iv MODERN SCIENCE 363 



The more we reflect on it, the more we shall find 

 that this conception of metaphysics is that which 

 modern science suggests&quot;.&quot;&quot; 



For die,__nift|% indeed, time is theoretically 

 negligible, because the duration of a thing only 

 manifests the degradation of its essence : it is with 

 this motionless essence that science has to deal. 

 Change being only the effort of a form toward its own 

 realization, the realization is all that it concerns us to 

 know. No doubt the realization is never complete : 

 it is this that ancient philosophy expresses by saying 

 that we do not perceive form without matter. But if 

 we consider the changing object at a certain essential 

 moment, at its apogee, we may say that there it just 

 touches its intelligible form. This intelligible form, 

 this ideal and, so to speak, limiting form, our science 

 seizes upon. And possessing in this the gold-piece, 

 it holds eminently the small money which we call 

 becoming or change. This change is less than being. 

 The knowledge that would take it for object, sup 

 posing such knowledge were possible, would be less 

 than science. 



But, for a science that places all the moments of 

 time in the same rank, that admits no essential moment, 

 no culminating point, no apogee, change is no longer 

 a diminution of essence, duration is not a dilution 

 of eternity. X^J^ o^timeJsLthe. reality itself, and. . 

 the things which we study are. Jthfe. things. which, flow. 



It is true that of this flqwmg_reality we are limited to vV 

 taking instantaneous views. But, just because of this,&quot;&quot; 

 scientific knowledge must appeal to another know 

 ledge to complete it. While the ancient conception of 

 scientific knowledge ended in making time a degrada 

 tion, and change the diminution of a form given from 



