It is not easy for one whose reading has been somewhat limited in any given field to see the full significance of the problems which present themselves in that field.  Those who read much in the history of modern philosophy will see that this ancient difficulty touching our consciousness of time has given rise to some exceedingly curious speculations, and some strange conclusions touching the nature of the mind.

Thus, it has been argued that, since the experience of each moment is something quite distinct from the experience of the next, a something that passes away to give place to its successor, we cannot explain the consciousness of time, of a whole in which successive moments are recognized as having their appropriate place, unless we assume a something that knows each moment and knits it, so to speak, to its successor.  This something is the self or consciousness, which is independent of time, and does not exist in time, as do the various experiences that fill the successive moments.  It is assumed to be timelessly present at all times, and thus to connect the nonexistent past with the existent present.

I do not ask the reader to try to make clear to himself how anything can be timelessly present at all times, for I do not believe that the words can be made to represent any clear thought whatever.  Nor do I ask him to try to conceive how this timeless something can join past and present.  I merely wish to point out that these modern speculations, which still influence the minds of many distinguished men, have their origin in a difficulty which suggested itself early in the history of reflective thought, and are by no means to be regarded as a gratuitous and useless exercise of the ingenuity.  They are serious attempts to solve a real problem, though they may be unsuccessful ones, and they are worthy of attention even from those who incline to a different solution.

29.  WHAT IS REAL TIME?—­From the thin air of such speculations as we have been discussing let us come back to the world of the plain man, the world in which we all habitually live.  It is from this that we must start out upon all our journeys, and it is good to come back to it from time to time to make sure of our bearings.

We have seen (Chapter V) that we distinguish between the real and the apparent, and that we recognize as the real world the objects revealed to the sense of touch.  These objects stand to each other in certain relations of arrangement; that is to say, they exist in space.  And just as we may distinguish between the object as it appears and the object as it is, so we may distinguish between apparent space and real space, i.e. between the relations of arrangement, actual and possible, which obtain among the parts of the object as it appears, and those which obtain among the parts of the object as it really is.

But our experience does not present us only with objects in space relations; it presents us with a succession of changes in those objects.  And if we will reason about those changes as we have reasoned about space relations, many of our difficulties regarding the nature of time may, as it seems, be made to disappear.