THE PERCEPTION OF TIME. 627 



Exactly parallel variations occur in our consciousness 

 of space. A road we walk back over, hoping to find at each 

 step an object ^e have dropped, seems to us longer than 

 when we walked over it the other way. A space we meas- 

 ure by pacing appears longer than one we traverse with no 

 thought of its length. And in general an amount of space 

 attended to in itself leaves with us more impression of spa- 

 ciousness than one of which we only note the content.* 



I do not say that everything in these fluctuations of esti- 

 mate can be accounted for by the time's content being 

 crowded and interesting, or simple and tame. Both in the 

 shortening of time by old age and in its lengthening by 

 ennui some deeper cause may be at work. This cause can 

 only be ascertained, if it exist, by finding out icliy ice per- 

 ceive time at all. To this inquiry let us, though without 

 much hope, proceed. 



THE FEELING OF PAST TIME IS A PRESENT FEELING. 



If asked why we perceive the light of tbe sun, or the 

 sound of an explosion, we repl}^, "Because certain outer 

 ftnces, ether- waves or air-waves, smite upon the brain, 

 awakening therein changes, to which the conscious percep- 

 tions, light and souud, respond." But we hasten to add 

 that neither light nor sound copy or mirror the ether- or 

 air-waves ; they represent them only sj^mbolically. The 

 6/i'y case, says Helmholtz, in which such copying occurs, 

 iuul in which 



a moment which never comes— the moment when it shall cease. But the 

 odiousness of this experience is not named ennui or Langtceile, like the 

 odiousness of time that seems long from its emptiness. The more positive 

 odiousness of the pain, rather, is what tinges our memory of the night. 

 What we feel, as Prof. Lazarus says {op cit. p 202), is the long time of the 

 suffering, not the suffering of the long time per se. 



* On these variations of time-estimate, cf. Romanes, Consciousness of 

 Time, in Mind, vol. m. p. 297; J. Sully, Illusions, pp. 245-261. 302-305; 

 W. Wuudt. Fhysiol. Psych., ii. 287, 288; hesides the essays quoted from 

 Lazarus and Janet. In German, the successors of Herbart have treated of 

 this subject: compare Volkmann's Lehrbuch d. P.sych., § 89, and for refer- 

 ences to other authors his note 3 to this section. Lindner (Lbh. d. empir. 

 Psych.), as a parallel effect, instances Alexander the Great's life (thirty- 

 three years), which seems to us as if it must be long, because it wis so 

 pventful. Similarly the English Commonwealth, etc. 



