FUNDAMENTAL EXPLANATION OF SUCCESSION.
38. The reasons that destroy the absolute nature of time, inasmuch as it is subject to measure, do not seem fully to obviate another difficulty, arising from the consideration of time in itself. If indeed time be succession, what is this succession? It is evident that things succeed each other; but if there be nobeforeorafter, that is, time existing before succession, since succession consists in some things comingafterothers, what is the meaning of succeeding each other? Thus, time is explained by succession, and succession by time. What isafterwardsbut a part of time that is in relation with aheretofore?
39. What we said in the fourth chapter does not seem completely to solve the difficulty; for being and not-being do not form succession, save only inasmuch as one comesafterthe other, that is, inasmuch as it presupposes the time to be explained already to exist. There may be a simultaneous being and not-being of distinct things; and there is in one and the same thing no repugnance between being and not-being, if not referred to the same time. In such a case, therefore, this is always presupposed so to be; since in one and the same thing, being and not-being are inconceivable unless at different instants of time. Hence it follows that being and not-being do not sufficiently explain time.
40. This difficulty is indeed grave; and we must, in order to solve it, elaborate a fundamental explanation of succession. This we shall endeavor to do, and without in any sense supposing the idea of time.
41. There are things which exclude, and things which donot exclude each other. When we have existence of things which exclude each other, we have succession. If in a line a————b————c, a body be at a, it cannot pass to b, without ceasing to be at a. The situation at b excludes that at a; and so also that at c excludes that at b. When we see things exist notwithstanding this reciprocal exclusion, we find succession.
42. Succession is, in reality, the existence of things mentally exclusive of each other. What each involves is the being of that which excludes, and the not-being of that which is excluded.
43. This exclusion prevails in all variations; and therefore, we find succession in every variation. Variation is the mutation of states; the loss of one, and the acquisition of another; therefore, there is exclusion, for being excludes not-being, and not-being, being.
44. When we perceive these distinctions, these exclusions realized, we perceive succession, time. When we compute these exclusions, these distinctions in which distinct and exclusive things are offered to us, such as being and not-being, we compute time.
45. Here arises a difficulty. If succession involves exclusion, and there is no succession without exclusion, it follows that things which do not exclude each other are simultaneous; and from this we infer the absurdity of saying, that the things happening in the time of Adam, which do not exclude those of our own time, are simultaneous. The motion of the plants of Paradise excludes not that of plants in gardens now existing; this motion, then, is simultaneous with that; the motion that was then is the present; and the present motion was then; which is inconceivably absurd.
This difficulty is serious: it seems to be based upon a reason founded in evident truths; but it is not impossible to give a solution of it.
46. Were there to exist one thing which excluded nothing, and was excluded by nothing, it would be simultaneous with every thing. Know you what this thing is? There is but one, God. It is therefore that the theologians say, with great truth, and with a profoundness which has not, perhaps, been at all times understood even by those who have made the remark, that God is present to all times; that to him there is no succession, nobeforeorafter; that to him every thing is present, isnow.
47. Of God alone is this true; in all else there is some exclusion, being and not-being, and therefore succession. Let us now, for example, examine how the motion of the plants in our gardens is excluded by that of the garden of Eden. How are those of our gardens moved? By existing, and also by being subject to conditions necessary to motion. How do they exist? By a development of the germs they themselves contain. What is this development? A series of motions, of being and of not-being, and consequently of things that exclude each other. There is, then, no simultaneousness between those of the garden of Eden and those of our own gardens; for between the former and the first germ, there was no mediation other than the movement of the first development; whereas, between the movements of those of our gardens and the first germ, many others have intervened. Here we have exclusion, being and not-being. The number of exclusions necessary to existence is very different in the two cases; therefore, there is no simultaneousness. Considering all the developments, and all the changes of the orb, as a dilated series of terms interlaced by a mutual dependence, as in fact they are by the laws of nature; and calling these terms A, B, C, D, E,—N, the plants of the garden of Eden belong to the term A, and those of ours, to the term N.
48. The non-simultaneousness of motion is proved in thesame manner as the non-simultaneousness of existence, for motion is a manner of existing. Moreover, the air which agitates the plants of our gardens has been moved by another, and this other by yet another; and these motions, subject to all the fixed and constant laws of nature, are all interlinked from the very first motion, just as the wheels are interlocked in a system of machinery. But as the curvature of one wheel is not that of the other, so these motions are different, and exclude one another down to the last, which is the air which moves the present plants.
49. This explanation of succession and time, throws much light on the idea of eternity; and shows that eternity, or the simultaneousness of all existence, belongs only to the immutable being. All mutable beings, which necessarily imply a transition from not-being to being, and from being to not-being, involve a succession, if not in their substance, at least in their modifications.
50. This explains how the idea of time is found in almost all our conceptions, and is expressed in all languages. Man continually perceives being and not-being in all around him. He perceives it within him, in the multitude of his thoughts and affections; at one time agreeing, at another disagreeing; sometimes connected, and sometimes separated; but always distinguished from one another, always producing different modifications in the mind: they therefore exclude each other, and cannot co-exist; because the existence of one excludes the existence of the other.