It was then found that when the assistant broke in at random with his signals, the judgment of the observer was vastly less accurate than when the assistant carefully watched the observer's breathing and made both the beginning of the time given him and that of the time which he was to give coincide with identical phases thereof.-- Finally, Münsterberg with great plausibility tries to explain the discrepancies between the results of Vierordt, Estel, Mehner, Glass, etc., as due to the fact that they did not all use the same measure.Some breathe a little faster, some a little slower.Some break their inspirations into two parts, some do not, etc.The coincidence of the objective times measured with definite natural phases of breathing would very easily give periodical maxima of facility in measuring accurately.
"Any one wishing yet further examples of this mental substitution will find one on observing how habitually he thinks of the spaces on the clock-face instead of the periods they stand for;
how, on discovering it to be half an hour later than he supposed, he does not represent the half hour in its duration, but scarcely passes beyond the sign of it marked by the finger." (H.Spencer: Psychology, §
336.)
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 Monday, 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 hour in the day has for most of us some outer or inner sign associated with it as closely as these signs with the days of the week.It must be admitted, after all, however, that the great improvement of the time-perception during sleep and trance is a mystery not as yet cleared up.All my life I have been struck by the accuracy with which I will wake at the same exact minute night after night and morning after morning, if only the habit fortuitously begins.The organic registration in 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 physiological 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 manuscript account of an idiot girl which says: "She was punctual almost to a minute in her demand for food and other regular attentions.Her dinner was generally furnished her at 12.30 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 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 be 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 hour, 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, chap.III.§ 1.
Ideale Fragen (1878).p.219 (Essay, 'Zeit und Weile').
Revue Philosophique, vol.III.p.496.
"Empty time is most strongly perceived when it comes as a pause in music or in speech.Suppose a preacher in the pulpit, a professor at his desk, to stick still in the midst of his discourse;
or let a composer (as is sometimes purposely done) make all his instruments stop at once; we await every instant the resumption of the performance, and, in this awaiting, perceive, more than in any other possible way, the empty time.To change the example, let, in a piece of polyphonic music -- a figure, for instance, in which a tangle of melodies are under way -- suddenly a single voice be heard, which sustains a long note, while all else is hushed....This one note will appear very protracted --
why? Because we expect to hear accompanying it the notes of the other instruments, but they fail to come." (Herbart: Psychol.als W., §115.)
-- Compare also Münsterberg, Beiträge, Heft 2, p.41.
A night of pain will seem terribly long; we keep looking forward to a moment which never comes -- the moment when it shall cease.But the odiousness of this experience is not named ennui or Langweile , 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.
