If you want to take a piece of duration as present and

as one, you shut your eyes, or in some way are blind to

the discretion, and, attending merely to the content,

take that as a unity. And, on the other hand, it is as

easy to forget every aspect but that of discreteness.

But change, as a whole, consists in the union of these

two aspects. It is the holding both at once, while

laying stress upon the one which for the time is

prominent, and while the difficulties are kept out of

sight by rapid shuffling. Thus, in asserting that A

alters, we mean that the one thing is different at

different times. We bring this diversity into relation

with A's qualitative identity, and all seems harmonious.

Of course, as we know, even so far, there is a mass of

inconsistency, but that is not the main point here. The

main point is that, so far, we have not reached a change

of A. The identity of a content A, in some sort of

relation with diverse moments and with varying states--

if it means anything at all--is still not what we

understand by change. That the mere oneness of a quality

can be the unity of a duration will hardly be contended.

For change to exist at all, this oneness must be in

temporal relation with the diversity. In other words, if

the process itself is not one state, the moments are not

parts of it; and, if so, they cannot be related in time

to one another. On the one hand, A remains A through a

period of any length, and is not changed so far as A.

Considered thus, we may say that its duration is mere

presence and contains no lapse. But the same duration,

if regarded as the succession of A's altered states,

consists of many pieces. On the other hand, thirdly,

this whole succession, regarded as one sequence or

period, becomes a unity, and is again present. "Through

the present period," we should boldly say, "A's

processes have been regular. His rate of growth is

normal, and his condition is for the present

identical. But, during the lapse of this one period,

there have been present countless successive differences

in the state of B; and the coincidence in time, of B's

unchanging excitement with the healthy succession of A's

changes, shows that in the same interval we may have

present either motion or rest." There is hardly

exaggeration here; but the statement exhibits a palpable

oscillation. We have the dwelling, with emphasis and

without principle, upon separate aspects, and the whole

idea consists essentially in this oscillation. There is

total failure to unite the differences by any consistent

principle, and the one discoverable system is the

systematic avoidance of consistency. The single fact is

viewed alternately from either side, but the sides are

not combined into an intelligible whole. And I trust the

reader may agree that their consistent union is

impossible. The problem of change defies solution, so

long as change is not degraded to the rank of mere

appearance.

I will end this chapter by some remarks on the

perception of succession, or, rather, one of its main

features. And I will touch upon this merely in the

interest of metaphysics, reserving what psychological

opinions I may have formed for another occasion. The

best psychologists, so far as I know, are becoming

agreed that for this perception some kind of unity is

wanted. They see that without an identity, to which all

its members are related, a series is not one, and is

therefore not a series. In fact, the person who denies

this unity is able to do so merely because he covertly

supplies it from his own unreflecting mind. And I shall

venture to regard this general doctrine as established,

and shall pass to the point where I think metaphysics is

further interested.

It being assumed that succession, or rather, here,

perceived succession, is relative to a unity, a

question arises as to the nature of this unity,

generally and in each case. The question is both

difficult and interesting psychologically; but I must

confine myself to the brief remarks which seem called

for in this place. It is not uncommon to meet the view

that the unity is timeless, or that it has at any rate

no duration. On the other hand, presumably, it has a

date, if not a place, in the general series of

phenomena, and is, in this sense, an event. The

succession I understand to be apprehended somehow in an

indivisible moment,--that is, without any lapse of time,

--and to be so far literally simultaneous. Any such

doctrine seems to me open to fatal objections, some of

which I will state.

1. The first objection holds good only against

certain persons. If the timeless act contains a

relation, and if the latter must be relative to a real

unity, the problem of succession appears again to break

out without limit inside this timeless unit.

2. But those who would deny the premises of this

first objection, may be invited to explain themselves on

other points. The act has no duration, and yet it is a

psychical event. It has, that is, an assignable place in

history. If it does not possess the latter, how is it

related to my perception? But, if it is an event with a

before and an after in time, how can it have no

duration? It occurs in time, and yet it occupies no

time; or it does not occur in time, though it happens at

a given date. This does not look like the account of

anything real, but it is a manufactured abstraction,

like length without breadth. And if it is a mere way of

stating the problem in hand--viz., that from one point

of view succession has no duration--it seems a bad way

of stating it. But if it means more, its meaning seems

quite unintelligible.

