Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/593

 580 F. H. BRADLEY : struction, by which time flows backward in a stream, bringing new things from the future, and carrying old things to the past, is more natural than the former one (Lotze, Metaph., 138 ff.). Indeed the reader at this point may define the problem thus Why, since events go backward always, does our memory of them always takes the other direction ? But further reflection shows us that this question still has failed to see the point to be explained. In speaking of a stream of time, we forget that a mere stream, if regarded by itself, cannot have a direction. It does not flow towards one point rather than another, or indeed towards any point at all. And hence, until we have more than a mere stream, until a qualitative point is taken as an end, there can be no meaning in direction. Again, a stream, if it is to be a real stream, must possess an identity of what flows. If we did not have the same water in different positions, if we had always other waters, then to speak of a stream would be to use words without a meaning. We must try to apprehend more clearly what is implied by such a phrase as a current of events ; and let us help ourselves with the following scheme : ale - acd - ode aef afg -. In this we may regard a as being constantly increased or continually diminished. We may look on the original position of a, with its earliest possessions, as receding backwards with each change, or, on the other hand, as going forward and as gaining constantly. And the difference comes from the way in which the new is considered as standing to the old in the different cases. But again, if we please, a may be stationary, and the stream may flow past it, as be cd de ef fg -. What then is the direction of the current ? It may be running for ever into an ideal reservoir, say on the left hand beyond be, or going forward continually to a point on the right hand beyond /</. Thus, if the stationary a be one of the Egyptian pyramids, it may seem grounded and left behind, while events have flowed forward, or the survivor of a tide which has swept all else back into oblivion. And, since all motion is relative, the stationary (we must remember) seems in certain conditions to take on an opposite movement. But, I fear, the reader has had enough of these formal reflec- tions. It is not a stream in general which we have to do with, but the stream of our events. And here we have the essence. It is our psychical states which furnish both the flood and all the matter which flows or which stands against the stream. In the succession of these states it is the group of self, more or less unvarying, that has the place taken by a in our scheme. And it is the attitude of this group towards the incoming new presenta- tions on which everything turns. It is this relation which gives a meaning to direction, and shows the essence of our problem. Why is it natural for us to look upon Time as running forward ? It is because ice go forward with it, marching willingly to our