142 TIME 



actual acceleration or slowing up of the motions of material 

 things. But, like other scientific concepts, it is invaluable as 

 a shorthand method of description. Perceptual time is the 

 pure order of succession of our sense-impressions and involves 

 no idea of absolute interval. Conceptual time is like a piece 

 of blank paper ruled with equidistant lines upon which we 

 may inscribe the sequence of our perceptions; both the known 

 sequence of the past and the predicted sequence of the future. 

 The fact that, upon the ruled lines, we have inscribed some 

 standard recurring sense-impression (as the daily transit of a 

 heavenly body over the meridian of Greenwich), must not be 

 taken as signifying that states of consciousness succeed each 

 other uniformly or that a 'uniform flow' of consciousness is 

 in some way a measure of absolute time. It denotes no more 

 than this: that from noon to noon the average human being 

 experiences much the same sequence of sense-impressions 

 and that the same space in our conceptual time-log may be 

 conveniently allotted for their inscription. 



How does life fit into the preceding theories? Can all the 

 very special phenomena which characterize living beings be 

 assimilated to the phenomena of inorganized matter? Is there 

 not a difference between this physical world and the beings 

 who evolve between birth and death according to a hereditary 

 rhythm, and recommence their ancestral cycle indefinitely? 

 Does not this fact alone introduce something special into this 

 consciousness without which, by definition, the very notion 

 of duration would not exist? It may be objected that we have 

 no proof that the mineral, inorganized world does not also 

 evolve according to a cycle imperceptible only by reason of 

 its tremendous duration. If this period were only of a hundred 

 million years it would entirely escape the scope of our intelli- 

 gence, and it could be far greater than that. In favour of this 

 theory, we might say that the evolution of our universe is 

 proved by the notion of entropy, a magnitude which grows 

 indefinitely. I will not enter into a discussion which even 



