rief 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 I was perfectly amazed
at the unexpected width of the field of its everyday operations.
After an interval of some days, during which I kept my mind from
dwelling on my first experiences, in order that it might retain as
much freshness as possible for a second experiment, I repeated the
walk, and was struck just as much as before by the variety of the
ideas that presented themselves, and the number of events to which
they referred, about which I had never consciously occupied myself
of late years. But my admiration at the activity of the mind was
seriously diminished by another observation which I then made, namely,
that there had been a very great deal of repetition of thought. The
actors in my mental stage were indeed very numerous, but by no means
so numerous as I had imagined. They now seemed to be something like
the actors in theatres where large processions are represented, who
march off one side of the stage, and, going round by the back, come
on again at the other. I accordingly cast about for means of laying
hold of these fleeting thoughts, and, submitting them to statistical
analysis, to find out more about their tendency to repetition and
other matters, and the method I finally adopted was the one already
mentioned. I selected a list of suitable words, and wrote them on
different small sheets of paper. Taking care to dismiss them from my
thoughts when not engaged upon them, and allowing some days to
elapse before I began to use them, I laid one of these sheets with
all due precautions, under a book, but not wholly covered by it, so
that when I leaned forward I could see one of the words, being
previously quite ignorant of what the word would be. Also I held a
small chronograph,