Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/256

 240 G. E. MOOEE: IN WHAT SENSE, IF ANY, ETC.? nature, may perhaps be spoken of as giving continuity to its particulars, since it binds them together ; but it binds them in quite a different way from that in which the successive moments of time are bound together. For instance, any two durations may share the universal notion of a union of continuity with discrete- ness, but the unity thus constituted can obviously not be the same as the continuity which is only one term in the universal that connects the two durations. For this reason I think Mr. Bosanquet rather underrates the difficulty of reconciling time with reality. Time must be rejected wholly, its continuity, as well as its discreteness, if we are to form an adequate notion of reality ; and this thorough-going rejection of almost all the content with which our world is filled, most seriously impairs the filling of our conception of reality. We are, I think, forced with Kant and with Lotze, to desiderate an entirely different form of Perception, which would share with Space and Time nothing but the mere immediateness of the Present, without its distinction from Past and Future, and this Eeality for us remains little more than a Ding an Sich. As such, however, I must insist against Lotze, that it does remain knowable by us. He implies this when he speaks of a totally different form of Perception as merely possible ; for, in that case, he cannot ascribe to Time that absolute necessity, which anything which we are to recognise as Eeal must have. By this admission he seems finally to condemn Time as merely subjective, and the w r hole previous course of his argument tends to prove, not that it is more than an appearance, but only that if we assume an appearance to be real, we cannot prove its unreality. If I need, then, after the foregoing discussion, to give a direct answer to our question, I would say that neither Past, Present, nor Future exists, if by existence we are to mean the ascription of full Eeality and not merely existence as Appearance. On the other hand I think we may say that there is more Eeality in the Present than in Past or Future, because, though it is greatly inferior to them in extent of content, it has that co-ordinate element of immediacy which they entirely lack. Again, and lastly, I think we may distinguish in this respect between Past and Future. The Past seems to be more real than the Future, because its content is more fully constituent of the Present, whereas the Future could only claim a superiority over the Past, if it could be shown that in it Appearance would become more and more at one wdth Eeality. G. E. MOOBE.