94 



MENTAL OPERATIONS IN RELATION TO TIME. 



1867. 



DESPITE the endless treatises on the Mind, its faculties 

 and functions, there are still methods of studying it less 

 regarded than they might be, seeing the curious and 

 instructive analysis they afford. The method I now 

 seek to suggest comes amongst these. It involves no 

 metaphysical theory, and admits of being stated in plain 

 language. Its purport is simply to examine the opera- 

 tions of mind in their relation to time viewing them 

 as a series or succession of states, rather than as a group 

 of simultaneous conditions. The analysis is not that of 

 the mental faculties in the abstract, but of the modes 

 in which they are severally and successively brought 

 into action, taking time as the test and exponent of 

 their succession. 



This method of enquiry forms in effect the subject 

 of two chapters in my volume of ' Mental Physiology.' 

 I have there shown how much of striking illustration 

 we can bring to the acts and moods of mind by thus 

 viewing them in their relation of sequence. The con- 

 sciousness of everyone tells of this sequence as a 

 simple fact, and it is implied, if not expressed, in all 

 that has been written on the functions of the senses, on 

 association, memory, and the mental emotions ; but 

 never, as far as I know, distinctly recognised as a 



