MARCH. 119 



filled up with objects irregularly disposed and not crowded, 

 though the eye would see the whole space as fully in this 

 instance as in the other, yet the mind having no geometrical 

 assistance could not so easily comprehend it, and it would 

 seem proportionably of larger size. 



The eye, as I have already intimated, is not the only sub- 

 ject for deception. The mind is deceived, when we walk 

 over an irregular winding path, that leads us in a constantly 

 varying course through a wood not divested of its under- 

 growth. In this case the deception fails, unless the shrub- 

 bery is sufficiently close to prevent our seeing the ground we 

 have traversed. The mind then miscalculates space and dis- 

 tance, by estimating them from the number of steps we seem 

 to have taken, and from the united lengths of the paths 

 whose circuities we could not correctly map on the mind's 

 eye. The same winding paths over an open plain would not 

 delude the traveller, and would be proportionally tiresome ; 

 for we judge of space and distance not only by what we see, 

 but also by reflecting on the probable number of our steps. 



We may observe the operation of the same principles in 

 our calculation of time. The greater the number and variety 

 of incidents that have occurred to us in the course of a week, 

 the longer does the time appear in review, because the mind 

 must be employed a longer time in recollecting them. Yet 

 it may seem strange, that, under the same circumstances, the 

 time seems to pass more rapidly during the occurrence of 

 these incidents, provided they are sufficiently interesting to 

 occupy the mind or employ the hands. I can easily imagine 

 that of two men of the same age who should be employed 

 in reviewing their lives, the past years would seem longer to 

 tha one who had been engaged successively in a great variety 

 of adventures and occupations, than to the other, who had 

 pursued one routine of monotonous avocations from the be- 

 ginning to the end of his career. The time spent in a prison 

 must to the prisoner seem most dismally protracted ; but to 

 the wretched man who had passed all his days in confine- 

 ment, his life in review must seem short indeed. 



The time occupied in walking alone over a long, straight 



