THE PERCEPTION OF TIME. 623 



it is true, tlie longer interval will suggest a host of additional 

 dates and events, and so apj^ear a more multitudinous thing. 

 And for the same reason most people will think thej directly 

 perceive the length of the past fortnight to exceed that of 

 the past week. But there is properly no comparative time 

 intuition in these cases at all. It is but dates and events, 

 representing time ; their abundance symbolizing its length. 

 I am sure that this is so, even where the times compared 

 are no more than an hour or so in length. It is the same 

 with Spaces of many miles, which we always compare with 

 each other by the numbers which measure them.* 



* The only objections to this which I can think of are : (1) The accuracy 

 with which some men judge of the hour of day or night without looking 

 at the clock ; (2) the faculty some have of waking at a preappointed hour; 

 (3) the accuracy of time-perception reported to exist in certain trance-subjects. 

 It might seem that in these persons some sort of a sub-conscious record was 

 kept of the lapse of time per se. But this cannot be admitted until it is 

 proved that there are no physiological processes, the feeling of whose course 

 may serve as a sign of how much time has sped, and so lead us to infer the 

 hour. That there are such processes it is hardly possible to doubt. An 

 ingenious friend of mine was long puzzled to know why each day of 

 the week had such a characteristic physiognomy to him. That of Sunday 

 was .soon noticed to be due to the cessation of the city's rumbling, and the 

 sound of people's feet shuffling on the sidewalk; of Mouda}', to come from 

 the clothes drying in the yard and casting a white reflection on the ceiling; 

 of Tuesday, to a cause which I forget ; and I think my friend did not get 

 beyond Wednesday. Probably each liour in the day has for most of us 

 some outer or inner sign associated with it as clo.sely as these signs with the 

 days of the week. It must be admitted, after all, however, that the great 

 improvement of the lime-perception during sleep and trance is a nwstery 

 not as yet cleared up All my life I have been struck by the accuracy with 

 which I will wake at ihe same exact minute night after night and morning 

 after morning, if only the habit fortuitously begins. The organic registra- 

 tion iu me is independent of sleep. After lying in bed a long time awake 

 I suddenly rise without knowing the time, and for days and weeks together 

 will do so at an identical minute by the clock, as if some inward pliysio- 

 logical process caused the act by punctually running down. — Idiots are 

 said sometimes to possess the time-measuring faculty in a marked degree. 

 I have an interesting manu.script account of an idiot girl which .says : " She 

 was punctual almost to a minute in her demand for food and otiier regular 

 attentions. Her dinner was generally furnished her at 13.30 p.m., and at 

 that hour she would begin to scream if it were not forthcoming. If on 

 Fast-day or Thanksgiving it were delayed, in accordance with the New 

 England custom, she screamed from her usual dinner-hour until the food 

 was carried to her. On the next day, however, she again made known her 

 wants promptly at 12.30. Any slight attention shown her on one day was 



