experiment is marked by the 

 strenuous endeavor to prevent any such changes. 

 The answer I believe to be, that such changes 

 of consciousness as occur under these circum- 

 stances all belong to one class, viz., those which 

 have reference to their own sequence, or, in 

 other words, to the passage of time. 1 And 



1 It will conduce to clearness in what follows if I 

 6pcak of the contemplation of the passage of time as a 

 reference by consciousness to the sequence of its own 

 states. But in thus speaking I would not, of course, 

 be understood to mean that the reference thus made 



this I hold to be the disturbing cause of which 

 we are in search ; in whatever degree states of 

 consciousness have reference to their own se- 

 quence, in that degree is their value as time- 

 measurers enhanced. At all events, in my own 

 case I have invariably found this formula to ap- 

 ply; and I cannot but think that psychologies 

 will find on inquiry that it is a general principle. 

 Why it should be so I can scarcely venture to ex- 

 plain, unless it is that, time-consciousness being 

 nothing more than the memory of a series of 

 successive changes in consciousness, when the 

 attention is particularly directed to the occur- 

 rence of such changes, so that these changes 

 themselves form the whole content of conscious- 

 ness, the fact of their sequence-relation is more 

 indelibly impressed on memory ; and thus on 

 taking a retrospective estimate of their number 

 we greatly exaggerate it. But, however this may 

 be, I am pretty sure of the fact that our time- 

 consciousness is made up of two factors, which 

 are in a large measure complementary to one an- 

 other. For, our appreciation of time being noth- 

 ing more than our generalized recollection of the 

 number of changes which have taken place in 

 our states of consciousness, one of the factors 

 determining our appreciation of time I hold to 

 be the vividness of the conscious states and the 

 abruptness of their changes, which cause them to 

 stand out prominently in our retrospective survey ; 

 and the other factor I hold to be the degree in 

 which the states of consciousness have had refer- 

 ence to their own sequence, which has the effect 

 of engendering in consciousness a disproportion- 

 ate estimate of the number of their sequence-re- 

 lations. 



It is needless to dwell on the operation of the 

 first of these two factors, because, as before 

 stated, this is the factor which all psychologists 

 will be prepared to concede as obvious. But with 



by consciousness is made consciovsly. Onr cognizance 

 of the passage of time is determined by our taking a 

 retrospect of the changes in our states of conscious- 

 ness which have occurred between two points of the 

 linear series. As each change occurs, it leaves behind 

 it in memory a faint record of its occurrence, and it is 

 the sum-total of these records in memory which enable 

 us to take cognizance of time. Consequently, when 

 our attention is fixed upon the passage of time as it- 

 self the subject of contemplation, although we are not 

 consciously, or knowingly, contemplating these sub- 

 jective sequence-changes which determine our cogni- 

 zance of the passage of time, it must nevertheless be 

 due to their occurrence that the time on which our at- 

 tention is fixed is appreciated. Therefore, when onr 

 attention is fixed upon the passage of time, conscious- 

 ness may properly be said to be engaged in an act of 

 introspection. 



