192 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



form duration assumes when the space in which it unfolds is elimi- 

 nated." 



Bergson then proceeds to show that there are two kinds of multi- 

 plicity: first, that of material objects counted in space, and, second, 



„, „ that of conscious states not countable unless sym- 



We Cannot . . . 



Form an Image boUcally represented in space. He illustrates this by 



or Idea of Num- saying, 



Der witnout the j^^j. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ aside the fifty sheep themselves, and 



•• ^ .,. , retain only the idea of them. Either we include them all in the 



Intuition of .,.,,, , 



g same unage, and it follows as a necessary consequence that we 



place them side by side in an ideal space, or else we repeat fifty 



times in succession the image of a single one, and in that case it does seem, 



indeed, that the series lies in duration rather than in space. And there 



is no doubt that in this way we have counted moments of duration rather than 



points in space; but the question is whether we have not counted the moments 



of duration by means of points in space." 



Some people count the strokes of a distant bell by arranging 

 the sounds in an ideal space, and then they think they are counting 

 them in pure duration. "If the sounds are separated, they must leave 

 empty intervals between them. If we count them, the intervals 

 must remain, though the sounds disappear: how could the intervals 

 remain, if they were pure duration and not space ? It is in space, 

 therefore, that the operation takes place." 



Homogeneous time is the medium in which conscious states 

 form discrete series. They are arranged alongside one another as 

 in space. Time is reducible to space in so far as it is a homogeneous 

 medium; in fact, it is nothing but space, and pure duration is some- 

 thing different. When we make time a homogeneous medium, and 

 conscious states unfold themselves in it, we assume that time is given 

 all at once, or, in other words, that we abstract it from duration. The 

 philosophers who have regarded the idea of time as simple and have 

 tried to reduce the ideas of time and space to each other have thought 

 that they could make extensity out of duration. 



Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes 

 when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state 



> Time and Fret Will, p. 77. 



