SPACE AND TIME 183 



(p. 61). For this reason it has been termed an external 

 mode of perception. On the other hand, time is the 

 perception of sequence in stored sense-impressions — the 

 relationship of past perceptions with the immediate per- 

 ception. Thus time involves in its essence memory and 

 thought — in other words, consciousness} Consciousness 

 might indeed be defined as the power of perceiving 

 things apart by succession. It may perhaps be possible 

 to conceive consciousness as existing without the space- 

 mode of perception, but we cannot conceive it to exist 

 without the time-mode. On this account, time has been 

 termed an internal mode of perception. A little con- 

 sideration, however, soon shows us that this distinction 

 is not a very valid one — as, indeed, no distinction based 

 on the words external and internal can ever be (p. 65). 

 Perception in space is, as a matter of fact, as largely 

 dependent on the association of immediate and stored 

 sense-impressions as perception in time. As we have seen, 

 every object is for us largely a construct (p. 41), and the 

 coexisting objects which we can perceive apart are 

 indeed very limited. I distinguish the papers, the books, 

 the inkstand, the candlesticks on my table as separate 

 objects by the mode space ; but at any instant of time, 

 it is only a very small element of this complex of sense- 

 impressions which is immediate, the rest are stored sense- 

 impressions, capable of becoming immediate sense-impres- 

 sions in the next instant, but not so in actuality. Thus 

 in the case of both time and space the " perceiving apart " 

 is the perception of an order existing between a very 

 small element of sense -impression and a much larger 

 range of stored sense-impressions. We do not therefore 

 gain by terming space and time external and internal 

 modes of perception. Both modes of perception are so 

 habitual and yet so difficult of analysis, so commonplace 

 and yet so mysterious, that, although we recognise a 



^ For a new-born infant time cannot be said to exist — it is without con- 

 sciousness (p. 44). Only as stored sense-impresses result from immediate 

 sense-impression does the faculty of memory, and so the time-mode of per- 

 ception, become developed. The rest is reflex action, the product of in- 

 herited and unconscious association. 



