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. Thepastis an essentially relative idea. When we speak of thepast, 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 perceivethe 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 hasnone? 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 expressionhas beenimplies 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 hypotheticalnow; 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 tothe 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, thenow, 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,flowingquantity; 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.