THE TIME IT TAKES TO THINK. 491 



tion was asked admitting of but one answer, the mental process being 

 simply an act of memory. It is also possible to ask a question that 

 allows of several answers, and in this case a little more time is needed ; 

 it takes longer to mention a month when a season has been given than 

 to say to what month a season belongs. The mind can also be given 

 still further liberty ; for example, a quality of a substantive, of a 

 subject or object for a vei-b, can be required. It takes about one tenth 

 of a second longer to find a subject than to find an object ; in our or- 

 dinary thinking and talking we go on from the verb to the object. If 

 a particular example of a class of objects has to be found, as 

 "Thames " when "river" is given, on the average a little more than 

 half a second is needed. In this case one nearly always mentions an 

 object immediately at hand, or one identified with one's early home; 

 this shows that the mind is apt to recur either to very recent or to 

 early associations. Again, I need one second to find a rhyme, one fifth 

 of a second longer to find an alliteration. The time taken up in pro- 

 nouncing an opinion or judgment proved to be shorter than I had ex- 

 pected ; I need only about half a second to estimate the length of a 

 line, or to say which of two eminent men I think is the greater. 



Our thoughts do not come and go at, random, but one idea suggests 

 another, according to laws which are probably no less fixed than the 

 laws prevailing in the physical world. Conditions somewhat similar 

 to those of our ordinary thinking are obtained, if on seeing or hearing 

 a word we say what it suggests to us. We can note the nature of the 

 association and measure the time it takes up, and thus get results more 

 definite and of greater scientific value than would be possible through 

 mere introspection or observation. By making a large number of 

 experiments, data for laws of association can be collected. Thus, if a 

 thousand persons say what idea is suggested to them by the word 

 "Art," the results may be so classified that both the nature of the as- 

 sociation and the time it occupies throw much light on the way peo- 

 ple usually think. Such experiments are useful in studying the devel- 

 opment of the child's mind ; they help us to understand the differ- 

 ences in thought brought about by various methods of education and 

 modes of life, and in many ways they put the facts of mind into the 

 great order which is the world. — Nineteenth Century. 



Recognizixg that the surface of tbe eartli will in a few years be all explored 

 for ordinary geographical purposes,Professor Boyd Dawkins has called attention 

 to the fact that besides the geography in space, there is a nearly untouched field 

 of geography in time. It concerns the ancient changes by which the earth's 

 surface has come to be what it is, and the geographical outlines as they appeared 

 at the various geological periods. In working this field geographers would do 

 as good geographical work as in recording any of the facts which are brought 

 from the interior of Africa or from the polar regions. 



