Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will

by Joseph Haven

Space, we defined as the condition of being, regarded as extended, material. Time is the condition of being, regarded as in action, movement, change.

Sense informs us not only of magnitudes, extensions, material objects, and existences, as around us in nature, but of movements and changes continually taking place among these various existences; as extension is essential to those material forms, so succession is essential to these movements and changes; they cannot take place, nor be conceived to take place, without it; and as space is involved in, and given along with, the very idea of extension, so time is involved in, and given along with, the very idea of succession. Time, then, is the condition of action, movement, change, event, as space is of extended and material existence. It is that which is required in order that something should take place or occur, just as space is that which is required in order that something should exist as material and having form. As space gives us the question where, time gives us the question when. It is the place of events, as space is of forms.

Brown's View.—Dr. Brown defines time to be the mere relation of one event to another, as prior and subsequent. It follows, from this view, that if there were no events, then no time, since the latter is a mere relation subsisting among the former. Is this so? No doubt we derive our idea of time from the succession of events; but is time merely an idea, merely a conception, merely a relation, or has it reality out of and aside from our mind's conceiving it, and independent of the series of events that take place in it?

Not a mere Conception.—Like space, it is a law of thought, a conception, and like space it is not a mere law of thought, not a mere conception of the mind, not altogether subjective. Nor is it a mere relation of one event to another in succession. It is, on the contrary, necessary to, and prior to, all succession and all events. It does not depend on the occurrence of events, but the occurrence of events depends on it. As space would still exist were matter annihilated, so time would continue were events to cease. But were time blotted out there could be no succession, no occurrence or event. Time is essential, not to the mere thought or conception of events, but to the possibility of the thing itself. It is not, then, a mere idea, or conception of the mind, nor a mere relation. It has, in a sense, objectivity and reality, since it is the ground and condition of all continuous active existence, as space is of all extended formal existence, the sine quâ non, without which not merely our idea and conception of such existence would vanish, but the thing itself. There could be no such thing as active continuous existence, either of mind or matter, since mind and spirit, as continuous and persistent in any of its moods and phases, much more as passing from one to another of those moods, implies succession. Time is to mind what space is to matter. Matter protends in space, mind in time. Time is even less purely subjective than space, for should we say that both matter and space are mere subjective phenomena, mere conceptions, yet even to those very conceptions, to those subjective phenomena, as states of mind, time is essential.

Whence our Idea of Time.—It is with the idea of time as with that of space. Logically, time is the condition, à priori, of all experience, because of all continuous existence and all consciousness; but chronologically it is à posteriori, i. e., it is, to us, a matter of sensible experience. Sense is the occasion on which the idea of time is first awakened in our minds. We first exist, continue to exist, are conscious of that existence, conscious of succession, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and so we get the idea of time.

Time is necessary to succession; yet had there been no succession known to us, we should have had no idea of time. We are to distinguish, of course, between our idea of time and the thing itself. Locke is incorrect in making the idea of succession prior to that of duration, in itself considered, and not merely as regards our knowledge. In this respect, Cousin has ably and justly criticised the philosophy of Locke.

Time a relative Idea.—Looking at time merely as an idea or conception of our own minds, it is simply the perception of relation; the relation of passing events to each other, the relation of our various modes and states of being, our thoughts, feelings, etc., to each other, as successive, or to external objects and events, as also successive; the whereabouts, in a word, of one's self, one's present consciousness, in relation to what passes, or has passed, within or without, the relation of the present me to the former me, as regards both the succession of internal or external events. Hence the mind has only to withdraw itself completely from the consciousness of its former states and of events passing without, and it loses altogether its idea of time.

Thus in Sleep.—This we find to be the case in sleep. The thinking goes on; the idea of present self is kept up, but not of self in relation to the objects that are really about us, or to the actual part of its own existence. Whatever relation seems to exist, is imaginary and untrue. We no longer know where we are, nor exactly who we are. The avenues of communication with the external world are shut up, the eye, the ear, etc., are inactive, the spirit withdraws from the outward into itself, as far as this is possible, while the connection of body and mind still continues; its relations to former things and to present things are forgotten and unknown. What is the consequence? We lose all idea of time; the moment of falling asleep and of our beginning to awake, if the sleep have been sound, is apparently one and the same moment. The first effect of returning consciousness is to resume the broken thread of time, to find your place again in the series of things, whether it is morning or night, what morning or what night it is; to find yourself, in fact. You had forgotten yourself, to use a familiar phrase exactly descriptive of the present case. What of yourself had you forgotten? Simply your relation to the order and succession of things without, and of thoughts and feelings within—your place in the series. In sleep, your existence, so far as it is an object of consciousness at all, is simply that of each passing moment by itself.

Thus in absorbing Pursuits.—You have only, in your waking moments, to lose sight as completely of that relation and succession of the present self to the past self, of the me to the not me, and you lose as completely all idea of time. Does this ever occur? Partially, whenever the attention is absorbed in any intensely interesting pursuit or study. Time passes insensibly then. We are abstracted from the series, our attention is withdrawn from surrounding objects and events, and even from our own thoughts, as such. We lose sight of the me, and, of course, of the relation of the me, to passing events, and therefore lose the sense of time. When the spell is at last broken we must go to seek ourselves again, as we would seek a child, that, in its play, had wandered from our side.

Also in Disease.—Something of the same sort occurs in severe and protracted sickness. The mind loses its reckoning, so to speak, as a ship in a storm loses latitude and longitude, and wanders from its course, unable longer to take its daily observations.