3. And it is the more plainly so since its content is

certainly successive, as possessing the distinction of

after and before. This distinction is a fact; and,

if so, the psychical lapse is a fact; and, if

so, this fact is left in flat contradiction with the

timeless unity. And to urge that the succession, as

used, is ideal--is merely content, and is not psychical

fact--would be a futile attempt to misapply a great

principle. It is not wholly true that "ideas are not

what they mean," for if their meaning is not psychical

fact, I should like to know how and where it exists. And

the question is whether succession can, in any sense,

come before the mind without some actual succession

entering into the very apprehension. If you do not mean

a lapse, then you have given up your contention. But, if

you do mean it, then how, except in the form of some

actual mental transition, is it to come ideally before

your mind? I know of no intelligible answer; and I

conclude that, in this perception, what is perceived is

an actual succession; and hence the perception itself

must have some duration.

4. And, if it has no duration, then I do not see how

it is related to the before and after of the time

perceived; and the succession of this, with all its

unsolved problems, seems to me to fall outside it (cp.

No. 1).

5. And, lastly, if we may have one of these

occurrences without duration, apparently we may also

have many in succession, all again without duration. And

I do not know how the absurd consequences which follow

can be avoided or met.

In short, this creation is a monster. It is not a

working fiction, entertained for the sake of its work.

For, like most other monsters, it really is impotent. It

is both idle and injurious, since it has diverted

attention from the answer to its problem.

And that, to the reader who has followed our

metaphysical discussion, will, I think, be apparent. We

found that succession required both diversity and unity.

These could not intelligibly be combined, and

their union was a mere junction, with oscillation of

emphasis from one aspect to the other. And so,

psychically also, the timeless unity is a piece of

duration, not experienced as successive. Assuredly

everything psychical is an event, and it really contains

a lapse; but so far as you do not use, or notice, that

lapse, it is not there for you and for the purpose in

hand. In other words, there is a permanent in the

perception of change, which goes right through the

succession and holds it together. The permanent can do

this, on the one hand, because it occupies duration and

is, in its essence, divisible indefinitely. On the other

hand, it is one and unchanging, so far as it is regarded

or felt, and is used, from that aspect. And the special

concrete identities, which thus change, and again do not

change, are the key to the particular successions that

are perceived. Presence is not absolute timelessness; it

is any piece of duration, so far as that is considered

from or felt in an identical aspect. And this mere

relative absence of lapse has been perverted into the

absolute timeless monstrosity which we have ventured to

condemn.

But it is one thing to see how a certain feature of

our time-perception is possible. It is quite another

thing to admit that this feature, as it stands, gives

the truth about reality. And that, as we have learnt, is

impossible. We are forced to assert that A is both

continuous and discrete, both successive and present.

And our practice of taking it, now as one in a certain

respect, and now again as many in another respect, shows

only how we practise. The problem calls upon us to

answer how these aspects and respects are consistently

united in the one thing, either outside of our minds or

inside--that makes no difference. And if we fail, as we

shall, to bring these features together, we have left

the problem unsolved. And, if it is unsolved, then

change and motion are incompatible internally, and are

set down to be appearance. And if, as a last

resource, we use the phrases "potential" and "actual,"

and attempt by their aid to reach harmony, we shall have

left the case as it stands. We shall mean by these

phrases that the thing is, and yet that it is not, and

that we choose for our own purpose to treat these

irreconcilables as united. But that is only another,

though perhaps a more polite, way of saying that the

problem is insoluble.

In the chapter which comes next, we must follow the

same difficulties a little further into other

applications.

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CHAPTER VI

CAUSATION

THE object of this chapter is merely to point out,

first, the main discrepancy in causation, and, in the

second place, to exhibit an obstacle coming from time's

continuity. Some other aspects of the general question

will be considered in later chapters.

We may regard cause as an attempt to account

rationally for change. A becomes B, and this alteration