We have already noticed that the duration of movement, or the interval of duration, is not to be confounded with the duration through which the movement extends. But as, in the popular language, the one as well as the other is termed “relative duration,” we would suggest that the duration through which the movement extends might be called fundamental relative duration, whilst the relation which constitutes an interval between before and after might be called resultant relative duration.
The philosophical necessity of this distinction is obvious, first, because the standing duration, through which movement extends, must not be confounded with the flowing duration of movement; secondly, because the relation and its foundation are not the same thing, and, as we have explained at length when treating of relative space, to confound the one with the other leads to Pantheism. Intervals of relation are not parts of absolute duration, though they are so conceived by many, but they are mere relations, as we have stated. Absolute duration is all standing, it has no parts, and it cannot be divided into parts. What is called an interval of duration should rather be called an interval in duration; for it is not a portion of standing duration, but an extrinsic result; it is not a length of absolute duration, but the length of the movement extending through that duration; it is not a divisible extension, but the ground on which movement acquires its divisible extension from before to after. In the smallest conceivable interval of duration there is God, with all his eternity. To affirm that intervals of duration are distinct durations would be to cut God’s eternity to pieces by giving it a distinct being in really distinct intervals. Hence it is necessary to concede that, whilst the intervals are distinct, the duration on which they have their foundation is one and the same. The only duration which can be safely confounded with those intervals is the flowing duration of the movement by which they are measured. This is the duration which can be considered as a continuous quantity divisible into parts; and this is the duration which we should style “resultant relative duration,” to avoid all danger of error or equivocation.
The objections which can be made against this manner of viewing things do not much differ from those which we have solved in our second article on space; and therefore we do not think it necessary to make a new answer to them. The reader himself will be able to see what the objections are, and how they can be solved, by simply substituting the words “eternity,” “duration,” etc., for the words “immensity,” “space,” etc., in the article referred to.
Yet a special objection can be made against the preceding doctrine about the duration of movement, independently of those which regard relations in space. It may be presented under this form. “The foundation of the relation between before and after is nothing else than movement itself. It is therefore unnecessary and unphilosophical to trace the duration of movement to the virtuality of God’s eternity as its extrinsic foundation.” The antecedent of this argument may be proved thus: “That thing is the foundation of the relation which gives to its terms their relative being—that is, in our case, their opposite formalities, before and after. But movement alone gives to the when these opposite formalities. Therefore movement alone is the foundation of successive duration.”
We answer that the antecedent of the first argument is absolutely false. As to the syllogism which comes next, we concede the major, but we deny the minor. For it is plain that movement cannot give to the absolute when the relative formalities before and after, except by flowing through absolute duration, without which it is impossible for the movement to have its successive duration. And surely, if the movement has no duration but that which it borrows from the absolute duration through which it extends, the foundation of its duration from before to after can be nothing else than the same absolute duration through which the movement acquires its before and after. Now, this absolute duration is the virtuality of God’s eternity, as we have proved. It is therefore both philosophical and necessary to trace the duration of movement to the virtuality of God’s eternity, as its extrinsic foundation. That movement is also necessary to constitute the relation between before and after, we fully admit; for there cannot be before and after without movement. But it does not follow from this that movement is the foundation of the relation; it merely follows that movement is a condition necessary to give to the absolute when two distinct actualities, according to which it may be compared with itself on the ground of standing duration. For, as every relation demands two opposite terms, the same absolute when must acquire two opposite formalities, that it may be related to itself.
The only other objection which may perhaps be made against our conclusions is the following: The foundation of a real relation is that reality through which the terms related communicate with one another. Now, evidently, the before and the after, which are the terms of the relation in question, communicate with one another through the same absolute when; for they are the same absolute when under two opposite formalities. Hence it follows that the foundation of the relation between before and after is nothing else than the absolute when of a moving being.
To this we answer that the foundation of the relation is not all reality through which the terms related communicate with one another, but only that reality by the common termination of which they become formally related to one another. Hence, since the before and the after do not receive their relative formalities from the absolute when, it is idle to pretend that the absolute when is the foundation of the interval of duration. The before and the after communicate with the same absolute when not as a formal, but as a material, cause of their existence—that is, inasmuch as the same when is the subject, not the reason, of both formalities. The only relation to which the absolute when can give a foundation is one of identity with itself in all the extent of its flowing duration. But such a relation presupposes, instead of constituting, an interval in duration. And therefore it is manifest that the absolute when is not the foundation of the relation between before and after.
Having thus answered the questions proposed, and given the solution of the few difficulties objected, we must now say a few words about the division and measurement of relative duration, whether fundamental or resultant.
Fundamental or standing duration is divided into real and imaginary. This division cannot regard the entity of standing duration, which is unquestionably real, as we have proved. It regards the reality or the unreality of the extrinsic terms conceived as having a relation in duration. The true notion of real, contrasted with imaginary, duration, is the following: Standing duration is called real when it is really relative, viz., when it is extrinsically terminated by real terms between which it founds a real relation; on the contrary, it is called imaginary when the extrinsic terms do not exist in nature, but only in our imagination; for, in such a case, standing duration is not really terminated and does not found real relations, but both the terminations and the relations are simply a figment of our imagination. Thus standing duration, as containing none but imaginary relations, may justly be called “imaginary,” though in an absolute sense it is intrinsically real. Accordingly, the indefinite duration which we imagine when we carry our thought beyond the creation of the world, and which is also called “imaginary,” is not absolute but relative duration, and is not imaginary in itself, but only as to its denomination of relative, because, in the absence of all real terms, there can be none but imaginary relations.
It is therefore unphilosophical to confound imaginary and indefinite duration with absolute and infinite duration. This latter is not an object of imagination, but of the intellect alone. Imagination cannot conceive duration, except in connection with some movement from before to after; hence absolute and infinite duration, which has no before and no after, is altogether beyond the reach of imagination. Indeed, our intellectual conception of infinite standing duration is always accompanied in our minds by a representation of indefinite time; but this depends, as we have stated in speaking of space, on the well-known connection of our imaginative and intellectual operations, inasmuch as our imagination strives to follow the intellect, and to represent after its own manner what the intellect conceives in a totally different manner. It was by confounding the objective notion of duration with our subjective manner of imagining it that Kant came to the conclusion that duration was nothing but a subjective form or a subjective condition, under which all intuitions are possible in us. This conclusion is evidently false; but its refutation, to be successful, must be based on the objectivity of absolute standing duration, without which, as we have shown, there can be no field for real and objective succession.