is mere blindness and our mere failure to perceive. A space limited, and yet without space that is out- side, is a self-contradiction. But the outside, un- fortunately, is compelled likewise to pass beyond itself; and the end cannot be reached. And it is not merely that we fail to perceive, or fail to under- stand, how this can be otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot be otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We either do not know what space means; and, if so, certainly we cannot say that it is more than appearance. Or else, know- ing what we mean by it, we see inherent in that meaning the puzzle we are describing. Space, to be space, must have space outside itself. It for ever disappears into a whole, which proves never to be more than one side of a relation to something beyond. And thus space has neither any solid parts, nor, when taken as one, is it more than the relation of itself to a new self. As it stands, it is not space; and, in trying to find space beyond it, we can find only that which passes away into a relation. Space is a relation between terms, which can never be found.
It would not repay us to dwell further on the contradiction which we have exhibited. The reader who has once grasped the principle can deal him- self with the details. I will refer merely in passing to a supplementary difficulty. Empty space — space without some quality (visual or muscular) which in it- self is more than spatial — is an unreal abstraction. It cannot be said to exist, for the reason that it cannot by itself have any meaning. When a man realizes what he has got in it, he finds that always he has a quality which is more than extension (cp. Chapter i.). But, if so, how this quality is to stand to the extension is an insoluble problem. It is a case of " inherence," which we saw (Chapter ii.) was in principle unintelligible. And, without further delay, I will proceed to consider time. I shall in this SPACE AND TIME. 39 chapter confine myself almost entirely to the diffi- culties caused by the discretion and the continuity of time. With regard to change, I will say some- thing further in the chapter which follows.
Efforts have been made to explain time psycho- logically— to exhibit, that is to say, its origin from what comes to the mind as timeless. But, for the same reason which seemed conclusive in the case of space, and which here has even greater weight, I shall not consider these attempts. I shall inquire simply as to time's character, and whether, that being as it is, it can belong to reality.
It is usual to consider time under a spatial form. It is taken as a stream, and past and future are re- garded as parts of it, which presumably do not co- exist, but are often talked of as if they did. Time, apprehended in this way, is open to the objection we have just urged against space. It is a relation — and, on the other side, it is not a relation; and it is, again, incapable of being anything beyond a re- lation. And the reader who has followed the dilemma which was fatal to space, will not require much explanation. If you take time as a relation between units without duration, then the whole time has no duration, and is not time at all. But, if you give duration to the whole time, then at once the units themselves are found to possess it; and they thus cease to be units. Time in fact is " be- fore " and " after " in one; and without this diversity it is not time. But these differences cannot be asserted of the unity; and, on the other hand and failing that, time is helplessly dissolved. Hence they are asserted under a relation. " Before in re- lation to after " is the character of time; and here the old difficulties about relation and quality recom- mence. The relation is not a unity, and yet the terms are nonentities, if left apart. Again, to import an independent character into the terms is to make 40 APPEARANCE.
each somehow in itself both before and after. But this brings on a process which dissipates the terms into relations, which, in the end, end in nothing. And to make the relation of time an unit is, first of all, to make it stationary, by destroying within it the diversity of before and after. And, in the second place, this solid unit, existing only by virtue of external relations, is forced to expand. It perishes in ceaseless oscillation, between an empty solidity and a transition beyond itself towards illusory com- pleteness.
And, as with space, the qualitative content — which is not merely temporal, and apart from which the terms related in time would have no character — presents an insoluble problem. How to combine this in unity with the time which it fills, and again how to establish each aspect apart, are both beyond our resources. And time so far, like space, has turned out to be appearance.
But we shall be rightly told that a spatial form is not essential to time, and that, to examine it fairly, we should not force our errors upon it. Let us then attempt to regard time as it stands, and without extraneous additions. We shall only convince our- selves that the root of the old dilemma is not torn up.
If we are to keep to time as it comes, and are to abstain at first from inference and construction, we must confine ourselves, I presume, to time as pre- sented. But presented time must be time present, and we must agree, at least provisionally, not to go beyond the " now." And the question at once be- fore us will be as to the " now's " temporal con- tents. First, let us ask if they exist. Is the " now" simple and indivisible? We can at once reply in the negative. For time implies before and after, and by consequence diversity; and hence the simple is not time. We are compelled then, so far, to take the present as comprehending diverse aspects.
