CHAP.II DURATION AND SIMULTANEITY 115 beyond its province when it claims to reconstruct what takes place in the interval between two simultaneities; or rather it is inevitably led, even then, to consider simultaneities once more, fresh simultaneities, the indefinitely increasing number of which ought to be a warning that we cannot make movement out of immobilities, nor time out of space. In short, just as nothing will be found homogeneous in duration except a sym bolical medium with no duration at all, namely space, in which simultaneities are set out in line, in the same way no homogeneous element will be found in motion except that which least belongs to it, the traversed space, which is motionless.
Now, just for this reason, science cannot deal with time and motion except on condition of first science has to eliminating the essential and qualitar~ tive element— of time, duration, and of " motion, mobility. We may easily conbefore vjnce ourselves of this by examining the with them. par{. piaye(i m astronomy and mechanics by considerations of time, motion, and velocity.
Treatises on mechanics are careful to announce that they do not intend to define duration itself but only the equality of two durations. " Two intervals of time are equal when two identical bodies, in identical conditions at the beginning of each of these intervals and subject to the same actions and influences of every kind, have traversed the same space at the end of these intervals." In other words, we are to note the exact moment at Il6 TIME AND FREE WILL CHAP, n which the motion begins, i.e. the coincidence of an external change with one of our psychic states; we are to note the moment at which the motion ends, that is to say, another simultaneity; finally we are to measure the space traversed, the only thing, in fact, which is really measurable. Hence there is no question here of duration, but only of space and simultaneities. To announce that some thing will take place at the end of a time t is to declare that consciousness will note between now and then a number t of simultaneities of a certain kind. And we must not be led astray by the words " between now and then," for the interval of duration exists only for us and on account of the interpenetration of our conscious states.
Outside ourselves we should find only space, and consequently nothing but simultaneities, of which we could not even say that they are objectively successive, since succession can only be thought through comparing the present with the past. — That the interval of duration itself cannot be taken into account by science is proved by the fact that, if all the motions of the universe took place twice or thrice as quickly, there would be nothing to alter either in our formulae or in the figures which are to be found in them. Consciousness would have an indefinable and as it were qualitative impression of the change, but the change would not make itself felt outside consciousness, since the same number of simultaneities would go on taking place in space. We shall see, later on, that when the CHAP, ii VELOCITY AND SIMULTANEITY 117 astronomer predicts, e.g., an eclipse, he does some thing of this kind: he shortens infinitely the inter vals of duration, as these do not count for science, and thus perceives in a very short time — a few seconds at the most — a succession of simultaneities which may take up several centuries for the con crete consciousness, compelled to live through the intervals instead of merely counting their extrem ities.
A direct analysis of the notion of velocity will bring us to the same conclusion. Mechanics gets this notion through a series of ideas, the This is seen in...the definition connexion of which it is easy enough to of velocity.
trace. It first builds up the idea of uniform motion by picturing, on the one hand, the path AB of a certain moving body, and, on the other, a physical phenomenon which is re peated indefinitely under the same conditions, e.g., a stone always falling from the same height on to the same spot. If we mark on the path AB the points M, N, P...reached by the moving body at each of the moments when the stone touches the ground, and if the intervals AM, MN and NP are found to be equal to one another, the motion will be said to be uniform: and any one of these intervals will be called the velocity of the moving body, provided that it is agreed to adopt as unit of duration the physical phenomenon which has been chosen as the term of comparison. Thus, the velocity of a uniform motion is defined by mechanics without appealing to any other notions Il8 TIME AND FREE WILL CHAP, ti than those of space and simultaneity. Now let us turn to the case of a variable motion, that is, to the case when the elements AM, MN, NP...are found to be unequal. In order to define the velocity of the moving body A at the point M, we shall only have to imagine an unlimited number of moving bodies At, A2, A3...all moving uni formly with velocities vlt vt, v3...which are arranged, e.g., in an ascending scale and which correspond to all possible magnitudes. Let us then consider on the path of the moving body A two points M' and M", situated on either side of the point M but very near it. At the same time as this moving body reaches the points M', M, M", the other moving bodies reach points M\ Mt M'^, M'2 M2 M"2...on their respective paths; and there must be two moving bodies A* and A^ such that we have on the one hand M' M = M'* MA and on the other hand MM" = M, M'V We shall then agree to say that the velocity of the moving body A at the point M lies between vk and vp. But nothing prevents our assuming that the points M' and M" are still nearer the point M, and it will then be necessary to replace vh and vp by two fresh velocities v, and vn, the one greater than vh and the other less than vp. And in proportion as we reduce the two intervals M'M and MM", we shall lessen the difference between the velocities of the uniform corresponding movements. Now, the two intervals being capable of decreasing right down to zero, there evidently exists between vt CHAP, ii VELOCITY AND SIMULTANEITY and vn a certain velocity vm, such that the differ ence between this velocity and vh, ^...on the one hand, and vp, v...on the other, can be come smaller than any given quantity. It is this common limit vm which we shall call the velocity of the moving body A at the point M. — Now, in this analysis of variable motion, as in that of uniform motion, it is a question only of spaces once traversed and of simultaneous positions once reached. We were thus justified in saying that, while all that mechanics retains of time is simul taneity, all that it retains of motion itself— restricted, as it is, to a measurement of motion — is immobility.
