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The author first discusses and rejects erroneous conceptions regarding the nature of time. Time cannot be considered a substance, for it lacks the element of permanence. Nor is it an independent process, for it would then presuppose another time. Nor yet is it related to things as their attribute, for it has reference only to their existence, not to their essence. Time must, therefore, be the form of events. Our psychical activity is indissolubly connected with time. The succession of psychical events, taken in connection with its content, is no less real than the events themselves. For the external world the reality of time can be asserted only mediately. That there is an external world in distinction from the self, appears especially in the difference between our psychical activity when creating synthesis, and when merely cognizing synthesis. If we refuse to ascribe to the world of objects the possibility of development, we create an intolerable dualism between the self and the world. Besides, we render it impossible to explain how a subject can also be an object for other subjects. The difficulty can not be avoided by denying the applicability of the laws of thought to things in themselves, for then there is no meaning in speaking of a world of objects at all. Development, therefore, must be granted, and with it time. An event can happen only in a real time, and conversely time is possible only in connection with events. The a priori element in the perception of time is the fact that in the laws, through which a state of consciousness becomes possible, this perception is a function that necessarily realizes itself. In the Kantian arguments regarding time, the chief defect is the failure to distinguish between time as perception, and time as a form of perception.

The sphere of science is the universe of phenomena. It is not the business of the scientist to learn why a thing exists. It is merely the antecedent which he seeks, not the underlying ground. The metaphysician, on the other hand, uses the results of science merely as means to an end. He does not care, qua metaphysician, what was the antecedent of any particular phenomenon, but he does wish to know why one thing leads to another, or, more fundamentally still, why a thing is. Science is prone to say that it is impossible to get farther back than it goes. But it is not farther back that the metaphysician wishes to go—it is deeper down. Science is complete in its field, but it should not assume that its field is co-extensive with human enquiry. In fact, scientists themselves, while decrying the possibility of a metaphysic, make use of it. The chemist and physicist are not content with tracing sequence and antecedence, but make use of 'chemical affinity,' 'molecules,' 'atoms,' 'force,'—all of them metaphysical