How many aspects it contains is an interesting SPACE AND TIME. 4 1 question. According to one opinion, in the " now " we can observe both past and future; and, whether these are divided by the present, and, if so, pre- cisely in what sense, admits of further doubt. In another opinion, which I prefer, the future is not presented, but is a product of construction; and the " now " contains merely the process of present turn- ing into past. But here these differences, if indeed they are such, are fortunately irrelevant. All that we require is the admission of some process within the " now." l For any process admitted destroys the " now " from within. Before and after are diverse, and their incompatibility compels us to use a relation between them. Then at once the old wearisome game is played again. The aspects become parts, the "now" consists of " nows," and in the end these " nows " prove undiscoverable. For, as a solid part of time, the u now " does not exist. Pieces of duration may to us appear not to be composite; but a very little reflection lays bare their inherent fraudulence. If they are not duration, they do not contain an after and before, and they have, by themselves, no begin ning or end, and are by themselves outside of time. But, if so, time becomes merely the relation between them; and duration is a number of relations of the timeless, themselves also, I suppose, related some- how so as to make one duration. But how a rela- tion is to be a unity, of which these differences are predicable, we Have seen is incomprehensible. And, if it fails to be a unity, time is forthwith dissolved. But why should I weary the reader by developing in detail the impossible consequences of either alter- native? If he has understood the principle, he is with us; and, otherwise, the uncertain argumentum ad homincm would too certainly pass into argumcn* turn ad nauseam.
1 On the different meanings of the *prefeni I have said some- thing in my Princip cs of Lugiel pp. 51, foil.
42 APPEARANCE.
42 APPEARANCE.
I will, however, instance one result which follows from a denial of time's continuity. Time will in this case fall somehow between the timeless, as A — C — E. But the rate of change is not uniform for all events; and, I presume, no one will assert that, when we have arrived at our apparent units, that sets a limit to actual and possible velocity. Let us suppose then another series of events, which, taken as a whole, coincides in time with A — C — E, but contains the six units a — b — c — d — e— f. Either then these other relations (those, for example, be- tween a and b, c and d) will fall between A and C, C and E, and what that can mean I do not know; or else the transition a — b will coincide with A, which is timeless and contains no possible lapse. And that, so far as I can perceive, contradicts itself outright. But I feel inclined to add that this whole question is less a matter for detailed argument than for understanding in its principle. I doubt if there is any one who has ever grasped this, and then has failed to reach one main result. But there are too many respectable writers whom here one can hardly criticise. They have simply never got to under- stand.
Thus, if in the time, which we call presented, there exists any lapse, that time is torn by a dilem- ma, and is condemned to be appearance. But, if the presented is timeless, another destruction awaits us. Time will be the relation of the present to a future and past; and the relation, as we have seen, is not compatible with diversity or unity. Further, the existence, not presented, of future and of past seems ambiguous. But, apart from that, time perishes in the endless process beyond itself. The unit will be for ever its own relation to something beyond, something in the end not discoverable. And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given.
SPACE AND TIME. 43 Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance. I will, in the next chapter, reinforce and repeat this conclusion by some remarks upon change.
CHAPTER V MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION I am sensible that this chapter will repeat much of the former discussion. It is not for my own pleasure that I write it, but as an attempt to strengthen the reader. Whoever is convinced that change is a self- contradictory appearance, will do well perhaps to pass on towards something which interests him.
Motion has from an early time been criticised severely, and it has never been defended with much success. I will briefly point to the principle on which these criticisms are founded. Motion implies that what is moved is in two places in one time; and this seems not possible. That motion implies two places is obvious; that these places are successive is no less obvious. But, on the other hand, it is clear that the process must have unity. The thing moved must be one; and, again, the time must be one. If the time were only many times, out of relation, and not parts of a single temporal whole, then no motion would be found. But if the time is one, then, as we have seen, it cannot also be many.
