608 P8TCH0L0OT. 



THE SENSIBLE PRESENT HAS DURATION. 



Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice oi 

 attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most 

 baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present ? It 

 has melted in our grasp, Hed ere we could touch it, gone in 

 the instant of becoming. As a poet, quoted by Mr. Hodg- 

 son, says, 



" Le moment ou je parle est deja loin de moi," 



and it is only as entering into the living and moving organ- 

 ization of a much wider tract of time that the strict present 

 is apprehended at all. It is, in fact, an altogether ideal 

 abstraction, not only never realized in sense, but probably 

 never even conceived of by those unaccustomed to philo- 

 sophic meditation. Reflection leads us to the conclusion 



measuring- tape." (S. H. Hodgson: Philosophy of Reflection, vol. i. pp. 

 248-254.) 



" The representation of time agrees with that of space in that a certain 

 amount of it must be presented together — included between its initial and 

 terminal limit. A continuous ideation, flowing from one point to another, 

 would \n<\eGd. occupy time, but not repi'esent it, for it would exchange one 

 element of succession for another instead of grasping the whole succession 

 at once. Both points — the beginning and the end — are equally essential to 

 the conception of time, and must be present with equal clearness together." 

 (Herbart: Psychol, als W., § 115.) 



" Assume that . . . similar pendulum-strokes follow each other at reg- 

 ular intervals in a consciousncos otherwise void. When the first one la 

 over, an image of it remains in the fancy until the second succeeds. This, 

 then, reproduces the first by virtue of the law of association by similarity, 

 but at the same time meets with the aforesaid persisting image. . . . Thus 

 does the simple repetition of the sound provide all the elements of time, 

 perception. The first sound [as it is recalled by association] gives the 

 beginning, the second the end, and the persistent image in the fancy repre- 

 sents the length of the interval. At the moment of the second impression, 

 the entire time-perception exists at once, for then all its elements are 

 presented together, the second sound and the image in the fancy immedi. 

 ately, and the first impression by reproduction. But, in the same act, we 

 are aware of a state in which only the first sound existed, and of another 

 in which only its image existed in the fancy. Such a consciousness as this 

 is that of time. . . . In it no succession of ideas takes place. " (Wundt : 

 Physiol. Psj'ch., 1st ed. pp. 681-2.) Note here the as.sumption that the 

 persistence and the reproduction of an impression are two processes which 

 may go on simultaneously. Also that Wundt's description is merely an 

 attempt to analyze the ' deliverance ' of a time-perception, and no explanation 

 of the manner in which it comes about. 



