Now some philosophers identify successive duration with change, and hold that successive duration is formally the duration of things subject to change; that in so far as a being is subject to change its duration is successive, and in so far as it is free from change its duration approaches the essentially permanent duration of the Eternal, Immutable Being; that therefore the duration of corporeal, corruptible, mortal beings is par excellence successive or temporal duration (tempus); that spiritual beings, which are substantially immutable, but nevertheless have a successive series of spiritual activities, have a sort of duration more perfect, because more permanent, than mere temporal duration, but less perfect, because less permanent, than eternal duration (aevum, aeviternitas); while the Absolutely Immutable Being alone has perfect permanent duration (aeternitas).[389] It is not clear whether according to this view we should distinguish between the duration of spiritual substances as permanent, and that of their acts as successive; or why we should not attribute permanent duration to corporeal substances and their permanent accidents, confining successive duration formally to motion or change itself. It is, moreover, implied in this view that duration is not any really distinct perfection or mode superadded to the actuality of the being that endures.
Other philosophers hold that all duration of creatures is successive; that [pg 331] no individual creature has a mixture of permanent and successive duration; that this successive duration is really distinct from that which endures by means of it; that it is really distinct even from the reality of change or motion itself; that it is a real mode the formal function of which is to confer on the enduring reality a series of actualities in the order of “succession of posterior to prior,” a series of intrinsic quandocationes (analagous to the intrinsic locations which their extension confers upon bodies in space). These philosophers distinguish between continuous or (indefinitely) divisible successive duration, the (indefinitely divisible) parts of which are “past” and “future,” and the present not a “part” but only an “indivisible limit” between the two parts; and discontinuous or indivisible successive duration, whose parts are separate and indivisible units of duration succeeding one another discontinuously: each part being a real but indivisible duration, so that besides the parts that are past and future, the present is also a part, which is—like an instant of time—indivisible, but which is also—unlike an instant of time—a real duration. The former kind of successive duration they ascribe to corporeal, corruptible creatures; the latter to spiritual, incorruptible creatures. This view is defended with much force and ingenuity by De San in his Cosmologia;[390] where also a full discussion of most of the other questions we have touched upon will be found.
Chapter XII. Relation; The Relative And The Absolute.
87. Importance of the Present Category.—An analysis of the concept of Relation will be found to have a very direct bearing both on the Theory of Being and on the Theory of Knowledge. For the human mind knowledge is embodied in the mental act of judgment, and this is an act of comparison, an act whereby we relate or refer one concept to another. The act of cognition itself involves a relation between the knowing subject and the known object, between the mind and reality. Reality itself is understood only by our mentally recognizing or establishing relations between the objects which make up for us the whole knowable universe. This universe we apprehend not as a multitude of isolated, unconnected individuals, but as an ordered whole whose parts are inter-related by their mutual co-ordinations and subordinations. The order we apprehend in the universe results from these various inter-relations whereby we apprehend it as a system. What we call a law of nature, for instance, is nothing more or less than the expression of some constant relation which we believe to exist between certain parts of this system. The study of Relation, therefore, belongs not merely to Logic or the Theory of Knowledge, but also to the Theory of Being, to Metaphysics. What, then, is a relation? What is the object of this mental concept which we express by the term relation? Are there in the known and knowable universe of our experience real relations? Or are all relations merely logical, pure creations of our cognitive activity? Can we classify relations, whether real or logical? What constitutes a relation formally? What are the properties or characteristics of relations? These are some of the questions we must attempt to answer.
Again, there is much ambiguity, and not a little error, in the use of the terms “absolute” and “relative” in modern philosophy. To some of these sources of confusion we have referred already ([5]). It is a commonplace of modern philosophy, a thing accepted as unquestioned and unquestionable, that we [pg 333] know, and can know, only the relative. There is a true sense in this, but the true sense is not the generally accepted one.
Considering the order in which our knowledge of reality progresses it is unquestionable that we first simply perceive “things” successively, things more or less similar or dissimilar, without realizing in what they agree or differ. To realize the latter involves reflection and comparison. Similarly we perceive “events” in succession, events some of which depend on others, but without at first noting or realizing this dependence. In other words we apprehend at first apart from their relations, or as absolute, things and events which are really relative; and we do so spontaneously, without realizing even that we perceive them as absolute.
The seed needs soil and rain and sunshine for its growth; but these do not need the seed. The turbine needs the water, but the water does not need the turbine. When we realize such facts as these, by reflection, contrasting what is dependent with what is independent, what is like or unlike, before or after, greater or less than, other things, with what each of these is in itself, we come into conscious possession of the notion of “the relative” and oppose this to the notion of “the absolute”.