324 Science Religion and Reality 



he regards the time of mathematical physics and the other physical 

 sciences as spatialised time. Of course, many of the goods and 

 pleasures of life seem to be bound up with the time function. Time 

 is essential even to such a good as the ethical good, the good will. 

 A good action is one which is definitely and deliberately intended 

 and carried out, and can only be carried out in the course of time. 

 If one imagines time transcended, it is difficult to imagine any 

 strictly moral action, or indeed any action at all. It is difficult to 

 attribute the characteristics of morality, which is one of our three 

 general values, to a timeless experience. In transcending time, one 

 seems to transcend morality as such. In aesthetic experience time- 

 lessness seems to be more possible. When we enjoy a picture, for 

 the time being we feel ourselves out of time ; its artistic meaning 

 is timeless. But then when we turn to music, another form of 

 art, time appears to be of its essence, though even here we should 

 not be too certain of this. We know there is an anecdote about 

 Mozart, who, in speaking of one of his compositions, explains how 

 he first had it in his head before he wrote it down. He heard all 

 the notes together — •zusammen. That was a wonderful experience, 

 he said, the like of which he never heard again. In music there 

 is a degree of transcendence of time : chords occur one after 

 another, yet they have to combine in some way to give a feeling of 

 harmony and melody, and one is conscious of what has gone before 

 and what is about to come. One sees more meaning in the pro- 

 duction the second time than the first, because one knows what 

 is coming. So that one might say, with regard to music, that 

 although the possibility of musical experience, and of the training 

 of the ear, is bound up with the conditions of temporal sequence, 

 yet the ultimate outcome when the trained ear appreciates the true 

 inward meaning of music is something that is already on the way 

 towards transcendence of time. As regards truth, it is quite clear 

 that time is transcended — once true, always true. Although the 

 proving to a class of school-boys that the three angles of a triangle 

 are equal to two right angles takes time, and individual boys take 

 varying lengths of time in gaining an adequate insight into that 

 geometrical truth, once they have acquired the truth the insight 

 is beyond time. Moreover, it was true before they began to 

 consider it, and it will remain true after they have ceased to think 

 of it. Truth, as truth, is certainly beyond time. 



Finally, as regards religious experience, one feels that it is 



