[9*] “Multos autem in errorem ducit, quod voces generales et abstractas in disserendo utiles esse videant, nec tamen earum vim satis capiant. Partim vero à consuetudine vulgari inventæ sunt illæ ad sermonem abbreviandum, partim à philosophis ad docendum excogitatæ, non quod ad naturas rerum accommodatæ sint, quæ quidem singulares et concretæ existunt, sed quod idoneæ ad tradendas disciplinas, propterea quod faciant notiones, vel saltem propositiones, universales.”—Berkeley de Motu, s. 7. No predecessor of Berkeley was so fully aware, as he was, of the deceptions practised on the human mind by abstract terms.—(Author’s Note.)
It will be instructive, to recapitulate the indissoluble associations which are contained in the idea of Time. With every present event, is indissolubly associated the idea of an antecedent; with that antecedent, the idea of another antecedent; and so on without end. These are the ideas of Succession, and of Infinity; forced upon us by indissoluble association. The events of the present moment, are innumerable. With every one of these we associate the ideas of antecedents without end. This is the Past; an Infinity of simultaneous successions, each having antecedents, running back without end. These are successions in the concrete; successions of objects. Drop the connotation, to form the abstract, as is done in other cases; you have then successions without the objects; which is precisely the meaning of the word TIME.
As with every present event, and those infinite in number, is indissolubly associated the idea of a series of antecedents, without end, which, in the abstract, is 133 TIME PAST, so with every such event, is indissolubly associated the idea of a consequent, with that the idea of another consequent, and so on, without end; which, in the abstract, is TIME FUTURE.
The synchronous Line, or Line of Extension, and the successive Line, or Line of Time, bear a pretty close analogy. As, in the Line of Extension, we have the concrete line, and the abstract line; the concrete line being the positions with the objects; the abstract or mathematical line, the positions without the objects; so, in the line of Time, we have the concrete line, and the abstract line; the concrete line being the successions with the objects; the abstract line, the successions without the objects; to which abstract line, we give the name TIME.
We have before remarked, as an important case of indissoluble association, that the idea of Position, that is, of a modification of Space, is indissolubly associated with the idea of every sensible object. It is now to be remarked, as a not less important case, that the idea of succession or of antecedent and consequent, that is, a modification of Time, is indissolubly associated with the idea of every object. The idea of a modification of Space, and the idea of a modification of Time, form parts of our complex idea of every object. It is no wonder that they appear to be necessary, seeing that they force themselves upon us, by irresistible association, with the idea of every object.[29] [30]
[29] As is shewn in the text. Time is a name for the aggregate of the successions of our feelings, apart from the feelings themselves. I object, however, in the case of time, as I [did] in the 134 case of Space, to considering it as an abstract term. Time does not seem to me to be a name (as the author says) for the pastness, the presentness, and the futureness of our successive feelings. It is rather, I think, a collective name for our feeling of their succession—for what the author called, in a previous section, the part of the process “which consists in being sensible of their successiveness,” for which part, he then said, “we have not a name.” This taking notice of the successiveness of our feelings, whether we prefer to call it a part of the feelings themselves, or another feeling superadded to them, is yet something which, in the entire mass of feeling which the successive impressions give us, we are able to discriminate, and to name apart from the rest. A perception of succession between two feelings is a state of consciousness per se, which though we cannot think of it separately from the feelings, we can yet think of as a completed thing in itself, and not as an attribute of either or both of the two feelings. Its name, if it had one, would be a concrete name. But the entire series of these perceptions of succession has a name, Time; which I therefore hold to be a concrete name.
However inextricably these feelings of succession are mixed up with the feelings perceived as successive, we are so perfectly able to attend to them, and make them a distinct object of thought, that we can compare them with one another, without comparing the successive feelings in any other respect. We can judge two or more successions to be of equal, or of unequal, rapidity. And if we find any series of feelings of which the successive links follow each other with uniform rapidity, such as the tickings of a clock, we can make this a standard of comparison for all other successions, and measure them as equal to one, two, three, or some other number of links of this series: whereby the aggregate Time is said to be divided into equal portions, and every event is located in some one of those portions. The succession of our sensations, therefore, however closely implicated with the sensations themselves, may be abstracted from them in thought, as completely 135 as any quality of a thing can be abstracted from the thing.
The apparent infinity of Time the author, very rightly, explains in the same manner as that of Space.—Ed.
[30] In this section Mr. James Mill explains Time. He tells us that “it is a comprehensive word including all successions, or the whole of successive order” ([p. 116])—”a perpetual flow of instants, of which only one can ever be present. The very idea of Time is an idea of successions. It consists of this and of nothing else” ([pp. 116]—117)—”it is the single worded abstract, involving the meaning of the three several abstracts, pastness, presentness, futureness” ([p. 118]). In the line of “Time, we have the concrete line, and the abstract line: the concrete line being the successions with the objects: the abstract line, the successions without the objects: to which abstract line, we give the name Time” ([p. 133]).
In [p. 120] he gives us in a few words Dr. Reid’s explanation of Time:—and in [pp. 124]—130 he cites at greater length Aristotle’s explanation, as reproduced by Harris in the Hermes.