Relations between the Physical and the Moral. 239 



tony and routine of life. Under the enormous and sudden afflux of 

 sensations and ideas, space, like time, expands beyond all measure 

 in the consciousness. * The buildings, the mountains/ says De 

 Quincey, * loomed up in proportions too grand to be taken in by 

 the eye. The plain stretched out, and was lost in immensity/ 



Thus these facts, chosen from among many others, show that 

 the succession which constitutes consciousness is ever varying in 

 velocity and complexity, and consequently we appear to be far 

 enough removed from that ego that simple, invariable, unchange- 

 able unit which some have imagined. 



These researches into the measurement of the phenomena of 

 consciousness as to their duration will doubtless sooner or later lead' 

 to important conclusions; for the present we think we may draw a 

 few of these provisionally. 



1. The inner sense, like all the other senses, has its limits, 

 beyond which it perceives nothing. There is a psychical minimum, 

 just as there is a visual, or an auditory minimum. Suppose one- 

 eighth of a second to be the briefest state of consciousness, then a 

 cerebral phenomenon lasting one-fifteenth or one-twentieth of a 

 second will lie outside of consciousness. 



2. In consciousness, simultaneousness is only apparent. If 

 certain states of consciousness seem to be simultaneous (and 

 Hamilton supposed that we could entertain seven ideas at once) 

 it is simply because their succession is so rapid that we cannot note 

 their want of continuity. If consciousness could have its micro- 

 scope, as the eye has, we should see succession where now we see 

 simultaneousness ; for instance, in the perception of a complex 

 object, as a house. 



3. The greater part of our internal states can never enter the 

 consciousness. Our total life is made up of sundry particular 

 lives, and the life of each organ has its echo in the various ganglia 

 and nerve-centres scattered throughout the body. But as all these 

 internal states are simultaneous, while consciousness is a succes- 

 sion, the result is that the majority of them remain in the uncon- 

 scious state. There exists between them a real ' struggle for life,' 

 a strife to attain consciousness a strife which has place, now 

 between phenomena of the same class, as between sensation and 

 sensation, image and image, idea and idea ; again, between phe- 



