CHAPTER XV.* 



THE PERCEPTION OF TIME. 



In the next two chapters I shall deal with what is some- 

 times called internal perception, or the perception of time, 

 and of events as occujDjing a date therein, especially when 

 the date is a past one, in which case the perception in 

 question goes by the name of memory. To remember a 

 thing as past, it is necessary that the notion of ' past ' should 

 be one of our ' ideas.' We shall see in the chapter on Mem- 

 ory that many things come to be thought by us as past, 

 not because of any intrinsic quality of their own, but rather 

 because they are associated with other things which for us 

 signify pastness. But how do these things get their past- 

 uess ? What is the original of our experience of pastness, 

 from whence we get the meaning of the term ? It is this 

 question which the reader is invited to consider in the pres- 

 ent chapter. We shall see that we have a constant feeling 

 sui generis of pastness, to which every one of our experi- 

 ences in turn falls a prey. To think a thing as past is to 

 think it amongst the objects or in the direction of the ob- 

 jects which at the present moment appear affected by this 

 quality. This is the original of our notion of past time, 

 upon which memory and history build their systems. And 

 in this chapter we shall consider this immediate sense 

 of time alone. 



If the constitution of consciousness were that of a strin;3, 

 of bead-like sensations and images, all separate, 



" we never could have any knowledge except that of the present instant. 

 The moment each of our sensations ceased it would be gone for ever; 

 and we should be as if we had never been. . . . We should be wholly 



*This chapter is reprinted almost verbatim from the Journal of Specu. 

 lative Philosophy, vol. xx. p. S74. 



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