AND ITS SELF-CONSEKVATICW. 243 



involved in it, it could never itself have been involved 

 in becoming. 



To remind ourselves of this betimes is of the greater 

 moment, as neglect of the distinction is almost certain to 

 involve us in the confusion of assuming the identity of 

 two radically distinct orders of relation. The one is the 

 logical order, the other the chronological. It is one of 

 the conditions of human thought that it can only trace 

 out successively the various degrees in the logical order 

 of relations necessarily unfolded in the concrete totality 

 of the World-Energy. And we are led on almost inevit- 

 ably to assume that this chronological order in the 

 development of our own consciousness of the world or 

 universe as a whole coincides with a chronological order 

 in the development of the universe itself. In other 

 words, we mistake the becoming or process of develop- 

 ment in our own consciousness for the becoming of the 

 total sum of Reality. And this false impression is 

 strengthened by our observation of the chronological 

 order of development in which we see all finite things 

 to be involved. And yet this is to assume that, just as 

 our consciousness of the nature of creation unfolds in 

 time, so creation itself must have unfolded in time. 

 Whereas, to repeat once more, though change, and 

 time as the form of change, are involved in the total 

 creation, yet creation itself is not involved in time and 

 change. In the concrete, changeless Totality of things 

 all possible phases of change are forever present, and 

 thus time as merely the abstract form of change is com- 

 pletely subordinated and merged in, as nothing else than 

 one of the modes of, the eternal Whole. 



Similarly, as shown in the introductory chapter, space 



