Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/62

 I will, however, instance one result which follows from a denial of time’s continuity. Time will in this case fall somehow between the timeless, as A—C—E. But the rate of change is not uniform for all events; and, I presume, no one will assert that, when we have arrived at our apparent units, that sets a limit to actual and possible velocity. Let us suppose then another series of events, which, taken as a whole, coincides in time with A—C—E, but contains the six units a—b—c—d—e—f. Either then these other relations (those, for example, between a and b, c and d) will fall between A and C, C and E, and what that can mean I do not know; or else the transition a—b will coincide with A, which is timeless and contains no possible lapse. And that, so far as I can perceive, contradicts itself outright. But I feel inclined to add that this whole question is less a matter for detailed argument than for understanding in its principle. I doubt if there is any one who has ever grasped this, and then has failed to reach one main result. But there are too many respectable writers whom here one can hardly criticise. They have simply never got to understand.

Thus, if in the time, which we call presented, there exists any lapse, that time is torn by a dilemma, and is condemned to be appearance. But, if the presented is timeless, another destruction awaits us. Time will be the relation of the present to a future and past; and the relation, as we have seen, is not compatible with diversity or unity. Further, the existence, not presented, of future and of past seems ambiguous. But, apart from that, time perishes in the endless process beyond itself. The unit will be for ever its own relation to something beyond, something in the end not discoverable. And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given.