46 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



As for the proofs of a priori consciousness in us, 

 these have perhaps been clearly enough given in the 

 analysis by which it was shown that the several ele- 

 ments are' prerequisite not only to the conception of 

 evolution, but to our human experience itself, and to 

 the system of Nature into which they organise that 

 experience. This is the case, at any rate, with all the 

 elements except Time and Space, and is emphatically 

 so with the most important conditions of the notion 

 Evolution, namely, the Pure Ideals ; and, among these, 

 preeminently with the Moral Ideal. But as a diffi- 

 culty about the a priori or ideal character of Time 

 and Space disturbs many minds, it may be necessary 

 in part to restate what has already been said in proof 

 of the ideality of Time, and to reinforce this by 

 certain new points. I speak only of Time, because 

 the same reasoning, obviously, must also apply to 

 Space. 



The necessarily a priori nature of Time can be 

 shown, even should we grant for the sake of argu- 

 ment that the dispute over hereditary transmission 

 of acquired characters, now going on in the school 

 of evolution between the Spencerians and Weismann, 

 were decided in favour of the former, and that trans- 

 mission were a fact. For transmission of acquired 

 habit can never explain the infinity and necessity of 

 Time. Nor can this infinity and necessity be explained 

 away by the theory that it arises from a confusion of 



