HUMAN FACULTY 277 



each of those absurd and ill-made monstrosities could 

 have obtained the hold it had over the imaginations 

 of its worshippers. I wished, if possible, to enter 

 into those feelings. It was difficult to find a suitable 

 object for trial, because it ought to be in itself quite 

 unfitted to arouse devout feelings. I fixed on a comic 

 picture, it was that of Punch, and made believe in its 

 possession of divine attributes. I addressed it with 

 much quasi-reverence as possessing a mighty power to 

 reward or punish the behaviour of men towards it, and 

 found little difficulty in ignoring the impossibilities 

 of what I professed. The experiment gradually 

 succeeded ; I began to feel and long retained for the 

 picture a large share of the feelings that a barbarian 

 entertains towards his idol, and learnt to appreciate 

 the enormous potency they might have over him. 



I will mention here a rather weird effect that com- 

 piling these "Memories" has produced on me. By 

 much dwelling upon them they became refurbished 

 and so vivid as to appear as sharp and definite as 

 things of to-day. The consequence has been an 

 occasional obliteration of the sense of Time, and to 

 replace it by the idea of a permanent panorama, 

 painted throughout with equal vividness, in which 

 the point to which attention is temporarily directed 

 becomes for that time the Present. The panorama 

 seems to extend unseen behind a veil which hides 

 the Future, but is slowly rolling aside and disclosing 

 it. That part of the panorama which is veiled is 

 supposed to exist as vividly coloured as the rest, 

 though latent. In short, this experience has given 

 me an occasional feeling that there are no realir 

 ties corresponding to Past, Present, and Future, 



