Present, past, and future. of BC .. on the recurrence of A, i.e., provided the memory-train continues so far intact. Such expectation, at first perhaps slight-a mere tendency easily overbornebecomes strengthened by every repetition of the series in the old order, till eventually, if often fulfilled and never falsified, it becomes certain and, as we commonly say, irresistible. To have a clear case of expectation, then, it is not necessary that we should distinctly remember any previous experience like it, but only that we should have actually present some earlier member of a series which has been firmly associated by such previous experiences, the remaining members, or at least the next, if they continue serial, being revived through that which is once again realized. This expectation may be instantly checked by reflexion, just as it may of course be disappointed in fact; but these are matters which do not concern the inquiry as to the nature of expectation while expectation lasts. We shall continue this inquiry to most advantage by now widening it into an examination of the distinction of present, past, and future. To a being whose presentations never passed through the transitions which ours undergo first divested of the strength and vividness of impressions, again reinvested with them and brought back from the faint world of ideas-the sharp contrasts of "now" and "then," and all the manifold emotions they occasion, would be quite unknown. Even we, so far as we confine our activity and attention to ideas, are almost without them. Time-order, succession, antecedence and consequence, of course, there might be still, but in that sense of events as Let us "past and gone for ever," which is one of the melancholy memory-continuum, but, owing to the reduplications of this continuum, more lines of possible revival were opened up, to be successively negatived as B succeeded to A and C to B; even dogs know that "there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." But, where A B C D E is a series of percepts such as we have here supposed-and a series of simpler states would hardly afford much ground for the distinctions of past, present, and future-there would be a varying amount of active adjustment of sense-organs and other movements supplementary to full sensation. In (2), the point at which we have ab C de, for instance, such adjustments and movements as were appropriate to b would cease as B lapsed and be replaced by those appropriate to C. Again, as C succeeded to B, and d in consequence increased in intensity and definiteness, the movements adapted to the reception of D would become nascent, and so on. Thus, psychologically regarded, the distinction of past and future and what we might call the oneness of direction of time depend, as just described, (1) upon the continuous sinking of the primary memory-images on the one side, and the continuous rising of the ordinary images on the other side, of that member of a series of percepts then repeating which is actual at the moment; and (2) on the prevenient adjustments of attention, to which such words as "expect," "await," "anticipate," all testify by their etymology. These conditions in turn will be found to depend upon all that is implied in the formation of the memory-train and upon that recurrence of like series of impressions which we attribute to the "uniformity of nature." If we never had the same series of impressions twice, knowledge of time would be impossible, as indeed would knowledge of any sort. This is perhaps the fittest point at which to inquire into Succes the character and origin of our knowledge of succession sion. and duration, so far, that is, as such an inquiry belongs to psychology. We have not to ask how time itself comes to be; but, assuming it to be, we ask how the individual comes to know it. Time is often figuratively represented as a line, and we may perhaps utilize this figure to make clear the relation of our intuition of time to what we call time itself. Time, then, we say, stretches backwards and forwards from the present moment. But the present, though a point of time, is still such that we can and do in that moment attend to a plurality of presentations to which we might otherwise have attended severally in successive moments. Granting this implication of simultaneity and succession, we may, if we represent succession as a line, represent simultaneity as a second line at right angles to the first; empty time—or time-length without time-breadth, we may say is a mere abstraction. Now it is with the former line that we have to do in treating of time as it is, and with the latter in treating of our intuition of time, where, just as in a perspective representation of distance, we are confined to lines in a plane at right angles to the actual line of depth. In a succession the of events, say of sense-impressions, A B C DE. presence of B means the absence of A and of C, but the presentation of this succession involves the simultaneous presence, in some mode or other, of two or more of the presentations ABC D. In presentation, as we have seen, all that corresponds to the differences of past, present, and future is in consciousness simultaneously. This truism —or paradox—that all we know of succession is but an interpretation of what is really simultaneous or coexistent, we may then concisely express by saying that we are aware of time only through time-perspective, and experience shows that it is a long step from a succession of presentations to such presentation of succession. The first condition is that we should have represented together presentations that were in the first instance attended to successively, and this we have both in the persistence of | by the slow and monotonous recurrence of the same imprimary memory-images and in the simultaneous reproduc- pressions. Now these "feelings" of distraction and tedium tion of longer or shorter portions of the memory-train. owe their characteristic qualities to movements of attenIn a series thus secured there may be time-marks, though tion. In the first, attention is kept incessantly on the no time, and by these marks the series must be distin- move: before it is accommodated to A, it is disturbed by guished from other simultaneous series. To ask which is the