NewThoughtLibrary.com / DivineLibrary.org

This statement, so far as it is admissible at all, is so as a statement of the circumstances under which the idea of time arises, and not of the nature of that idea itself. Used for the latter purpose, the author legitimately reaches the conclusion that time is "relativity of position among the states of consciousness." The process of arriving at this result is farther explained thus: "Gradually, as by the accumulation of experiences, there are found to be like and unlike sounds, tastes, smells, sizes, forms, textures; the relationship which we signify by these words, like and unlike, will be more and more dissociated from particular impressions; and the abstract ideas of likeness and unlikeness will come into existence. Manifestly, then, the ideas of likeness and unlikeness are impossible until multitudes of things have been thought of as like and unlike. Similarly in the case before us. After various relations of position among the states of consciousness have been contemplated, have been compared, have become familiar; and after experiences of different relations of position have been so accumulated as to dissociate the idea of the relation from all particular positions; then, and not till then, can there arise the abstract notion of relativity of position among the states of consciousness the notion of time.

Thus so far is it from being true that time, as conceived by us, is a form of thought; it turns out contrariwise, not only that there can be thoughts while yet time has not been conceived, but that there must be thoughts, before it can become conceivable " Page 252.

Our objection to the above conclusion is double. The comparison itself cannot go on without a regulative idea, that of resemblance, under which it can be instituted; and that in which it is said to issue is not the notion of time. That which is explained by time is very different from time itself. If the first were the second we should have no need