It is necessary however to make a distinction. In some sense time extends beyond nature. It is not true that a timeless sense-awareness and a timeless thought combine to contemplate a timeful nature. Sense-aware- ness and thought are themselves processes as well as their termini in nature. In other words there is a passage of sense-awareness and a passage of thought. Thus the reign of the quality of passage extends beyond nature. But now the distinction arises between passage which is fundamental and the temporal series which is a logical abstraction representing some of the properties of nature. A temporal series, as we have defined it, represents merely certain properties of a family of durations — properties indeed which durations only possess because of their partaking of the character of passage, but on the other hand properties which only durations do possess. Accordingly time in the sense of a measurable temporal series is a character of nature only, and does not extend to the processes of thought and of sense-awareness exceptby a correlation of these processes with the temporal series implicated in their procedures.
So far the passage of nature has been considered in
connexion with the passage of durations; and in this
connexion it is peculiarly associated with temporal
series. We must remember however that the character
of passage is peculiarly associated with the extension of
in] TIME 67
events, and that from this extension spatial transition
arises just as much as temporal transition. The dis-
cussion of this point is reserved for a later lecture but
it is necessary to remember it now that we are pro-
ceeding to discuss the application of the concept of
passage beyond nature, otherwise we shall have too
narrow an idea of the essence of passage.
It is necessary to dwell on the subject of sense-aware-
ness in this connexion as an example of the way in
which time concerns mind, although measurable time is
a mere abstract from nature and nature is closed to mind.
Consider sense-awareness — ^not its terminus which is nature, but sense-awareness in itself as a procedure of mind. Sense-awareness is a relation of mind to nature. Accordingly we are now considering mind as a relatum in sense-awareness. For mind there is the immediate sense-awareness and there is memory. The distinction between memory and the present immediacy has a double bearing. On the one hand it discloses that mind is not impartially aware of all those natural durations to which it is related by awareness. Its awareness shares in the passage of nature. We can imagine a being whose awareness, conceived as his private possession, suffers no transition, although the terminus of his awareness is our own transient nature. There is no essential reason why memory should not be raised to the vividness of the pre'sent fact ; and then from the side of mind. What is the di fference b et ween ^e present an d the past ! Yet witlTtHis hypothesis we can also suppose that the vivid remembrance and the present fact are posited in awareness as in their temporal serial order. Accordingly we must admit that though we can imagine that mind in the operation of sense-
68 THE CONCEPT OF NATURE [ch.
awareness might be free from any character of passage,
yet in point of fact our experience of sense-awareness
exhibits our minds as partaking in this character.
On the other hand the mere fact of memory is an
escape from transience. In memory the past is present.
It is not present as overleaping the temporal succession
of nature, but it is present as an immediate fact for
the mind. Accordingly memory is a disengagement of
the mind from the mere passage of nature ; for what has
passed for nature has not passed for mind.
Furthermore the distinction between memory and the immediate present is not so clear as it is conventional to suppose. Xber£j.s_3JiJiit£ll£ctuaiJJieacy,.o£jinie_as.^ rrvnying Vnifp-prlgf^^ exhibiting a present fact without temporal extension. This theory arises from the concept of an ideal exactitude of observation. Astronomical observations are successively refined to be exact to tenths, to hundredths, and to thousandths of seconds. But the final refinements are arrived at by a system of averaging, and even then^gresent us with a stretch of tim£ -as a marffl Q_of error, Here error is merely a con- ventional term to express the fact that the character of experience does not accord with the ideal of thougljtj I have already explained how the concept of a moment conciliates the observed fact with this ideal; namely, there is a limiting simplicity in the quantitative ex- pression of the properties of durations, which is arrived at by considering any one of the abstractive sets included in the moment. In other words the extrinsic character of the moment as an aggregate of durations has associated with it the intrinsic character of the moment which is the limiting expression of natural properties.
Ill] TIME 69
Thus the character of a moment and the ideal of
exactness which it enshrines do not in any way weaken
the position that the ultimate terminus of awareness is
a duration with temporal thickness. This immediate
duration is not clearly marked out for our apprehension.
Its earlier boundary is blurred by a fading into memory,
and its later boundary is blurred by an emergence from
anticipation. There is no sharp distinction either between
memory and the present immediacy or between the
present immediacy and anticipation. The present is a
wavering breadth of boundary between the two ex-
tremes. Thus our own sense-awareness with its extended
present has some of the character of the sense-awareness
of the imaginary being whose mind was free from passage
and who contemplated all nature as an immediate fact.
Our own present has its antecedents and its consequents,
and for the imaginary being all nature has its ante-
cedent and its consequent durations. Thus the only
difference in this respect between us and the imaginary
being is that for him all nature shares in the immediacy
of our present duration.
The conclusion of this discussion is that so far as
sense-awareness is concerned there is a passage of
mind which is distinguishable from the passage of
nature though closely allied with it. We may speculate,
if we like, that this alliance of the passage of mind with
the passage of nature arises from their both sharing in
some ultimate character of passage which dominates
all being. But this is a speculation in which we have
no concern. The immediate deduction which is suffi-
cient for us is that — so far as sense-awareness is con-
cerned — mind is not in time or in space in the same
sense in which the events of nature are in time, but
70 THE CONCEPT OF NATURE [ch.
that it is derivatively in time and in space by reason of
the peculiar alliance of its passage vi^ith the passage
of nature. Thus mind is in time and in space in a sense
peculiar to itself. This has been a long discussion to
arrive at a very simple and obvious conclusion. We all
feel that in some sense our minds are here in this room
and at this time. But it is not quite in the same sense
as that in which the events of nature which are the
existences of our brains have their spatial and temporal
positions. The fundamental distinction to remember is
that immediacy for sense-awareness is not the same as
instantaneousness for nature. This last conclusion bears
on the next discussion with which I will terminate this
lecture. This question can be formulated thus, Can
alternative temporal series be found in nature ?
