Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/251

 IN WHAT SENSE, IF ANY, DO PAST AND FUTURE TIME EXIST? 235 would be to such a being the immediate object of a present experience, and that in any or every one of the successive empirical moments which would compose the history of his consciousness as an existent. And yet he would be aware of the real world-process in all its detail, and with all its distinctions of earlier and later in time, just as we are aware of the distinctions of earlier and later in the successive parts of the content experi- enced in an empirical present moment of our finite consciousness. Now I ask, would not the truer universe, the truer world-process, the truer Eeality, be that which was disclosed to a conscious being of indefinitely great powers, as compared to that which is disclosed to finite intelligences like ourselves ? And if it would, are not what we call past and future states of the real world-process just as really existent now, inasmuch as they are present realities to that supposed indefinitely heightened consciousness, as any state of it which is the object of an empirical present moment of a finite consciousness ? Observe there is no a priori notion of Eeality to appeal to. Our conception of what it is must be drawn from experience, and is therefore always relative to the consciousness which is the percep- tion or the knowledge of it ; of course, without implying that we conceive its existence dependent on the existence of the conscious- ness which perceives or knows it. We cannot, so to speak, get at reality at all, save through consciousness as a knowing of it. The question what is it known as ? or what is it in consciousness ? always comes first, concerning anything whatever ; we never know what anything is, save by putting this question first. The ultimate meaning of Esse is Percipi. So it must be also with the whole universe or world-process of Eeality. Since, then, we know that our own experience is inadequate to grasp it, we also and thereby know that, to conceive it truly, we must conceive it as being that which it would be known as being by an intelligence which should be adequate to comprehend its immensity in a single moment of experience. SHADWOBTH H. HODGSON. III. MR. HODGSON'S answer to this question appears to be that both past and future time do exist in the sense that both would be present to a conscious being whose cognitive capacities were perfect. I do not know if he can prove that such a conscious being exists ; but I see no objection to accepting this hypothetical answer as giving information about reality, if it only means that reality, if it were known as it really is, would all appear to be present : for that comes to saying that reality, as it really is, is in one long present; or, to accept Mr. Hodgson's qualification, that the distinction between past and future does not exist in the world as