This result might have been foreseen by noticing that mechanics necessarily deals with equations, Mechanics an^ that an algebraic equation always expresses something already done. Now, ^ *s o* tne very essence of duration and processes? not m°tion, as they appear to our conscious-Son1 iXddm£ ness> t° be something that is unceasingly being done; thus algebra can represent the results gained at a certain moment of duration and the positions occupied by a certain moving body in space, but not duration and motion them selves. Mathematics may, indeed, increase the number of simultaneities and positions which it takes into consideration by making the intervals very small: it may even, by using the differential instead of the difference, show that it is possible to increase without limit the number of these I2O TIME AND FREE WILL CHAP, n intervals of duration. Nevertheless, however small the interval is supposed to be, it is the extremity of the interval at which mathematics always places itself. As for the interval itself, as for the duration and the motion, they are neces sarily left out of the equation. The reason is that duration and motion are mental syntheses, and not objects; that, although the moving body occupies, one after the other, points on a line, motion itself has nothing to do with a line; and finally that, although the positions occupied by the moving body vary with the different moments of duration, though it even creates distinct mo ments by the mere fact of occupying different positions, duration properly so called has no moments which are identical or external to one another, being essentially heterogeneous, continu ous, and with no analogy to number.
It follows from this analysis that space alone is homogeneous, that objects in space form a discrete multiplicity, and that every discrete Conclusion:...space alone is multiplicity is got bv a process of unhomogene-.
ous: dura- folding in space. It also follows that turn and sue-.. *" cession belong there is neither duration nor even suenot to the ex ternal worm, cession in space, if we give to these words but to the,.. ° conscious the meaning in which consciousness mind..
takes them: each of the so-called suc cessive states of the external world exists alone; their multiplicity is real only for a consciousness that can first retain them and then set them side by side by externalizing them in relation CHAP, ii TWO KINDS OF MULTIPLICITY 121 to one another. If it retains them, it is because these distinct states of the external world give rise to states of consciousness which permeate one another, imperceptibly organize themselves into a whole, and bind the past to the present by this very process of connexion. If it externalizes them in relation to one another, the reason is that, thinking of their radical distinctness (the one having ceased to be when the other appears on the scene), it perceives them under the form of a discrete multiplicity, which amounts to settingthem out in line, in the space in which each of them existed separately. The space employed for this purpose is just that which is called homogeneous time.
But another conclusion results from this analysis, namely, that the multiplicity of conscious states, regarded in its original purity, is not at multiplicity: all like the discrete multiplicity which two senses of. _ the word "dis- goes to form a number. In such a case tinguish," the".., r,,., one quaiita- there is, as we said, a qualitative multive and the...-,,.
other quanti- tiplicitv. In short, we must admit two tative..
