It will be objected perhaps that in this manner we do

not get rid of time. In those eternal connections which

rule in darkness our lowest psychical nature, or are

used consciously by science, succession may remain. A

law is not always a law of what merely co-exists, but it

often gives the relation of antecedent and sequent. The

remark is true, but certainly it could not show that

time is self-consistent. And it is the inconsistency,

and hence the self-transcendence of time which here we

are urging. This temporal succession, which persists

still in the causal relation, does but secure to the end

the old discrepancy. It resists, but it cannot remove,

time's inherent tendency to pass beyond itself. Time is

an appearance which contradicts itself, and endeavours

vainly to appear as an attribute of the timeless.

It might be instructive here to mention other

spheres, where we more visibly treat mere existence in

time as appearance. But we perhaps have already said

enough to establish our conclusion; and our result, so

far, will be this. Time is not real as such, and it

proclaims its unreality by its inconsistent attempt to

be an adjective of the timeless. It is an appearance

which belongs to a higher character in which

its special quality is merged. Its own temporal nature

does not there cease wholly to exist but is thoroughly

transmuted. It is counterbalanced and, as such, lost

within an all-inclusive harmony. The Absolute is

timeless, but it possesses time as an isolated aspect,

an aspect which, in ceasing to be isolated, loses its

special character. It is there, but blended into a whole

which we cannot realize. But that we cannot realize it,

and do not know how in particular it can exist, does not

show it to be impossible. It is possible, and, as

before, its possibility is enough. For that which can

be, and upon a general ground must be--that surely is

real.

And it would be better perhaps if I left the matter

so. For, if I proceed and do my best to bring home to

our minds time's unreality, I may expect

misunderstanding. I shall be charged with attempting to

explain, or to explain away, the nature of our fact; and

no notice will be taken of my protests that I regard

such an attempt as illusory. For (to repeat it) we can

know neither how time comes to appear, nor in what

particular way its appearance is transcended. However,

for myself and for the reader who will accept them as

what they are, I will add some remarks. There are

considerations which help to weaken our belief in time's

solidity. It is no mass which stands out and declines to

be engulfed. It is a loose image confusedly thrown

together, and that, as we gaze, falls asunder.