suddenness, intensity, or novelty of B; in the second, first among a number of simultaneous presentations is it is kept all but stationary by the repeated presentation unmeaning; one might be logically prior to another, of the same impression. Such excess and defect of surbut in time they are together and priority is excluded. | prises make one realize a fact which in ordinary life is so Nevertheless after each distinct representation a, b, c, d obscure as to escape notice. But recent experiments have there probably follows, as we have supposed, some trace set this fact in a more striking light, and made clear what of that movement of attention of which we are aware in Locke had dimly before his mind in talking of a certain In passing from one presentation to another. In our present distance between the presentations of a waking man. reminiscences we have, it must be allowed, little direct estimating very short periods of time, of a second or less, proof of this interposition, though there is strong indirect indicated say by the beats of a metronome, it is found evidence of it in the tendency of the flow to follow the that there is a certain period for which the mean of a number of estimates is correct, while shorter periods are order in which the presentations were first attended to. With the movements themselves we are familiar enough, on the whole overestimated, and longer periods underThis we may perhaps take to be evidence of though the residua of such movements are not ordinarily estimated. conspicuous. These residua, then, are our temporal signs, the time occupied in accommodating or fixing attention. and, together with the representations connected by them, Whether the "point of indifference" is determined by the constitute the memory-continuum. But temporal signs rate of usual bodily movement, as Spencer asserts and alone will not furnish all the pictorial exactness of the Wundt conjectures, or conversely, is a question we need time-perspective. They give us only a fixed series; but not discuss just now. But, though the fixation of attenthe working of obliviscence, by insuring a progressive tion does of course really occupy time, it is probably not variation in intensity and distinctness as we pass from one in the first instance perceived as time, i.e., as continuous member of the series to the other, yields the effect which "protensity," to use a term of Hamilton's, but as intensity. we call time-distance. By themselves such variations Thus, if this supposition be true, there is an element in would leave us liable to confound more vivid repre- our concrete time-perceptions which has no place in our sentations in the distance with fainter ones nearer the abstract conception of time. In time conceived as physical there is no trace of intensity; in time psychically experipresent, but from this mistake the temporal signs save us; and, as a matter of fact, where the memory-train is enced duration is primarily an intensive magnitude, witness imperfect such mistakes continually occur. On the other the comparison of times when we are "bored" with others hand, where these variations are slight and imperceptible, when we are amused. It must have struck every one as though the memory-continuum preserves the order of strange who has reflected upon it that a period of time events intact, we have still no such distinct appreciation which seems long in retrospect such as an eventful exof comparative distance in time as we have nearer the cursion-should have appeared short in passing; while a present where these perspective effects are considerable. period, on the contrary, which in memory has dwindled to Duration. When in retrospect we note that a particular presenta- a wretched span seemed everlasting till it was gone. But, tion X has had a place in the field of consciousness, while if we consider that in retrospect length of time is reprea series of objects ABCD... have succeeded each other, sented primarily and chiefly by impressions that have surthen we may be said in observing this relation of the two vived, we have an explanation of one-half; and in the to perceive the duration of X. And it is in this way that intensity of the movements of attention we shall perhaps we do subjectively estimate longer periods of time. But find an explanation of the other. What tells in retrospect first, it is evident that we cannot apply this method to is the series a b c d e, &c. ; what tells in the present is the indefinitely short periods without passing beyond the intervening tatat, &c., or rather the original accommodaregion of distinct presentation; and, since the knowledge of tion of which these temporal signs are the residuum. For, duration implies a relation between distinguishable pre- as we have seen elsewhere, the intensity of a presentation sentations A B C D and X, the case is one in which the does not persist, so that in memory the residuum of the hypothesis of subconsciousness can hardly help any but most intense feeling of tedium may only be so many t's those who confound the fact of time with the knowledge in a memory-continuum whose surviving members are few of it. Secondly, if we are to compare different durations and uninteresting. But in the actual experience, say, of at all, it is not enough that one of them should last out a a wearisome sermon, when the expectation of release is series A B C D, and another a series L M N O; we also continually balked and attention forced back upon a want some sort of common measure of those series. Locke monotonous dribble of platitudes, the one impressive fact was awake to this point, though he expresses himself is the hearer's impatience. On the other hand, so long as vaguely (Essay, ii. 14, 9-12). He speaks of our ideas we are entertained, attention is never involuntary, and succeeding each other "at certain distances not much there is no continually deferred expectation. Just as we are said to walk with least effort when our pace accords unlike the images in the inside of a lantern turned round by the heat of a candle," and "guesses" that "this appear- with the rate of swing of our legs regarded as pendulums, ance of theirs in train varies not very much in a waking so in pastimes impressions succeed each other at the rate man." Now what is this "distance" that separates 