HUMAN FACULTY
277
each of those absurd and ill-made monstrosities could have obtained the hold it had over the imaginations of its worshippers. I wished, if possible, to enter into those feelings. It was difficult to find a suitable object for trial, because it ought to be in itself quite unfitted to arouse devout feelings. I fixed on a comic picture, it was that of Punch, and made believe in its possession of divine attributes. I addressed it with much quasi-reverence as possessing a mighty power to reward or punish the behaviour of men towards it, and found little difficulty in ignoring the impossibilities of what I professed. The experiment gradually succeeded ; I began to feel and long retained for the picture a large share of the feelings that a barbarian entertains towards his idol, and learnt to appreciate the enormous potency they might have over him.
I will mention here a rather weird effect that compiling these "Memories" has produced on me.. By much dwelling upon them they became refurbished and so vivid as to appear as sharp and definite as things of to-day. The consequence has been an occasional obliteration of the sense of Time, and to replace it by the idea of a permanent panorama, painted throughout with equal vividness, in which the point to which attention is temporarily directed becomes for that time the Present. The panorama seems to extend unseen behind a veil which hides the Future, but is slowly rolling aside and disclosing it. That part -of the panorama which is veiled is supposed to exist as vividly coloured as the rest, though latent. I n short, this experience has given me an occasional feeling that there are no realities corresponding to Past, Present, and Future,