kinds of multiplicity, two possible senses of the word " distinguish," two conceptions, the one qualitative and the other quantitative, of the difference between same and other. Sometimes this multiplicity, this distinctness, this hetero geneity contains number only potentially, as Aristotle would have said. Consciousness, then, makes a qualitative discrimination without any further thought of counting the qualities or even of distinguishing them as several. In such a case we have multiplicity without quantity. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is a question of a multiplicity of terms which are counted or which are conceived as capable of being counted; but we think then of the possibility of externalizing them in relation to one another, we set them out in space. Unfortunately, we are so accustomed to illustrate one of these two meanings of the same word by the other, and even to perceive the one in the other, that we find it extraordinarily difficult to distinguish between them or at least to express this distinction in words. Thus I said that several conscious states are organized into a whole, per meate one another, gradually gain a richer con tent, and might thus give any one ignorant of space the feeling of pure duration; but the very use of the word " several " shows that I had already isolated these states, externalized them in relation to one another, and, in a word, set them side by side; thus, by the very language which I was compelled to use, I betrayed the deeply ingrained habit of setting out time in space. From this spatial setting out, already accomplished, we are compelled to borrow the terms which we use to describe the state of a mind which has not yet accomplished it: these terms are thus misleading from the very beginning, and the idea of a mul tiplicity without relation to number or space, although clear for pure reflective thought, cannot be translated into the language of common sense.
And yet we cannot even form the idea of discrete CHAP, n TWO KINDS OF MULTIPLICITY 123 multiplicity without considering at the same time a qualitative multiplicity. When we explicitly count units by stringing them along a spatial line, is it not the case that, alongside this addition of identical terms standing out from a homogene ous background, an organization of these units is going on in the depths of the soul, a wholly dynamic process, not unlike the purely qualitative way in which an anvil, if it could feel, would realize a series of blows from a hammer? In this sense we might almost say that the numbers in daily use have each their emotional equivalent. Tradesmen are well aware of it, and instead of indicating the price of an object by a round number of shillings, they will mark the next smaller number, leaving themselves to insert afterwards a sufficient number of pence and farthings. In a word, the process by which we count units and make them into a discrete multiplicity has two sides; on the one hand we assume that they are identical, which is conceivable only on con dition that these units are ranged alongside each other in a homogeneous medium; but on the other hand the third unit, for example, when added to the other two, alters the nature, the appearance and, as it were, the rhythm of the whole; without this interpenetration and this, so to speak, qualitative progress, no addition would be possible. Hence it is through the quality of quantity that we form the idea of quantity without quality.
It is therefore obvious that, if it did not betake itself to a symbolical substitute, our consciousness oar successive would never regard time as a homogeneare ous medium, in which the terms of a regarded as mutually ex- succession remain outside one another.
ternal. like we naturally reach this symbolical °s chiS representation by the mere fact that, "fc- in a series of identical terms, each term assumes a double aspect for our consciousness: one aspect which is the same for all of them, since we are thinking then of the sameness of the external object, and another aspect which is characteristic of each of them, because the super vening of each term brings about a new organiz ation of the whole. Hence the possibility of setting out in space, under the form of numerical multiplicity, what we have called a qualitative multiplicity, and of regarding the one as the equivalent of the other. Now, this twofold pro cess is nowhere accomplished so easily as in the perception of the external phenomenon which takes for us the form of motion. Here we cer tainly have a series of identical terms, since it is always the same moving body; but, on the other hand, the synthesis carried out by our consciousness between the actual position and what our memory calls the former positions, causes these images to permeate, complete, and, so to speak, continue one another. Hence, it is principally by the help of motion that duration assumes the form of a homogeneous medium, and that time is projected REAL DURATION 125 into space. But, even if we leave out motion, any repetition of a well-marked external pheno menon would suggest to consciousness the same mode of representation. Thus, when we hear a series of blows of a hammer, the sounds form an indivisible melody in so far as they are pure sensations, and, here again, give rise to a dynamic progress; but, knowing that the same objective cause is at work, we cut up this progress into phases which we then regard as identical; and this multiplicity of elements no longer being con ceivable except by being set out in space, since they have now become identical, we are necessarily led to the idea of a homogeneous time, the sym bolical image of real duration. In a word, our ego comes in contact with the external world at its surface; our successive sensations, although dissolving into one another, retain something of the mutual externality which belongs to their objective causes; and thus our superficial psychic life comes to be pictured without any great effort as set out in a homogeneous medium. But the symbolical character of such a picture becomes more striking as we advance further into the depths of consciousness: the deep-seated self which ponders and decides, which heats and blazes up, is a self whose states and changes permeate one another and undergo a deep alteration as soon as we separate them from one another in order to set them out in space. But as this deeper self forms one and the same person with the superficial ego, I26 TIME AND FREE WILL CHAP, n the two seem to endure in the same way. And as the repeated picture of one identical objective phenomenon, ever recurring, cuts up our super ficial psychic life into parts external to one another, the moments which are thus determined deter mine in their turn distinct segments in the dynamic and undivided progress of our more personal con scious states. Thus the mutual externality which material objects gain from their juxtaposition in homogeneous space reverberates and spreads into the depths of consciousness: little by little our sensations are distinguished from one another like the external causes which gave rise to them, and our feelings or ideas come to be separated like the sensations with which they are contemporaneous. That our ordinary conception of duration depends on a gradual incursion of space into the Eliminate the domain of pure consciousness is proved by superficial • r..r psychic states, the fact that, in order to deprive the ego longer per- of the f acuity of perceiving a homogeneceiTeahomo-._,. G.
