158 TIME 



is dependent on our organism as a whole, as well as the notion of 

 this duration which is characterized by a discrepancy with the 

 notion of uniform duration of inert things. Sideral, physical 

 time perhaps also characterizes evolutions, but of such colossal 

 duration that, in comparison to ours, it can be considered as 

 infinite. We measure it by certain periodical phenomena such 

 as the rotation of the earth around its axis, and without being 

 able to verify our assertion, we conclude that it flows uni- 

 formly. This is perhaps an illusion due to the fact that we 

 can perceive only a limited portion of a curve. Its radius of 

 curvature might be so gigantic that it appears to us as a 

 straight line. As we shall see later on, it is perhaps also 

 because we conceive it as a wave front or an 'envelope' surface, 

 which borrows its reality from the infinity of curves or 

 determining elementary surfaces underlying it. It would be 

 the time of species as opposed to individual time. The time of 

 tissue- cultures, of the generations of infusoria; the statistical, 

 conceptual, uniform time, projected by us into the universe 

 hut not lived. 



Be that as it may, it would seem logical to borrow a standard 

 of time from our specific evolutive cycle, and to refer all our 

 internal phenomena to this unit, which is no more arbitrary 

 than the one we commonly employed up till now. We have 

 inside of us a machine which registers time: i.e. our sub- 

 conscience. We also have a machine which conceives time: 

 our intelligence. The two mechanisms, though different, are 

 based on memory. Our subconscience gives our intelligence 

 a crude information: time seems to flow quicker in proportion 

 as we age. Our intelligence, a reflection of the external 

 universe, only reveals to us the time of things, which leaps 

 from individual to individual, and flows uniformly. These 

 two notions are correlated but not interchangeable. 



Even to a superficial observer, our internal physiological 

 time does not seem to flow at a constant rate within the frame 

 of external sideral time. Real age, as we have seen, can differ 

 from legal age. From a psychological point of view, the value 

 of a day is not identical for ephemeral insects and for animals 



