THE VALUE OF SCIENCE 315 



sciousness which should see all, and which should classify all in its 

 time, as Ave classify, in our time, the little we see. 



This hypothesis is indeed crude and incomplete, because this su- 

 preme intelligence would be only a demigod; infinite in one sense, it 

 would be limited in another, since it would have only an imperfect 

 recollection of the past; and it could have no other, since otherwise all 

 recollections would be equally present to it and for it there would be 

 no time. And yet when we speak of time, for all which happens out- 

 side of us, do we not unconsciously adopt this hypothesis; do we not 

 put ourselves in the place of this imperfect god; and do not even the 

 atheists put themselves in the place where god would be if he existed? 



What I have just said shows us, perhaps, why we have tried to put 

 all physical phenomena into the same frame. But that can not pass 

 for a definition of simultaneity, since this hypothetical intelligence, 

 even if it existed, would be for us impenetrable. It is therefore neces- 

 sary to seek something else. 



VIII. 



The ordinary definitions which are proper for psychologic time 

 would suffice us no better. Two simultaneous psychologic facts are 

 so closely bound together that analysis can not separate without muti- 

 lating them. Is it the same with two physical facts? Is not my 

 present nearer my past of yesterday than the present of Sirius ? 



It has also been said that two facts should be regarded as simul- 

 taneous when the order of their succession may be inverted at will. 

 It is evident that this definition would not suit two physical facts 

 which happen far from one another, and that, in what concerns them, 

 we no longer even understand what this reversibility would be ; besides, 

 succession itself must first be defined. 



IX. 



Let us then seek to give an account of what is understood by simul- 

 taneity or antecedence, and for this let us analyze some examples. 



I write a letter; it is afterward read by the friend to whom I have 

 addressed it. There are two facts which have had for their theater 

 two different consciousnesses. In writing this letter I have had the 

 visual image of it, and my friend has had in his turn this same visual 

 image in reading the letter. Though these two facts happen in im- 

 penetrable worlds, I do not hesitate to regard the first as anterior to the 

 second, because I believe it is its cause. 



I hear thunder, and I conclude there has been an electric discharge ; 

 I do not hesitate to consider the physical phenomenon as anterior to 

 the auditory image perceived in my consciousness, because I believe it 

 is its cause. 



Behold then the rule we follow, and the only one we can follow : 