A few years ago such a suggestion would have been put aside as being fantastically impossible . It would have had no bearing on the science then current, and was akin to no ideas which had ever entered into the dreams of philosophy. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries accepted as their natural philosophy a certain circle of concepts which were as rigid and definite as those of the philosophy of the middle ages, and were accepted with as little critical research. I will call this natural philosophy ' materialism.' Not only were men of science materialists, but also adherents of all schools of philo- sophy. The idealists only differed from the philosophic materialists on question of the alignment of nature in reference to mind. But no one had any doubt that the philosophy of nature considered in itself was of the type which I have called materialism. It is the philo- sophy which I have already examined in my two lectures of this course preceding the present one. It
Ill] TIME 7
can be summarised as the belief that nature is an aggre gate of material and that this material exists in som sense at each successive member of a one-dimensiona series of extensionless instants of time. Furthermor the mutual relations of the material entities at eacl instant formed these entities into a spatial configuratioi in an unbounded space. It would seem that space — oi this theory — ^would be as instantaneous as the instants and that some explanation is required of the relation between the successive instantaneous spaces. Thi materialistic theory is however silent on this point and the succession of instantaneous spaces is tacitb combined into one persistent space. This theory is ; purely intellectual rendering of experience which ha had the luck to get itself formulated at the dawn o scientific thought. It has dominated the language an< the imagination of science since science flourished ii Alexandria, with the result that it is now hardly possibli to speak without appearing to assume its immediate obviousness.
But when it is distinctly formulated in the abstrac
terms in which I have just stated it, the theory is ver^
far from obvious. The passing complex of factors whicl
compose the fact which is the terminus of sense-aware
ness places before us nothing corresponding to thi
trinity of this natural materialism. This trinity is com
posed (i) of the temporal series of extensionless instants
(ii) of the aggregate of material entities, and (iii) o:
space which is the outcome of relations of matter.
There is a wide gap between these presupposition!
of the intellectual theory of materialism and the im
mediate deliverances of sense-awareness. I do no
question that this materialistic trinity embodies im
72 THE CONCEPT OF NATURE [ch.
portant characters of nature. But it is necessary to express these characters in terms of the facts of experience. This is exactly what in this lecture I have been endeavouring to do so far as time is concerned; and we have now come up against the question, Is there only one temporal series ? The uniqueness of the temporal series is presupposed in the materialist philosophy of nature. But that philosophy is merely a theory, like the Aristotelian scientific theories so firmly believed in the middle ages. If in this lecture I have in any way succeeded in getting behind the theory to the immediate facts, the answer is not nearly so certain. The question can be transformed into this alternative form, Is there only one family of durations? In this question the meaning of a 'family of durations' has been defined earlier in this lecture. The answer is now not at all obvious. On the materialistic theory the instantaneous present is the only field for the creative activity of nature. The past is gone and the future is not yet. Thus (on this theory) the immediacy of per- ception is of an instantaneous present, and this unique present is the outcome of the past and the promise of the future. But we deny this immediately given in- stantaneous present. There is no such thing to be found I in nature. As an ultimate fact it is a nonentity. What is immediate for sense-awareness is a duration. Now a duration has within itself a past and a future ; and the temporal breadths of the immediate durations of sense- awareness are very indeterminate and dependent on the individual percipient. Accordingly there is no unique factor in nature which for every percipient is pre- eminently and necessarily the present. The passage of nature leaves nothing between the past and the future.
Ill] TIME 73
What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of
memory tinged with anticipation. This vividness lights
up the discriminated field within a duration. But no
assurance can thereby be given that the happenings of
nature cannot be assorted into other durations of alter-
native families. We cannot even know that the series
of immediate durations posited by the sense-awareness
of one individual mind all necessarily belong to the
same family of durations. There is not the slightest
reason to believe that this is so. Indeed if my theory of
nature be correct, it will not be the case.
The materialistic theory has all the completeness of
the thought of the middle ages, which had a complete
answer to everything, be it in heaven or in hell or in
nature. There is a trimness about it, with its instan-
taneous present, its vanished past, its non-existent
future, and its inert matter. This trimness is very
medieval and ill accords with brute fact.
The theory which I am urging admits a greater
ultimate mystery and a deeper ignorance. The past and
the future meet and mingle in the ill-defined present.
The passage of nature which is only another name for
the creative force of existence has no narrow ledge of
definite instantaneous present within which to operate.
Its operative presence which is now urging nature
forward must be sought for throughout the whole, in
the remotest past as well as in the narrowest breadth of
any present duration. Perhaps also in the unrealised
future. Perhaps also in the future which might be as
well as the actual future which will be. It is impossible
to meditate on time and the mystery of the creative
passage of nature without an overwhelming emotion
at the limitations of human intelligence.