The difficulty of the exposition, in this case, consists not in the ideas; for they are clear and certain enough; but in finding expressions which will have even a chance of conveying to readers, who are not familiar with the analysis of mental phenomena, the ideas which it is my object to impart.
As all objects, considered as existing together, are said to exist in SPACE, so all objects considered as existing one after another, are said to exist in TIME.
Objects, however, are said to exist in Time, in two distinguishable cases; either when they are in constant flow; or, when they have, what we call, stability or duration. The constant passage of men, horses, vehicles, &c., in a busy and crowded street, is in Time; the permanence of St. Paul’s, in its well-known position, is also in Time. If Time mean the succession of the objects in the one case, it must mean something else in the other. It cannot mean the succession of St. Paul’s. But it may mean the idea of St. Paul’s, associated with the idea of other successions.
Of TIME itself we conceive, that it is never still. It is a perpetual flow of instants, of which only one can ever be present. The very idea of Time, therefore, is 117 an idea of successions. It consists of this, and of nothing else.
But there are no real successions, save successions of objects, that is of feelings in our minds.[28] What, then, are the successions of TIME, which are the successions of nothing? To those who have thoroughly familiarized themselves with the account which we have given of abstract terms, and who can promptly and steadily conceive the mode of their signification, we can render an answer, which will be understood at once, and will be felt to be complete and satisfactory.
[28] There is an unusual employment of language here, which if attention is not formally drawn to it, may embarrass the reader. By objects are commonly meant, those groups or clusters of sensations and possibilities of sensation, that compose what we call the external world. A single sensation, even external, and still less if internal, is not called an object. In a somewhat larger sense, whatever we think of, as distinguished from the thought itself and from ourselves as thinking it, is called an object; this is the common antithesis of Object and Subject. But in this place, the author designates as objects, all things which have real existence, as distinguished from the instants of mere Time, which, as he is pointing out, have not; and a puzzling effect is produced by his applying the name Object, in even an especial manner, to sensations: to the tickings of a watch, or the beatings of a patient’s pulse.—Ed.
We have shewn, how we form the abstracts, redness, from red; sweetness, from sweet; hardness, from hard; by simply dropping the connotation of the concrete term. Thus red, always means something red; redness, is the red without the something; so of sweetness, hardness, and so forth. When the ideas are more 118 complicated, the case is still the same. When we use the concrete, living, it always connotes something living; a living man, a living quadruped, a living bird, fish, insect, and so forth. When we use the abstract, life, we convey all that we convey by the term living, except the connotation. We say that John is healthy, James is healthy, on account of circumstances the idea of which forms a very complex idea. The concrete healthy always connotes an individual. Use the abstract, health, you have the idea without the connotation.
In applying this doctrine to the case of successions, we are ill supplied with appropriate names; and hence the difficulty of the case, both to the teacher, and the learner.
We have said that there are no real successions, but successions of objects. The tickings of my watch are successive sounds, that is, sensations. The beatings which are felt by the physician, in the artery of his patient, are successive feelings or sensations of touch.
When the different particulars of a scene in which a man has been engaged, of a battle, for example, in which he has commanded, pass through his mind, there is a succession of ideas. In all these cases of the successions of sensations, or ideas, there is always one present, others past, and others to come, that is, future. Drop the connotation of “something past,” “something present,” “something future.” You have pastness, presentness, and futureness. But pastness, presentness, and futureness, are TIME. TIME can neither be shewn, nor conceived, to be any thing else. It is a single-worded abstract, involving the meaning 119 of these three several abstracts. The true meaning of these abstracts is clearly made out from their concretes. The precise idea, therefore, marked by the word TIME; if the meaning of these abstracts is sufficiently apprehended; is at last apparent. Nor is there any mysteriousness in it whatsoever, but that which has arisen from misapprehension of that grand department of Naming, which belongs to abstract terms; and from inattention to that class of words, which are invented to supply the place, each of them singly, of several other words.