A common " explanation " is to divide both the space and the time into discrete corresponding units, taken literally ad libitum. The lapse in this case is supposed to fall somehow between them. But, as a theoretical solution, the device is childish. Greater velocity would in this case be quite im- possible; and a lapse, falling between timeless units, has really, as we have seen, no meaning. And where the unity of these lapses, which makes the MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION. 45 one duration, is to be situated, we, of course, are not, and could not be, informed. And how this inconsistent mass is related to the identity of the body moved is again unintelligible. What becomes dear is merely this, that motion in space gives no solution of the problem of change. It adds, in space, a further detail which throws no light on the principle. But, on the other side, it makes the dis- crepancies of change more palpable; and it forces on all but the thoughtless the problem of the identity of a thing which has changed. But change in time, with all its inconsistencies, lies below motion in space; and, if this cannot be defended, motion at once is condemned.
The problem of change underlies that of motion, but the former itself is not fundamental. It points back to the dilemma of the one and the many, the differences and the identity, the adjectives and the thing, the qualities and the relations. How any- thing can possibly be anything else was a question which defied our efforts. Change is little beyond an instance of this dilemma in principle. It either adds an irrelevant complication, or confuses itself in a blind attempt at compromise. Let us, at the cost of repetition, try to get clear on this head.
Change, it is evident, must be change of some- thing, and it is obvious, further, that it contains diversity. Hence it asserts two of one, and so falls at once under the condemnation of our previous chapters. But it tries to defend itself by this dis- tinction: "Yes, both are asserted, but not both in one; there is a relation, and so the unity and plur- ality are combined." But our criticism of relations has destroyed this subterfuge beforehand. We have seen that, when a whole has been thus broken up into relations and terms, it has become utterly self-discrepant. You can truly predicate neither one part of the other part, nor any, nor all, of the whole. And, in its attempt to contain these ele- 46 APPEARANCE.
46 APPEARANCE.
ments, the whole commits suicide, and destroys them in its death. It would serve no purpose to repeat these inexorable laws. Let us see merely how change condemns itself by entering their sphere.
Something, A, changes, and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent, what is it that changes? It will no longer be A, but something else. In other words, let A be free from change in time, and it does not change. But let it contain change, and at once it becomes AT, A*> A3. Then what becomes of A, and of its change, for we are left with something else? Again, we may put the problem thus. The diverse states of A must exist within one time; and yet they cannot, because they are successive.
Let us first take A as timeless, in the sense oi out of time. Here the succession of the change must belong to it, or not. In the former case, what is the relation between the succession and A? If there is none, A does not change. If there is any, it forces unintelligibly a diversity onto A, which is foreign to its nature and incomprehensible. And then this diversity, by itself, will be merely the unsolved problem. If we are not to remove change altogether, then we have, standing in unintelligible relation with the timeless A, a temporal change which offers us all our old difficulties unreduced.
A must be taken as falling within the time-series; and, if so, the question will be whether it has or has not got duration. Either alternative is fatal. If the one time, necessary for change, means a single duration, that is self- contradictory, for no duration is single. The would-be unit falls asunder into endless plurality, in which it disappears. The pieces of duration, each containing a before and an after, are divided against themselves, and become mere relations of the illusory. And the attempt to locate the lapse within relations of the discrete leads to hopeless absurdities. Nor, in any case, could we MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION. 47 unite intelligibly the plurality of these relations so as to make one duration. In short, therefore, if the one time required for change means one duration, that is not one, and there is no change.
On the other hand, if the change actually took place merely in one time, then it could be no change at all. A is to have a plurality in succession, and yet simultaneously. This is surely a flat contradiction. If there is no duration, and the time is simple, it is not time at all. And to speak of diversity, and of a succession of before and after, in this abstract point, is not possible when we think. Indeed, the best excuse for such a statement would be the plea that it is meaningless. But, if so, change, upon any hypothesis, is impossible. It can be no more than appearance.
