s Essay on "Human Understanding," tells
us, "that it is possible some creatures may think half an hour as long as
we do a thousand years; or look upon that space of duration which we call
a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age."

This notion of Monsieur Malebranche is capable of some little explanation
from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is
produced by our reflecting on the succession of ideas in our mind, and
this succession may be infinitely accelerated or retarded, it will follow
that different beings may have different notions of the same parts of
duration, according as their ideas, which we suppose are equally distinct
in each of them, follow one another in a greater or less degree of
rapidity.

There is a famous passage in the Alcoran, which looks as if Mahomet had
been possessed of the notion we are now speaking of. It is there said
that the Angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give
him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell,
which the prophet took a distinct view of; and, after having held ninety
thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All
this, says the Alcoran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that
Mahomet at his return found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen
pitcher, which was thrown down at the very instant that the Angel Gabriel
carried him away, before the water was all spilt.

There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales, which relates to this
passage of that famous impostor, and bears some affinity to the subject
we are now upon. A sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh at
this circumstance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impossible
and absurd: but conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who
had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly
convince him of the truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if
he would consent to do what he should desire of him. Upon this the
sultan was directed to place himself by a huge tub of water, which he did
accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst a circle of his great men,
the holy man bade him plunge his head into the water and draw it up
again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the
same time found himself at the foot of a mountain on the sea-shore. The
king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this piece of
tr