Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

55. Without being and not-being, there is no succession, there is no time, there is only the present, there is eternity. To a being immutable in itself, and in all its acts, one in its intelligence, one in its will, always its own object, unchangeable, in the plenitude of its being, without any kind of negation, – to such a being there is neither before nor after; there is only now. If you give to it the succession of instants, you apply to it, without any ground, the work of your imagination. Reflect well on the meaning of before and after, in that which can change in nothing, by nothing, and for nothing, and you will see that succession is in this case a word without any meaning. We attribute to it succession because we judge the object by our perceptions, and our perceptions are successive; they have an alternative of being and not-being, even when applied to an immutable object.

56. Every one may experience this in his own mind. Conceive two beings to exist; add to this thought nothing accessory, neither the negation of being, nor of time, nor of any thing else, – merely conceive the existence of two beings, and see if any thing is wanting to complete your idea of their co-existence. If, on the contrary, you wish to perceive succession, or difference of instants, you must perceive the existence of one, and the negation of the existence of the other. Therefore, the idea of co-existence is simple, and implies only the existence of the beings, but the idea of succession is composed of the combination of being with not-being.

57. I must here call attention to the fruitfulness of the idea of being, which, combined with the idea of not-being, furnishes the idea of time. We have before seen, that the ideas of unity and number were favored in the same manner, and we shall soon have occasion to observe, how, from the ideas of being and not-being, spring others, which, although secondary in respect to these, are the most important of all the ideas which the human mind possesses. I call attention to this, from a desire that the reader may become accustomed to refer all ideas to a few points where they are united, not by a factitious chain imposed by arbitrary methods, but by the internal nature of things themselves. What extension is, in relation to sensible intuitions, the idea of being is, in relation to conceptions. The intuition of extension, and the idea of being, are the two fundamental points in all ideological and ontological science; they are two primitive data possessed by the mind, by means of which it can solve all problems, either in the sensible order, or in the purely intellectual. Regarded from this point of view, every thing becomes clear, and is arranged in the most logical order, because it is the order of nature.

58. I wish to make one observation on the method which I have followed in this work. I did not think it well to explain separately my opinion of these general connections of all ideas; for then it would have been necessary to treat philosophy in a systematic order, placing at the beginning what ought to be at the end, and trying to establish as a preliminary doctrine, what ought only to be the result of a collection of doctrines. To attain my object, it was necessary to go on analyzing in succession facts and ideas, without reference to system, without doing violence to them, in order to make them conform to a system, but only examining them, in order to ascertain their result. This, undoubtedly, is the best method. We thus obtain the knowledge of truth as a fruit of our labors on facts, and are not obliged to alter objects for the sake of forcing them to bend to the author's opinion. After the application which we have been making of the ideas of being, and not-being, to one of the most abstruse points of metaphysics, it is not out of place to call the reader's attention to this for a moment, so that he may be able to see the connection of doctrines.

CHAPTER IX.

PRESENT, PAST, AND FUTURE

59. After explaining the idea of co-existence, we came to the definition of the various relations which time presents. They are principally three: present, past, and future. All others are combinations of these.

60. The present is the only absolute time: by this I mean, that it needs no relation, in order to be conceived. The present is conceived without relation to the past or to the future. Neither the past nor the future can be conceived without relation to the present.

61. The past is an essentially relative idea. When we speak of the past, we have to take some point to which it refers, and in respect to which we say it is past. This point is the present, either in reality, or in the ideal order; that is to say, that by the understanding, we place ourselves in that point, and make it present to us, and in reference to it, we speak of the past.

To prove that the idea of past is essentially relative, we may observe, that by varying the points of reference, the past may cease to be considered as such, and may be presented as present or future. Speaking of the events of the time of Alexander, they are presented to us as past, because we consider them in relation to the present moment; but if we are speaking of the empire of Sesostris, the epoch of Alexander ceases to be past, and is converted into future. If we were relating events contemporary with the deeds of Alexander, this epoch would cease to be past or future, and would become present.

The past, therefore, is always in reference to a present point, taken in the course of time, and it is only in respect to this, that any thing is said to have been, to be past; without this relation, the idea of past is absurd, and it is impossible to conceive it.

62. What is the relation of past? According to the definition which we have given of time, when we perceive the being of any thing, and then its not-being, and the being of something else, we say the first is past in relation to the second.

63. What would take place, then, if we should perceive the being of something, and then its not-being, without relation to any other being? This hypothesis is absurd; for we must always have this other being, if we perceive being and not-being.

