MEASUREMENTS 197 



or deliverance from the world of time or space, has been 

 adopted in common speech to denote an extreme intensity 

 of joy ; it is this fact that accounts for the beautiful tale 

 of the monk and the bird of Paradise, and for the hope of 

 thousands who see in the beatific vision, when eternity 

 will be as a single moment, their highest and most perfect 

 conception of bliss. At the moment when the pleasurable 

 state becomes less intense and less pure the consciousness 

 revives, and with it the rudiments of a sense of duration ; 

 but hours will still pass as minutes, and it is only when the 

 conscious feeling of pleasure is at its lowest level that the 

 sense of duration begins to make any approach to the 

 measurements of objective time. 



Pains, though they agree with pleasures in starting 

 from and ending in unconsciousness, in their progress 

 between the lowest and the highest grades of intensity, 

 differ in this, that their tendency is to protract, and not 

 to abridge, our subjective estimates. The more severe the 

 pain, the longer will be the period given by our sense of 

 duration for the same measured interval. This is equally 

 true whether the pain be of the mind or the body, remorse 

 or ennui, or the tortures of the sick-bed. All add lead to 

 the feet of time. 



When we consider their duration in the light of a guide 

 for our selection between different pleasures or different 

 pains, or, as would be a more usual case, between aggre 

 gates in which both pleasures and pains were represented, 

 we encounter problems of considerable difficulty. Mr. 

 Rashdall doubts whether timeless pleasures have ever 

 been the objects of desire; but the joys of eternity are cer 

 tainly timeless, and, if those be ruled out of court, we have 

 seen that the pleasures of this life that are highest in value 

 most nearly approach them in timelessness. Neither 

 subjective duration nor time appears to be a necessary 

 element in our valuation. When, however, our choice is 

 between the subjective sense of duration and objective 

 time, there can be no doubt as to which we shall be deter 

 mined by. What we value is the duration as it appears 



