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Inquiries into Human Faculty
trying and irksome, and that it required much resolution to go through
with them, using the scrupulous care they demanded. Nevertheless the
results well repaid the trouble. They gave me an interesting and
unexpected view of the number of the operations of the mind, and of the
obscure depths in which they took place, of which I had been little
conscious before. The general impression they have left upon me is like
that which many of us have experienced when the basement of our house
happens to be under thorough sanitary repairs, and we realise for the first
time the complex system of drains and gas and water pipes, flues, bell-
wires, and so forth, upon which our comfort depends, but which are
usually hidden out of sight, and with whose existence, so long as they
acted well, we had never troubled ourselves.
The first experiments I made were imperfect, but sufficient to inspire
me with keen interest in the matter, and suggested the form of procedure
that I have already partly described. My first experiments were these. On
several occasions, but notably on one when I felt myself unusually
capable of the kind of effort required, I walked leisurely along Pall Mall, a
distance of 450 yards, during which time I scrutinised with attention every
successive object that caught my eyes, and I allowed my attention to rest
on it until one or two thoughts had arisen through direct association with
that object; then I took very brief mental note of them, and passed on to
the next object. I never allowed my mind to ramble. The number of
objects viewed was, I think, about 300, for I had subsequently repeated
the same walk under similar conditions and endeavoured to estimate their
number, with that result. It was impossible for me to recall in other than
the vaguest way the numerous ideas that had passed through my mind; but
of this, at least, I am sure, that samples of my whole life had passed before
me, that many bygone incidents, which I never suspected to have formed
part of my stock of thoughts, had been glanced at as objects too familiar to
awaken the attention. I saw at once that the brain was vastly more active
than I had previously believed it to be, and 12 was perfectly amazed at the
unexpected width of the field of its everyday operations. After an interval
of some days, during which I kept