4 at which attention can be most easily accommodated, and from B, B from C, and so on, and what means have we are such that we attend willingly. We are absorbed in of knowing that it is tolerably constant in waking life? the present without being unwillingly confined to it; not It is probably that the residuum of which we have called only is there no motive for retrospect or expectation, but a temporal sign; or, in other words, it is the movement of there is no feeling that the present endures. Each imattention from A to B. But we must endeavour here to pression lasts as long as it is interesting, but does not conget a more exact notion of this movement. Everybody tinue to monopolize the focus of consciousness till attention knows what it is to be distracted by a rapid succession of to it is fatiguing, because uninteresting. In such facts, then, varied impressions, and equally what it is to be wearied we seem to have proof that our perception of duration rests XX. 9 Is time ultimately upon quasi-motor objects of varying intensity, But, if our experience of time depends primarily upon acts of discrete attention to a succession of distinct objects, it would seem that or con- time, subjectively regarded, must be discrete and not continuous. tinuous? This, which is the view steadily maintained by the psychologists of Herbart's school, was implied if not stated by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Locke hopelessly confuses time as perceived and time as conceived, and can only save himself from pressing objections by the retort, "It is very common to observe intelligible disBut Bercourses spoiled by too much subtlety in nice divisions." keley and Hume with the mathematical discoveries of Newton and Leibnitz before them could only protest that there was nothing answering to mathematical continuity in our experience. And, whereas Locke had tried to combine with his general psychological account the inconsistent position that "none of the distinct ideas we have of either [space or time] is without all manner of composition," Berkeley declares, "For my own part, whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all, only I hear others say it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner as leads me to harbour odd thoughts of my existence. Time therefore being nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it follows that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that same spirit or mind' (Principles of Knowledge, i. § 98). Hume, again, is at still greater pains to show that "the idea which we form of any finite quality is not infinitely divisible, but that by proper distinctions and separations we may run this idea up to inferior ones, which will be perfectly simple and indivisible that the imagination reaches a minimum, and may raise up to itself an idea of which it cannot conceive any subdivision, and which cannot be diminished without a total annihilation" (Human Nature, pt. ii. § 1, Green's ed., p. 335). At the first blush we are perhaps disposed to accept this account of our time-perception, as Wundt, e.g., does, and to regard the attribution of continuity as wholly the result of after-reflexion.1 But it may be doubted if this is really an exact analysis of the case. Granted that the impressions to which we chiefly attend are dissciousness, and that, so far, the most vivid element in our timetinet and discontinuous in their occupation of the focus of conexperience is discrete; granted further that in recollection and expectation such objects are still distinct-all which seems to imply that time is a mere plurality-yet there is more behind. The whole field of consciousness is not occupied by distinct objects, neither are the changes in this field discontinuous. The experimental facts above-mentioned illustrate the transition from a succession the members of which are distinctly attended to to one in which they are indistinctly attended to, i.e., are not discontinuous enough to be separately distinguished. Attention does not move by hops from one definite spot to another, but, as Wundt himself allows, by alternate diffusion and concentration, like the foot of a snail, which never leaves the surface it is traversing. We have a clear presentation discerned as A or B when attention is gathered up; and, when attention spreads out, we have confused recognizable, such confused presentations are represented, and so presentations not admitting of recognition. But, though not serve to bridge over the comparatively empty interval during which attention is unfocused. Thus our perception of a period of time is not comparable to so many terms in a series of finite units any more than it is to a series of infinitesimals. When attention is concentrated in expectation of some single impression, then, no doubt, it is brought to a very fine point (zugespitzt," as Herbart would say); and a succession of such impressions would be represented as relatively sented as relatively discrete compared with the representation of the scenery of a day-dream. But absolutely discrete it is not and cannot be. In this respect the truth is rather with Herbert Spencer, who, treating of this subject from another point of view, remarks, "When the facts are contemplated objectively, it becomes manifest that, though the changes constituting intelligence approach to a single succession, they do not absolutely form one (Psychology, i. § 180, p. 403). " On the whole, then, we may conclude that our concrete time-experiences are due to the simultaneous representation of a series of definite presentations both accompanied and separated by more or fewer indefinite presentations more or less confused; that, further, the definite presentations have certain marks or temporal signs due to the movements of attention; that the rate of these movements or accommodations is approximately constant; and that each movement itself is primarily experienced as an intensity. Feeling. Such summary survey as these limits allow of the more elementary facts of cognition is here at an end; so far the most conspicuous factors at work have been those of what might be termed our ideational mechanism. In the higher processes of thought we have to take more account of mental activity and of the part played by language. But it