Page:The World and the Individual, Second Series (1901).djvu/166

Rh another sense in which any portion of the temporal sequence of the world may be taken as present, when viewed with reference to the experience of any finite Self whose present it is, and when contrasted with what for this same point of view is the past and the future of the world. Now the events of the temporal order, when viewed in this latter way, are divided, with reference to the point of view of any finite Self, into what now is, and what no longer is, and what is to be, but is not yet. These same events, however, in so far as they are viewed at once by the Absolute, are for such view, all equally present. And this their presence is the presence of all time, as a totum simul, to the Absolute. And the presence in this sense, of all time at once to the Absolute, constitutes the Eternal order of the world, — eternal, since it is inclusive of all distinctions of temporal past and temporal future, — eternal, since, for this very reason, the totality of temporal events thus present at once to the Absolute has no events that precede, or that follow it, but contains all sequences within it, — eternal, finally, because this view of the world does not, like our partial glimpses of this or of that relative whole of sequence, pass away and give place to some other view, but includes an observation of every passing away, of every sequence, of every event and of whatever in time succeeds and follows that event, and includes all the views that are taken by the various finite Selves.

In order to conceive what, in general, such an eternal view of the temporal order involves, or to conceive in what sense the temporal order of the real world is also an eternal order, we have, therefore, but to remember