MENTAL OPERATIONS IN RELATION TO TIME. 97 



fully or fairly exercise, of turning the mind inwards 

 upon its own operations. Even the most stable mind 

 cannot long maintain this reflex action upon itself with- 

 out confusion and fatigue ; the difference of the power 

 in different individuals involving various diversities of 

 intellect and character which admit no other interpre- 

 tation. But the most closely directed consciousness 

 can only tell generally and vaguely of the rapidity with 

 which successive states of mind press upon one another 

 even in their most ordinary sequence. 1 As in reason- 

 ing upon the divisibility of matter we use the term of 

 Infinite to cloke our want of comprehension of its ulti- 

 mate analysis, so in regard to mind, the number and 

 rapid succession of its states, whether of thought, emo- 

 tion, or will, make it next to impossible to discover by 

 consciousness the continuity of the series. Who can 

 unravel the sequences even in the most familiar acts of 

 life, as in the thoughts and volitions which precede 

 and produce speech ? Who can decipher that com- 

 plex and seemingly simultaneous action of mind and 

 bodily organs which enables the musician, from notes 

 before his eye, to execute the most difficult passages 

 with fingers and voice at once ? Or how must we in- 

 terpret the wonderful yet familiar fact of a man read- 

 ing aloud, line after line, without error or stop, while 

 his thoughts are wandering on some matter wholly 

 alien to the book before him ? 



1 M. Comte has strangely denied the competence of consciousness as 

 an interpreter of mental functions. This seems to me sheer paradox. I 

 have admitted the difficulties of the appeal to the mind for a record of 

 itself. But whether using the word co?isciou-sness, or any other, no doubt 

 can exist of the reality of the subjective knowledge thus obtained. 