But it may be replied that we may suppose the disappearance of ourselves, and then the objection would be good. Even though we should disappear, there would still remain intelligences capable of perceiving being and not-being. If there were no finite intelligence, there would still be the infinite intelligence.

64. Here arises a new difficulty; for it may be asked whether the thing would be passed with relation to the infinite intelligence. If we admit that it would be, we seem to introduce time with the duration of God, by which we destroy his eternity, which excludes all succession. If we say that to the eyes of the infinite intelligence the thing would not be past, then it would not be past in reality; for things are as God knows them. Then there would be the idea of being and of not-being, and still there would not be the idea of past. This difficulty arises from a confusion of terms.

Let us suppose that God had created only one being, and this being had ceased to exist; and let us see what would be the result of this hypothesis. God knows the existence and the non-existence of the object. This intellectual act is most simple; there can be no succession in it. There is properly no past with respect to God, and applied to the object this idea can only mean its non-existence in relation to its existence which is destroyed. When the ideas are presented in this light it is easy to understand that there is no past in God, but that there is the knowledge of past things.

65. On this hypothesis, how can the time of only one creature be measured? By its changes. But if it has none? On this imaginary supposition there would be no time.

This conclusion is absolutely necessary, although it may at first sight seem strange. We must either abandon our definition of time, or else admit that there is no time where there is no change.

66. Whatever conclusions we form on questions founded on imaginary suppositions, this, at least, is certain – that the idea of past is essentially relative, and that on no supposition can we conceive the past, if we take from it all relation. The expression has been implies both being and not-being, – the succession which constitutes time. In this relation the order is such that not-being is perceived after being, and this is why it is called past.

67. The idea of the future is also relative to the present. The future is inconceivable without this relation. The future is that which is to come, – that which is to be with respect to a real or hypothetical now; for we may apply to the future what we said of the past, that it is changed by changing the point of its reference. The future for us will be past to those who come after us; that which was future to those past, is present or past to us.

The point of reference of the future is always a present moment; it cannot be referred to the past as its ultimate term; for it is in itself referred equally to the present.

68. Therefore all that we find in the idea of time that is absolute is the present. The present needs no relation. It not only needs none, but it admits none. We can neither refer it to the past nor to the future, because these two times both presuppose the idea of the present, without which they cannot even be conceived.

69. Time is a chain whose links are infinitely divisible. There is no time which we cannot divide into other times. The indivisible instant represents something analogous to the indivisible point; a limit which we approach without ever reaching, an unextended element producing extension. A geometrical point must be moved in order to generate a line; but no motion is conceived as possible unless we presuppose space in which the point moves; or in other words, when we treat of the generation of extension, we commence by presupposing it. A similar thing happens in relation to time. We imagine an indivisible instant, from the fluxion of which results the continuity of duration which we call time. But this fluxion is impossible, unless we suppose a time in which it flows. We wish to examine the generation of time, and we suppose it already existing, prolonged infinitely, as an immense line on which the fluxion of the instant takes place. What are we to infer from these apparent contradictions? Nothing but a strong confirmation of the doctrine which we have established.

Time distinguished from things is nothing. Duration in the abstract, distinguished from that which endures, is a being of reason, – a work which our understanding produces from the materials furnished by reality. All being is present. That which is not present is not-being. The present instant, the now, is the reality of the thing; it is not sufficient to constitute time, but it is necessary to time. There can be present without either past or future; but there can be neither past nor future without the present. When besides being there is not-being, and this relation is perceived, time begins. To conceive past and future without the alternation of being and not-being, as a sort of line infinitely produced in two opposite directions, is to take an empty play of the phantasy for a philosophical idea, and to apply to time the illusion of imaginary space.

70. Therefore, if there is only being, there is only absolute, present duration; therefore no past nor future, and, consequently, no time. Time is in its essence a successive, flowing quantity; it cannot be seized in its actuality; for it is always divisible, and every division in time constitutes past and future. This is a demonstration that time is a mere relation, and in so far as it is in things, it only expresses being and not-being.

CHAPTER X.

APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING DOCTRINE TO SEVERAL IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

71. This theory will be much better understood by its application to the solution of several questions.

I. How long a time had passed before the creation? None. As there was no succession, there was only the present, the eternity of God. All else that we imagine is a mere illusion, contrary to sound philosophy.

II. Was it possible for another world to have existed when this world's existence began? Undoubtedly it was; this would only require that God had created it, without creating this world; it would only require the being of the one and the not-being of the other. And as there was not-being because there was no creation, it follows that if God had created the one without creating the other, and had ceased to preserve the first when he created the second, there would have been succession and priority of time.

