Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/98

Rh of you have caught this view, — this idea of the eternal existence of everything real; but those of you who have, will bear me out that it is perfectly comprehensible, realisable, natural. The illusory unreality of pastness and futurity is an entirely reasonable doctrine; and I have dwelt on it only in order to contrast with it another sense of the word “eternal,” also necessary if it is to be synonymous with Completeness as expounded by Professor Royce. For there are two senses essential to the notion of Eternity, if it is to be synonymous with the notion of Completeness. In the sense already developed, it contradicts the notion of time in asserting that past or future experience is as real as present experience. In the second sense, it also contradicts the notion of time, in a way that will presently appear.

And now, if you will kindly give me your very sharp attention for a minute or two, I will try to develope this second sense quite plainly. I will do so by showing that, though past and future coexist, time has not been entirely done away with; the full meaning of Eternity, and therefore of Completeness, has not been attained. Even if past and future are equally real with the present and with each other, does it follow that there is no distinction between the past and the future? Does it follow that what we call the completion of a process is in no wise different from what we call its beginning? To put it somewhat graphically, could we begin at the end of a symphony, play the notes backwards, and get the same results as if we had begun at the beginning and played them forwards? Of course, the same facts