An Introduction to Philosophy

T

t as divisible into parts, all of which are successive; we know that whatever happens must happen in time. Those who have thought a good deal about the ma

have to be criticised in just the same way, it is not necessary to dwell

ar to be a something of such a nature that we can demolish it or clear it away from something else. But is it necessarily absurd to speak of a system of things—not, of course, a system of things in which there is change, success

h appears to be offered us is contained in the statement that we cannot conceive of a time before which there was no time, nor of a time after which there will be no time; a proof which is no proof, for written out at length it reads as follows: we cannot conceive of a time in the time before which th

ely conscious of an infinite number of parts in the minute which just slipped by. Shall he assert that it did, nevertheless, contain an infinite number of parts? Then how did it succeed in passing? how did it even begin to pass away? It

cannot pass first. It must itself pass bit by bit, as must the whole minute; and if it is infinitely divis

o on without end. We cannot by subdivision come to any part which is itself not composed of smaller parts. The partless thing that passed, then, is no part of the minute. That is all still wait

y pass first. But if we follow with approval the reflections of certain thinkers, we may find ourselves at such a pass that we would be glad to be able to prove that we may have on o

essive, and of the three divisions, past, present, and future, only one can be regarded as existing: "Those two times, past and future, h

ivisible into no parts at all, or perhaps into the minutest parts of moments, this alone let us call present; yet this speeds so hurriedly from the future

ong. But when? If while yet future it will not be long, for nothing will yet exist to be long. And if it will be long, when, from a future as yet nonexistent, it has be

fifth. Past time does not exist now, future time does not exist yet, and present time, it seems, has no duration. Can a man be said to be conscious of time as past,

and expectation. Before he begins to repeat a psalm, his expectation extends over the whole of it. After a little a part of it must be re

ltaneously? If everything in the memory image exists at once, if all belongs to the punctual present, to the mere point that divides past f

change as this implies at least two instants, an earlier and a later. He who has never experienced a change of any sort, who has never been conscious of the relation of earlier and later, of succession, cannot think of the varied content of memory as of that which has been present. It cannot mean to him what

nge. We cannot really be shut up to that punctual present, that mere point or limit between past and future, that the present has been described as being.

nt themselves in that field. Those who read much in the history of modern philosophy will see that this ancient difficulty touching our co

f a whole in which successive moments are recognized as having their appropriate place, unless we assume a something that knows each moment and knits it, so to speak, to its successor. This something is the self or consciousness, which

hing can join past and present. I merely wish to point out that these modern speculations, which still influence the minds of many distinguished men, have their origin in a difficulty which suggested itself early in the history of reflective thought, and ar

o the world of the plain man, the world in which we all habitually live. It is from this that we must start

tain relations of arrangement; that is to say, they exist in space. And just as we may distinguish between the object as it appears and the object as it is, so we may distinguish between apparent space an

sion of changes in those objects. And if we will reason about those changes as we have reasoned about spa

ery one distinguishes between apparent time and real time now and then. We all know that a sermon may _seem _long and not be long; that the ten years that we live over in a dream are not

al things. In the last chapter I spoke of space as the "form" of the real world; it would

he moon has described since our last observation, the movement of the hands of a clock, the amount of sand which has fallen in the hourglass, these things and such as these are the indicators of real time. There may be indicators of a different sort; we may decide that it is noon because we are hungry, or

experience of things and their changes, we can by abstraction from the things themselves fix our attention upon their arrangement and upon the order of their changes. We can divide and subdivide spaces and times without much refe

is in a position to offer what seem to be satisfactory sol

tions. One cannot drop out certain of these and leave the rest unchanged, for the latter imply the former. Day-after-to-morrow would not be day-after-to-m

pect. We constantly abstract from things, and consider only the order of their changes, and in this order itself there is no reason why one should set a limit at some point; indeed, to set such a limit seems a gratuitous absurdity. He who says that tim

s infinitely divisible. Of course, the time directly given in any single experience, the minute or the second of which we are conscious as it passes, cannot be regarded as composed of an

me. We have seen that real time is the time occupied by the changes in real t

perceivable, and we may assign to its motions a space so small that no one could possibly perceive it as space, as a something with part out of part, a something with a here and a there. But, as has been before pointed out

ent it to ourselves as extended, that is, we can let an experience which is extended stand for it, and can dwell upon the parts of that. We can perceive a second to have duration; we can

ation. It is not necessary to believe that the duration that we actually experience as a second must itself be capable of being divided up into the numbe

y single experience of duration—is never infinitely divisible; and that real time, in any save a relative sense of the word, is not a single exper

in any sense of the word, when duration must be made up of moments no two of which can exist together and no one of which alone can constitute time? The past is not now, the future is not yet, the present is a mere point, as we a

t is a difficulty of our own devising. The argument quietly makes an assumption—and makes it gratuitously—with which any

gth, reads as follows: we can be conscious only of the now existent, or, in other words of the present. Of

f time at all we are talking of that no two parts of which are simultaneous; it would be absurd to speak of a past that existed simultaneously with the present, just as it would be absurd to speak of a present existing simultan

ong past and present anticipations of what will be in the time to come. Moreover, we use the word "present" very loosely; we say the present year, the present day, the present hour, the present minute, or the present second. When w

gument under discussion. We all say: I now see that the cloud is moving; I now see that the snow is falling. But there can be no moving, no falling, no change, in the tim

divisible. It is first cousin to the ideal mathematical point, the mere limit between two lines, a something not perceptible to any sense. We have a tendency to carry over to it what we recognize to be true of the very different present of common d

nse in which Augustine used the word. We are conscious of time, of "crude" time, and from

pters 14 and 15.