rr.l MODERN SCIENCE 337 



ties. Which amounts to saying that real time, regarded as 

 a flux, or, in other words, as the very mobility of being, 

 escapes the hold of scientific knowledge. We have already 

 tried to establish this point in a former work. We alluded to 

 it again in the first chapter of this book. But it is necessary 

 to revert to it once more, in order to clear up misunder- 

 standings. 



When positive science speaks of time, what it refers to 

 is the movement of a certain mobile T on its trajectory. 

 This movement has been chosen by it as representative 

 of time, and it is, by definition, uniform. Let us call T lf 

 T 2 , T 3 , . . . etc., points which divide the trajectory 

 of the mobile into equal parts from its origin T . We shall 

 say that 1, 2, 3, . . . units of time have flowed past, 

 when the mobile is at the points T x , T 2 , T 3 , . . . of the 

 line it traverses. Accordingly, to consider the state of the 

 universe at the end of a certain time t, is to examine where 

 it will be when T is at t^e point T t of its course. But of the 

 flux itself of time, still less of its effect on consciousness, 

 there is here no question ; for there enter into the calculation 

 only the points T lf T 2 , T 3 , . . . taken on the flux, never 

 the flux itself. We may narrow the time considered as 

 much as we will, that is, break up at will the interval be- 

 tween two consecutive divisions T n and T^.jj but it is 

 always with points, and with points only, that we are deal- 

 ing. What we retain of the movement of the mobile T 

 are positions taken on its trajectory. What we retain of 

 all the other points of the universe are their positions on 

 their respective trajectories. To each virtual stop of the 

 moving body T at the points of division T u T 2 , T 3 , . . . 

 we make correspond a virtual stop of all the other mobiles 

 at the points where they are passing. And when we say 

 that a movement or any other change has occupied a time 

 t, we mean by it that we have noted a number / of corre- 



