"
We might carry this thought further, and consider a man as on one
side, shortening his time by thinking on nothing, or but a few
things; so, on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his
thoughts on many subjects, or by entertaining a quick and constant
succession of ideas. Accordingly, Monsieur Malebranche, in his
"Inquiry after Truth," which was published several years before Mr.
Locke'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.
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