The distinction between the false Time and true Time may be regarded
as a distinction between mathematical Time and living Time, or between
abstract and concrete Time. This living, concrete Time is that true Time
of which Bergson endeavours to give us a conception as la duree. He has
criticized the abstract mathematical Time, his attack having been made
to open up the way for a treatment of what he really considers Time to
be. Now, from the arguments previously mentioned, it follows that
Time, