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 isone 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.
94. Purely experimental cognitions are confined to the sphere of experience; the idea of time extends to the whole real and possible order, it teaches us not only whatis, but whatmay, and whatmustbe; its relations are of absolute necessity, and may be subjected to the strictest calculation; therefore it contains something more than the elements furnished by sensible or insensible experience. It is not otherwise possible to explain the necessity which it involves, or to pass beyond a collection of contingent facts to arrive at the possession of an element of science.
95. Let us observe, as we pass, that here is found another proof that the system of Condillac is neither true nor subsistent. His system has been found insufficient to explain any fundamental idea, and it does not explain the idea of time, any more than the rest, although it seems as though this idea must have the most intimate relations to the sensible order.
96. If the idea of time is not merely experimental, how explain the priority and necessity of time?