seems preferable, before entering upon this, to explore also the emotional and active constituents of mind in their more elementary phases. In our preliminary survey we have seen that psychical life consists in the main of a continuous alternation of receptive and reactive consciousness, i.e., in its earliest form, of alternations of sensation and movement. At a later stage we find that in the receptive phase ideation is added to sensation, and that in the active phase thought and fancy, or the voluntary manipulation and control of the ideational trains, are added to the voluntary manipulation and control of the muscles. At this higher level also it is possible that either form of receptive consciousness may lead to either form of active: sensations may lead to thought rather than to action in the restricted 1 Comp. Wundt, Logik, vol. i. p. 432. CAUSES OF sense, and ideas apart from sensations may prompt to muscular | stated, is too teleological to serve as a purely psychological ness; See Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps. i.-iv.; G. H. Schneider, Freud und Leid des Menschengeschlechts, chap. i. feeling it occasions from the actual presentation. When complex and more highly representative-or re-representa- 1. The quality and intensity as well as the duration Sensaand frequency of a sensation or movement all have to tions and do with determining to what feeling it gives rise. It movewill be best to leave the last two out of account for a time. Apart from these, the pleasantness or painfulness of a ments. manifestations of disgust, if at all intense. Sweet tastes, on the other hand, however intense, are pleasant to an unspoiled palate, though apt before long to become mawkish, like "sweetest honey, loathsome in his own deliciousness," as confectioners' apprentices are said soon to find. The painfulness of all painful sensations or movements increases with their intensity without any assignable maximum being reached. A comparison of examples of this kind, which it would be tedious to describe more fully and which are indeed too familiar to need much description, seems to show (1) that, so far as feeling is determined by the intensity of a presentation, there is pleasure so long as attention can be adapted or accommodated to the presentation, and pain so soon as the intensity is too great for this; and (2) that, so far as feeling is determined by the quality of a presentation, those that are pleasurable enlarge the field of consciousness and introduce or agreeably increase in intensity certain organic sensations, while those that are painful contract the field of consciousness and introduce or disagree ably increase in intensity certain organic sensations. There are certain other hedonic effects due to quality the examination of which we must for the present defer. Meanwhile as to the first point it may be suggested, as at any rate a working hypothesis, that in itself any and every simple sensation or movement is pleasurable if there is attention forthcoming adequate to its intensity. In the earliest and simplest phases of life, in which the presentationcontinuum is but little differentiated, it is reasonable to suppose that variation in the intensity of presentation preponderates over changes in the quality of presentation, and that to the same extent feeling is determined by the former and not by the latter. And, whereas this dependence on intensity is invariable, there is no ground for supposing the quality of any primary presentation, when not of excessive intensity, to be invariably disagreeable; the changes above-mentioned in the hedonic effects of bitter tastes, sweet tastes, or the like tend rather to prove the contrary. This brings us to the second point, and it requires some elucidation. We need here to call to mind the continuity of our presentations and especially the existence of a background of organic sensations or somatic consciousness, as it is variously termed. By the time that qualitatively distinct presentations have been differentiated from this common basis it becomes possible for any of these, without having the intensity requisite to affect feeling directly, to change it indirectly by means of the systemic sensations accompanying them, or, in other words, by their tone. The physiological concomitants of these changes of somatic tone are largely reflex movements or equivalents of movements, such as alterations in circulatory, respiratory, and excretory processes. Such movements are psychologically movements no longer, and are rightly regarded as pertaining wholly to the sensory division of presentations. But originally it may have been otherwise. To us now, these organic reflexes seem but part and parcel of the special sensation whose tone they form, and which they accompany even when that sensation, so far as its But mere intensity goes, might be deemed indifferent. perhaps at first the special qualities that are now through out unpleasant may have been always presented with an excessive intensity that would be painful on this score alone, and the reflexes that at present pertain to them may then have been psychologically the expression of this pain.1 At any rate it is manifestly unfair to refuse either 1 In the lowly organisms that absorb food directly through the skin such bitter juices as exist naturally might at once produce very violent effects,-comparable, say, to scalding; and the reflexes then established may have been continued by natural selection so as to save from poisoning the higher organisms, whose absorbent surfaces are internal Some light is and only guarded in this way by the organ of taste. to seek out the primitive effects of the sensations in ques- The difference in point is manifest on comparing the flow As regards the duration and the frequency of presenta- thrown on questions of this kind by the very interesting experiments 2 This is one among many cases in which the study of a vocabulary 3 Observation and experiment show that the physical signs of pain in the higher animals consist in such changes as a lowered and weaker pulse, reduction of the surface temperature, quickened respiration, dilatation of the iris, and the like. And so far as can be ascertained Il est these effects are not altogether the emotional reaction to pain but in |