And we may perceive its main character. It contains both the necessity and the impossibility of uniting diverse aspects. These differences have broken out in the whole which at first was im- mediate. But, if they entirely break out of it, they are dissipated and destroyed; and yet, by their presence within the whole, that already is broken, and they scattered into nothings. The relational form in general, and here in particular this form of time, is a natural way of compromise. It is no solu- tion of the discrepancies, and we might call it rather a method of holding them in suspension. It is an artifice by which we become blind on either side, to suit the occasion; and the whole secret consists in ignoring that aspect which we are unable to use. Thus it is required that A should change; and, for this, two characters, not compatible, must be present at once. There must be a successive diversity, and yet the time must be one. The succession, in other words, is not really successive unless it is present And our compromise consists in regarding the pro- cess mainly from whichever of its aspects answers to our need, and in ignoring — that is, in failing or in 48 APPEARANCE.
refusing to perceive — the hostility of the other side. If you want to take a piece of duration as present and as one, you shut your eyes, or in some way are blind to the discretion, and, attending merely to the content, take that as a unity. And, on the other hand, it is as easy to forget every aspect but that of discreteness. But change, as a whole, consists in the union of these two aspects. It is the holding both at once, while laying stress upon the one which for the time is prominent, and while the difficulties are kept out of sight by rapid shuffling. Thus, in asserting that A alters, we mean that the one thing is different at different times. We bring this di- versity into relation with A's qualitative identity, and all seems harmonious. Of course, as we know, even so far, there is a mass of inconsistency, but that is not the main point here. The main point is that, so far, we have not reached a change of A. The identity of a content A, in some sort 0/" relation with diverse moments and with varying states — if it means anything at all — is still not what we under- stand by change. That the mere oneness of a quality can be the unity of a duration will hardly be contended. For change to exist at all, this oneness must be in temporal relation with the diversity. In other words, if the process itself \s not one state, the moments are not parts of it; and, if so, they cannot be related in time to one another. On the one hand, A remains A through a period of any length, and is not changed so far as A. Considered thus, we may say that its duration is mere presence and contains no lapse. But the same duration, if regarded as the succession ofy^'s altered states, con- sists of many pieces. On the other hand, thirdly, this whole succession, regarded as one sequence or period, becomes a unity, and is again present. " Through the present period," we should boldly say, " A's processes have been regular. His rate of growth is normal, and his condition is for the MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION. 49 present identical But, during the lapse of this one period, there have been present countless successive differences in the state of B; and the coincidence in time, of B*s unchanging excitement with the healthy succession of A's changes, shows that in the same interval we may have present either motion or rest." There is hardly exaggeration here; but the statement exhibits a palpable oscillation. We have the dwelling, with emphasis and without principle, upon separate aspects, and the whole idea consists essentially in this oscillation. There is total failure to unite the differences by any consistent principle, and the one discoverable system is the systematic avoidance of consistency. The single fact is viewed alternately from either side, but the sides are not combined into an intelligible whole. And I trust the reader may agree that their consistent union is impossible. The problem of change defies solution, so long as change is not degraded to the rank of mere appearance.
I will end this chapter by some remarks on the perception of succession, or, rather, one of its main features. And I will touch upon this merely in the interest of metaphysics, reserving what psychological opinions I may have formed for another occasion. The best psychologists, so far as I know, are be- coming agreed that for this perception some kind of unity is wanted. They see that without an identity, to which all its members are related, a series is not one, and is therefore not a series. In fact, the person who denies this unity is able to do so merely because he covertly supplies it from his own un- reflecting mind. And 1 shall venture to regard this general doctrine as established, and shall pass to the point where I think metaphysics is further in- terested.
It being assumed that succession, or rather, here, perceived succession, is relative to a unity, a ques- 50 APPEARANCE.
tion arises as to the nature of this unity, generally and in each case. The question is both difficult and interesting psychologically; but I must confine myself to the brief remarks which seem called for in this place. It is not uncommon to meet the view that the unity is timeless, or that it has at any rate no duration. On the other hand, presumably, it has a date, if not a place, in the general series of phenomena, and is, in this sense, an event. The succession I understand to be apprehended some- how in an indivisible moment, — that is, without any lapse of time, — and to be so far literally simultaneous. Any such doctrine seems to me open to fatal ob- jections, some of which I will state.
i. The first objection holds good only against certain persons. If the timeless act contains a re- lation, and if the latter must be relative to a real unity, the problem of succession appears again to break out without limit inside this timeless unit.
2. But those who would deny, the premises of this first objection, may be invited to explain them- selves on other points. The act has no duration, and yet it is a psychical event. It has, that is, an assignable place in history. If it does not possess the latter, how is it related to my perception? But, if it is an event with a before and an after in time, how can it have no duration? It occurs in time, and yet it occupies no time; or it does not occur in time, though it happens at a given date. This does not look like the account of anything real, but it is a manufactured abstraction, like length without breadth. And if it is a mere way of stating the problem in hand — viz., that from one point of view succession has no duration — it seems a bad way of stating it. But if it means more, its meaning seems quite unintelligible.
