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.