III. Here is another question which is somewhat strange, and at first seems very difficult. Was the existence of a world prior to this possible in any time? or, in other words, could another world have ceased to exist some time before the beginning of the existence of this world? This question implies a contradiction. It supposes an interval of time, that is, of succession, without any thing to succeed. If a world had ceased to exist, and no new world should exist, there would be nothing but God; there would then be no succession, there would be only eternity. To ask, therefore, how long a time they were apart, is to suppose that there is time, where there is none. The proper answer is, that the question is absurd.

But we shall be asked, were they distant, or were they not? There is no distance of time where there is no time; this distance is a mere illusion, by which we imagine time, while, by the state of the question, we suppose that there is no time.

Then it may be objected, that the two successive worlds must be necessarily immediate, that is to say, that the first instant of one must be immediately connected with the last instant of the other. I deny it. For immediateness of instants supposes the succession of beings mutually connected in a certain order; the two worlds in question would have no mutual relation; consequently, there would be neither distance nor immediateness between them.

But, it may be replied, there is no medium between being and not-being, and distance being the negation of immediateness, and immediateness the negation of distance, by denying one, we affirm the other; they must, therefore, either be distant or immediate. This reply also supposes something which we deny. It speaks of distance and immediateness, that is, of time, as though it were something positive, distinct from the beings themselves. The principle, that every thing is, or is not, quodlibet est vel non est, is applicable only when there is something; but when there is nothing, there is no disjunctive. The time of the two worlds is nothing, as distinguished from them; it is the succession of their respective phenomena; the succession of the two worlds, the one to the other, is nothing distinguished from them; it is the being of the one, and the negation of the other, and the being of the second and the negation of the first. God sees this; an intelligent creature would also see it, if he could survive the annihilation of the first world. To the eyes of God, who sees the reality, succession would be simply the respective existence and non-existence of the two objects. The intelligent creature would say, that the two worlds are immediate, if to the perception of the last instant of the annihilated world, the perception of a new existing world had followed without another intermediate perception; and he would say, that there is distance, if he had experienced various perceptions between the annihilation of the old and the perception of the new creation. The measure of this time would be taken from the changes of perceptions of this creature, and would be longer or shorter, according to the number of these perceptions.

72. The idea of time is essentially relative, as it is the ordered perception of being and not-being. The mere perception of one of the two extremes, would not be sufficient to produce the idea of time in our mind; for this idea necessarily implies comparison. The same is true of the idea of space, which has always a great resemblance to time. We cannot conceive space, or extension of any kind, without juxtaposition; that is to say, without relations of various objects. Multiplicity necessarily enters into the ideas of both space and time. Hence, we may say, that if we conceive a being, absolutely simple, with no multiplicity, either in its essence, or in its acts, but in which all is identified with its essence, there is no room for the ideas of space and time; and, consequently, they are mere fictions of the imagination, when we attribute to them any thing real, beyond the corporeal world, and before the existence of the created.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE IDEA OF TIME CONFIRMS ITS RESEMBLANCE TO THE IDEA OF SPACE

73. Having explained the idea of time, and applied it to the most difficult questions, we may explain this doctrine still farther, by examining what we have already intimated concerning the resemblance between time and space.29 There is analogy in the difficulties; analogy in the definitions of both ideas; analogy in the illusions which hinder the knowledge of the truth. What we announced before with respect to these two ideas, considering the idea of time as only what it appeared at first sight, we may now assert as the secure result of analytical investigations. I call attention in particular to the following parallel, because it greatly explains the ideas of both.

74. Space is nothing in itself, distinguished from bodies; it is only the extension of bodies: time is nothing in itself, distinguished from things. It is only the succession of things.

75. The idea of space is the idea of extension in general; the idea of time is the idea of succession in general.

76. Where there are no bodies, there is no space: where there are no things which succeed each other, there is no time.

77. An infinite space, before the existence of bodies, or outside of bodies, is an illusion of the imagination: an infinite time before the existence of things, or outside of them, is also an illusion.

78. Space is continuous: so is time.

79. One part of space excludes all others; one part of time also excludes all others.

80. A pure space, in which bodies are situated, is imaginary: a succession, a time, in which things succeed, is also imaginary.

81. That which is entirely simple has no need of space, and can exist without it: that which is immutable has no need of time, and can exist without it.

82. The simple and infinite is present to all points of space, without losing its infinity: the immutable and infinite is present to all instants of time, without altering its eternity.