geneons time ous time, it is enough to take away from or measure.
duration, but it this outer circle of psychic states which leel it as a., 1 i in.
quality. it uses as a balance-wheel. These con ditions are realized when we dream; for sleep, by relaxing the play of the organic functions, alters the communicating surface between the ego and external objects. Here we no longer measure duration, but we feel it; from quantity it returns to the state of quality; we no longer estimate past time mathematically: the mathematical estimate gives place to a confused instinct, CHAP, n REAL DURATION 127 capable, like all instincts, of committing gross errors, but also of acting at times with extraordin ary skill. Even in the waking state, daily experi ence ought to teach us to distinguish between duration as quality, that which consciousness reaches immediately and which is probably what animals perceive, and time so to speak materialized, time that has become quantity by being set out in space. Whilst I am writing these lines, the hour strikes on a neighbouring clock, but my inatten tive ear does not perceive it until several strokes have made themselves heard. Hence I have not counted them; and yet I only have to turn my attention backwards to count up the four strokes which have already sounded and add them to those which I hear. If, then, I question myself carefully on what has just taken place, I perceive that the first four sounds had struck my ear and even affected my consciousness, but that the sen sations produced by each one of them, instead of being set side by side, had melted into one another in such a way as to give the whole a peculiar quality, to make a kind of musical phrase out of it. In order, then, to estimate retrospectively the number of strokes sounded, I tried to reconstruct this phrase in thought: my imagination made one stroke, then two, then three, and as long as it did not reach the exact number four, my feeling, when consulted, answered that the total effect was qualitatively different. It had thus ascertained in its own way the succession of four strokes, but quite otherwise than by a process of addition, and without bringing in the image of a juxtaposition of dis tinct terms. In a word, the number of strokes was perceived as a quality and not as a quantity: it is thus that duration is presented to immediate consciousness, and it retains this form so long as it does not give place to a symbolical representation derived from extensity.
We should therefore distinguish two forms of multiplicity, two very different ways of regarding There are duration, two aspects of conscious life, mui- Below homogeneous.duration, which is d411" tne extensive symbol of true duration, conscious life. a c}ose psychological analysis distin guishes a duration whose heterogeneous moments permeate one another; below the numerical multiplicity of conscious states, a qualitative multiplicity; below the self with well-defined states, a self in which succeeding each other means melting into one another and forming an organic whole. But we are generally content with the first, i.e. with the shadow of the self projected into homogeneous space. Consciousness, goaded by an insatiable desire to separate, substitutes the symbol for the reality, or perceives the reality only through the symbol. As the self thus refracted, and thereby broken to pieces, is much better adapted to the requirements of social life in general and language in particular, consciousness prefers it, and gradually loses sight of the funda mental self.
CHAP, ii THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE SELF I2Q In order to recover this fundamental self, as the unsophisticated consciousness would perceive The two as- ^, a vigorous effort of analysis is neces-JonscioM our sarY> which will isolate the fluid inner states. states from their image, first refracted, then solidified in homogeneous space. In other words, our perceptions, sensations, emotions and ideas occur under two aspects: the one clear and precise, but impersonal; the other confused, ever changing, and inexpressible, because language cannot get hold of it without arresting its mobility or fit it into its common-place forms without making it into public property. If we have been led to distinguish two forms of multiplicity, two forms of duration, we must expect each conscious state, taken by itself, to assume a different aspect according as we consider it within a discrete multiplicity or a confused multiplicity, in the time as quality, in which it is produced, or in the time as quantity, into which it is projected.
