624 PSYCHOLOGY. 



From tliis we pass naturall}^ to speak of certain familial 

 variations in onr estimation of lengths of time. In genend, 

 a time JiUed ivitli varied and interesting experiences seems 

 short in passing, hut long as we look hack. On the other hand,. 

 a tract of time onpty of experiences seems long in passing^ 

 hut in retrospect short. A week of travel and siglit-seeing 

 may subtend an angle more like three weeks in the memory ; 

 and a month of sickness hardly yields more memories than 

 a day. The length in retrospect depends obviously on the 

 multitudinonsness of the memories which the time affords. 

 Many objects, events, changes, many subdivisions, immedi- 

 ately widen the view as we look back. Emptiness, monot- 

 onv, familiarit}', make it shrivel up. In Von Holtei's 

 * Vagabonds ' one Anton is described as revisiting his native 

 village. 



" Seven years." he exclaims, " seven years since I ran away ! More 

 like seventy it seems, so much has happened. I cannot think of it all 

 without becoming dizzy — at any rate not now. And yet again, when .1 

 look at the village, at tlie church-tower, it seems as if I could hardlj 

 have been seven days away." 



Prof. Lazarus * (from whom I borrow this quotation), 

 thus explains both of these contrasted illusions by our 

 principle of the awakened memories being multitudinous 

 or feAV : 



"The circle of experiences, widely extended, rich in variety, which 

 he had in view on the day of his leaving the village rises now in his 

 mind as its image lies before him. And with it— in rapid succession 

 and violent motion, not in chronologic order, or from chronologic 

 motives, but suggesting each other by all sorts of connections — arise 

 massive images of all his rich vagabondage and roving life. They roll 

 and wave confusedly together, first perhaps one from the first year, 

 then from the sixth, soon from the second, again from the fifth, the 



demanded on the next at the corresponding hour. If an orange were given 

 her at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, at the same hour on Thursday she made 

 known her expectation, and if the fruit were not given her she continued 

 to call for it at intervals for two or three hours. At four on Friday the 

 process would he repeated but would last less long ; and so on for two or 

 three days. If one of her sisters visited her accidentally at a certain hoiir, 

 the sharp piercing scream was sure to summon her at the same hour the 

 next day." etc., etc. — For these obscure matters consult C. Du Prel : The 

 Philosophy of Mysticism, cha)). irr § 1. 



* Ideale Fragen (1878). p. 219 (Essay, • Zeit und Weile ')■ 