3. And it is the more plainly so since its content is certainly successive, as possessing the distinction of after and before. Wilis' distinction is a fact; and, MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION. 5 1 if so, the psychical lapse is a fact; and, if so, this fact is left in flat contradiction with the timeless unity. And to urge that the succession, as used, is ideal — is merely content, and is not psychical fact — would be a futile attempt to misapply a great principle. It is not wholly true that "ideas are not what they mean." for if their meaning is not psychical fact, I should like to know how and where it exists. And the question is whether succession can, in any sense, come before the mind without some actual succession entering into the very ap- prehension. If you do not vicau a lapse, then you have given up your contention. But, if you do mean it, then how, except in the form of some actual mental transition, is it to come ideally before your mind? I know of no intelligible answer; and I conclude that, in this perception, what is perceived is an actual succession; and hence the perception itself must have some duration.
4. And, if it has no duration, then I do not see how it is related to the before and after of the time perceived; and the succession of this, with all its unsolved problems, seems to me to fall outside it 5. And, lastly, if we may have one of these occur- rences without duration, apparently we may also have many in succession, all again without duration. And I do not know how the absurd consequences which follow can be avoided or met.
In short, this creation is a monster. It is not a working fiction, entertained for the sake of its work. For, like most other monsters, it really is impotent. It is both idle and injurious, since it has diverted attention from the answer to its problem.
And that, to the reader who has followed our metaphysical discussion, will, I think, be apparent. We found that succession required both diversity and unity. These could not intelligibly be com- 52 APPEARANCE.
52 APPEARANCE.
bined, and their union was a mere junction, with oscillation of emphasis from one aspect to the other. And so, psychically also, the timeless unity is a piece of duration, not experienced as successive. Assuredly everything psychical is an event, and it really contains a lapse; but so far as you do not use, or notice, that lapse, it is not there for you and for the purpose in hand. In other words, there is a permanent in the perception of change, which goes right through the succession and holds it together. The permanent can do this, on the one hand, be- cause it occupies duration and is, in its essence, divisible indefinitely. On the other hand, it is one and unchanging, so far as it is regarded or felt, and is used, from that aspect. And the special concrete identities, which thus change, and again do not change, are the key to the particular successions that are perceived. Presence is not absolute timelessness; it is any piece of duration, so far as that is con- sidered from or felt in an identical aspect. And this mere relative absence of lapse has been per- verted into the absolute timeless monstrosity which we have ventured to condemn.
But it is one thing to see how a certain feature of our time-perception is possible. It is quite another thing to admit that this feature, as it stands, gives the truth about reality. And that, as we have learnt, is impossible. We are forced to assert that A is both continuous and discrete, both successive and present. And our practice of taking it, now as one in a certain respect, and now again as many in another respect, shows only how we practise. The problem calls upon us to answer how these aspects and respects are consistently united in the one thing, either outside of our minds or inside — that makes no difference. And if we fail, as we shall, to bring these features together, we have left the problem unsolved. And, if it is unsolved, then change and motion are incompatible internally, and are set down MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION. 53 to be appearance. And if, as a last resource, we use the phrases " potential " and " actual," and attempt by their aid to reach harmony, we shall have left the case as it stands. We shall mean by these phrases that the thing is, and yet that it is not, and that we choose for our own purpose to treat these irreconcilables as united. But that is only another, though perhaps a more polite, way 0/ saying that the problem is insoluble.
In the chapter which comes next, we must follow the same difficulties a little further into other appli- cations.
CHAPTER VI.
CAUSATION.
The object of this chapter is merely to point out, first, the main discrepancy in causation, and, in the second place, to exhibit an obstacle coming from time's continuity. Some other aspects of the gene- ral question will be considered in later chapters.1 We may regard cause as an attempt to account rationally for change. A becomes Bt and this alter- ation is felt to be not compatible with A. Mere A would still be mere A, and, if it turns to something different, then something else is concerned. There must, in other words, be a reason for the change. But the endeavour to find a satisfactory reason is fruitless.