When e.g. I take my first walk in a town in which I am going to live, my environment pro- One oi which duces on me two impressions at the Is due to the.,,..,.
solidifying in- same time, one of which is destined to temai objects last while the other will constantly and language, -.-^ T., on our con- change. Every day I perceive the ing feelings, same houses, and as I know that they are the same objects, I always call them by the same name and I also fancy that they always look the same to me. But if I recur, at the end of a sufficiently long period, to the impression which I experienced during the first few years, I am surprised at the remarkable, inexplicable, and indeed inexpressible change which has taken place. It seems that these objects, continually perceived by me and constantly impressing them selves on my mind, have ended by borrowing from me something of my own conscious existence; like myself they have lived, and like myself they have grown old. This is not a mere illusion; for if to-day's impression were absolutely identical with that of yesterday, what difference would there be between perceiving and recognizing, between learning and remembering? Yet this difference escapes the attention of most of us; we shall hardly perceive it, unless we are warned of it and then carefully look into ourselves. The reason is that our outer and, so to speak, social life is more practically important to us than our inner and individual existence. We instinctively tend to solidify our impressions in order to express them in language. Hence we confuse the feeling itself, which is in a perpetual state of becoming, with its permanent external object, and especially with the word which expresses this object. In the same way as the fleeting duration of our ego is fixed by its projection in homogeneous space, our constantly changing impressions, wrapping themselves round the external object which is their cause, take on its definite outlines and its immobility.
Our simple sensations, taken in their natural OHAP. ii THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE SELF 13!
state, are still more fleeting. Such and such a flavour, such and such a scent, pleased gua*e gives a me when I was a child though I dislike fixed lorm to,, Ar T.,,., fleeting sensa- them to-day. Yet I still give the same name to the sensation experienced, and I speak as if only my taste had changed, whilst the scent and the flavour have remained the same. Thus I again solidify the sensation; and when its changeableness becomes so obvious that I cannot help recognizing it, I abstract this changeableness to give it a name of its own and solidify it in the shape of a taste. But in reality there are neither identical sensations nor multiple tastes: for sensations and tastes seem to me to be objects as soon as I isolate and name them, and in the human soul there are only processes. What I ought to say is that every sensation is altered by repetition, and that if it does not seem to me to change from day to day, it is because I perceive it through the object which is its cause, through the word which translates it. This influence of language on sensation is deeper than is usually thought. Not only does language make us believe hi the unchangeableness of our sensations, but it wih1 sometimes deceive us as to the nature of the sensation felt. Thus, when I partake of a dish that is supposed to be exquisite, the name which it bears, suggestive of the approval given to it, comes between my sensation and my consciousness; I may believe that the flavour pleases me when a slight effort of attention would prove the contrary.
In short, the word with well-defined outlines, the rough and ready word, which stores up the stable, common, and consequently impersonal element in the impressions of mankind, over whelms or at least covers over the delicate and fugitive impressions of our individual conscious ness. To maintain the struggle on equal terms, the latter ought to express themselves in precise words; but these words, as soon as they were formed, would turn against the sensation which gave birth to them, and, invented to show that the sensation is unstable, they would impose on it their own stability.
This overwhelming of the immediate conscious ness is nowhere so striking as in the case of our HOW analysis feelings. A violent love or a deep t£jddS£rt" melancholy takes possession of our the feelings. soul. here we feel a thousand different elements which dissolve into and permeate one another without any precise outlines, without the least tendency to externalize themselves in relation to one another; hence their originality. We distort them as soon as we distinguish a numerical multiplicity in their confused mass: what will it be, then, when we set them out, isolated from one another, in this homogeneous medium which may be called either time or space, whichever you prefer? A moment ago each of them was borrowing an indefinable colour from its surroundings: now we have it colourless, and ready to accept a name. The feeling itself is a CHAP, n THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE SELF 133