83. Two things are distant in space, because there are bodies placed between them; this distance is only the extension of the bodies themselves: two beings are distant in time, because there are other beings placed between them; this distance is the existence of the beings which are placed between.

84. Extension needs no other extension, in which to be placed, otherwise we should have a processus in infinitum: the succession of things, for the same reason, needs no other succession in which to succeed.

85. Just as we form the idea of continued succession in space by distinguishing different parts of extension, and perceiving that one excludes the others, so we also form the idea of continued succession of time by distinguishing different facts and perceiving that one excludes the others.

86. In order to form determinate ideas of the parts of space, we must take a measure and refer to it: to form an idea of the parts of time we also need a measure. The measure of space is the extension of some body which we know: the measure of time is some series of changes which we know. To measure space we seek for fixed things, as far as possible; for the want of something better, men have recourse to the parts of the body, the hand, the foot, the yard, and the pace, which give an approximate, if not an exact measure. The exact sciences having advanced, they have taken for their measure the forty-millionth part of the meridian of the earth: time is measured by the motion of the celestial bodies, by the diurnal motion, the lunar, solar, and sidereal year.

87. The idea of number is necessary in order to determine space and compare its different parts: the same idea is necessary in the same manner to time. The discrete quantity explains the continuous.

CHAPTER XII.

RELATIONS OF THE IDEA OF TIME TO EXPERIENCE

88. If time is nothing distinct from things, how does it happen that we conceive it in the abstract, independently of things themselves? How does it happen that it presents itself to us as an absolute being, subject to no transformation or motion, while within it every thing is moved and transformed? If it is a subjective fact, why do we apply it to things? If it is objective, why is it mingled with all our perceptions? Because it contains a necessity sufficient to be the object of science.

The idea of time, whatever it may be, seems prior to all perception of transformation, the consciousness of all internal acts included. It is impossible for us to know any of these things, unless time serves as a receptacle in which we may place our own changes and those of others.

89. The idea of time is not the result of observation; for in that case it would be the expression of a contingent fact, and could not be the principle of science. We measure time with the same exactness as we do space, and it is one of the most fundamental ideas of the exact sciences, in so far as they have any application to the objects of nature.

90. It might seem to follow from this that the idea of time is innate in our mind; and that it is prior to all ideas, and even sensations; for both are necessarily involved in successive duration.

91. The necessity of the idea of time seems to prove that time is independent of transitory things; in this case we are obliged to convert it into a purely subjective fact, or else to grant it an objective reality, independent of that which is changeable. By the former we destroy it; by the latter we make it an attribute of the divinity. To deny time is to deny the light of the sun; to raise it to the rank of an attribute of divinity is to admit change in an immutable being. If we make it purely subjective, we deny it; if objective, we make it divine: is there no middle way?

92. I agree that the idea of time is not derived from mere experience; for experience could not furnish an element so solid and so fixed, on which we may with perfect security rest all the observations of science. Still less can it be maintained, that the idea of time is derived from purely sensible experience, or that it is in itself a sensation.

93. The idea of time is not a sensation; for it is relative, and sensation is an affection of our being, without any reference to or comparison with any thing. When we experience sensations, if we had only the sensitive faculty, we should be limited to pure sensation, without any consideration of before or after, or any relation of any kind. Sensation, being limited to certain objects, cannot, like the idea of time, extend to all objects. By time, we measure not only the external world, but also the internal; not only the affections of the body, but also the most concealed and abstract actions of our mind. Time is, in itself, succession, and, in our mind, it is the perception of this succession; it cannot, therefore, present any object to the mind; even when time refers to objects, and is, as it were, the link between them, it is not itself either these objects themselves, nor the intuition of them. The idea of the time which measures the succession of a sound or of a sight, clearly is not either the sound or the sight, but the perception of their succession, of their connection. If it were the sight alone, or the sound alone, either the sight or the sound would alone be sufficient in order to perceive time, which is absurd; for there is no time without succession, and consequently there can be no time which measures two sensations without these sensations. The idea of time is independent of either of the two; it is superior to them; it is a sort of universal form, independent of this or that matter; so that, if after the sound, instead of the sight, another sound should be perceived by us, the measure of the succession would be the same, and this measure is nothing more than the idea of time. Sensations being mere contingent facts, cannot be the foundation of necessary and universal truths, they cannot serve as the basis of a science. But the idea of time is one of the principal ideas in all the physical sciences, and, like extension, is subjected to a very rigorous calculation; therefore, it is not a sensation, and it is not derived from sensation.