Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/794

 TIME

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TIME

called, in the genitive plural, nix^piaoiuv. At a late period we find the form Timbriada, neuter plural, or perhaps Thymbriada. The exact site of the city is unknown. It is mentioned by Strabo (XII, 7, 2); the coins, bearing the figin-o of the I'Jiu'vinedon, would indicate a locality near the u])i)cr ])art of that river, the lower part belonging to Byzantine Pamphylia. It was probably situated somewhere in the plain called Yilandi Ovassi, in the vilayet of Koniah. In ecclesiastical writings it is mentioned as late as the thirteenth century. Le Quien (Oriens Christ ianus, 1, 1059) names three of its bishops: Constantine, pres- ent at the Councils of Constantinople, 680 and 692; John, at the Council of Nicsea, 787; Theodosius, at the Photian Council of Constantinople (879).

Ramsay. Asia Minor, 406. S. PeTRIDES.

Time. — The problem of time is one of the most difficult and most keenly debated in the field of nat- ural philosophy. To arrive at a satisfactory orienta- tion in regard to this discussion, it is important to distinguish two questions: (1) What are the notes, or elements, contained in our subjective representa- tion of time? (2) To what external reality does this representation correspond?

(1) As to the first question, philosophers and scien- tists in general agree in this: that the notion, or con- cept, of time contains three distinct ideas fused into one indivisible whole, (a) First there is the idea of succession. Every mind distinguishes in time the past, the present, and the future, that is parts which essentially exclude simultaneity and can be real- ized only one after the other, (b) Again, time implies continuity. Speaking of events here below, in our own life, we cannot conceive the possibility of an interval of duration, however short, in which we should cease to gi-ow older, or in which moment should cease to follow moment. The march of time knows neither pause nor interruption, (c) Lastly, a continuous succession cannot be a continuous suc- cession of nothing. Therefore the concept of time represents to us a reality the parts of which succeed each other in a continuous manner. It matters little here whether this reality is purely ideal, or is realized outside of us, for we are dealing only with the concept of time. Such are the three essential elements of the subjective representation. From these considera- tions it appears that the question of time belongs to the domain of cosmology. By reason of its character as continuous, successive, divisible, and measurable, time belongs to the category of quantity, which is a general attribute of bodies, and cosmology has for its object the essence and general attributes of matter.

(2) The second question, relating to the objectivity of the concept of time, is one upon which philosopher?; as well as scientists, are divided: no fewer than fifteen different opinions may be enumerated; these, how- ever, may be grouped in three classes. One class embraces the subjectivi.st opinions, of which Kant is the chief representative; these regard time as com- pletely a creation of the knowing subject. To Kant and his followers time is an a priori form, a natural disposition by virtue of which the inner sense clothes the acts of the external senses, and consequently the phenomena which these acts represent, with the dis- tinctive characteristics of time. Through this form internal and external phenomena are apprehended by us as simultaneous or successive, anterior or poste- rior, to one another, and are submitted to necessary and universal time-judgments. To this cla.ss, also, belong a group of opinions which, without being so thoroughly subjective, attribute to time only a con- ceptual existence. To Leibniz and others time is "the order of successions", or a relation between things that follow one another; but if these things are real, the mind perceives then an icr the form of

instants between which it establishes a relation that is purely mental. According to Balmes, time is a relation between being and non-being; subjective time is the perception of this relation; objective time is the relation itself in things. Though the two ideas of Ixing and non-being are found in every succession, the relation between these two ideas cannot repre- sent to us a real continuousness, and therefore it remains in the ideal order. Locke considers time as a part of infinite duration, expressed by periodic measures such as the revolution of the earth around the sun. According to Spencer, a particular time is the relation between two states in the series of states of consciousness. The abstract notion of a relation of aggregated positions between the states of conscious- ness constitutes the notion of time in general. To this relation Spencer attaches an essentially relative character, and attributes relative objectivity to psy- chological time alone. For Bergson homogeneous time is neither a property of things nor an essential condition of our cognitive faculty; it is an abstract schema of succession in general, a pure fiction, which nevertheless makes it possible for us to act upon mat- ter. But besides this homogeneous time, Bergson recognizes a real duration, or, rather, a multiplicity of durations of unequal elasticities which belong to the acts of our consciousness as well as to external tilings. The systems of Descartes and of Baumann must also be classified as idealistic.

In opposition to this class of opinions which repre- sent the existence of time as purely conceptual, a second class represent it as something which has com- plete reality outside of oiu' minds. These opinions may fairly be described as ultra-realist. Certain

ghilosophers, notably Gassendi and the ancient Ireek Materialists, regard time as a being aui generis, independent of all created things and capable of siu-- viving the destruction of them all. Infinite in its extension, it is the receptacle in which all the events of this world are enclosed. Always identical with itself, it permeates all things, regulating their course and preserving in the uninterrupted flow of its parts an absolutely regular mode of succession. Other philosophers, e. g. Clarke and Newton, identify time with the eternity of God or regard it as an immediate and necessary result of God's existence, so that, even were there no created beings, the continuation of the Divine existence would involve as its consequence, duration, or time. These ultra-realist philosophers substantiahze time; others again make it a complete being, but of the accidental order. For de San time is an accident sui generis, distinct from all ordi- nary accidents; it is constituted as the local movement of ijarts which succeed each other m a continuous manner, but with perfect uniformity; by this acci- dent, which is always inherent in substance, being and the accidents of being continue their existence enveloped in a succession which is everywhere and always uniform. Lastly, according to Dr. Hallez, the substantial existence of beings itself increases intrinsically without cessation, and this regular and continuous increase is by no means occasional or transitory, but always remains a veritable acquisition to the being which is its subject. Of this quantitative increment time is the representation. To sum up, all .systems of this second cl.i.ss have as their distinc- tiv(> characteristic the assertion of an external con- crete reality — whether substantial or accidental — which adequately corresponds to the abstract con- cept of time, so that our representation of time is only a copy of that reality.

Between these two extreme cla.sses of opinions is the system proposed by the majority of the Scholas- tics, ancient and modern. For them the concept of time is partly subjective, partly objective. It be- comes concrete in continuous, notably in local, move- ment; but movement becomes time only with the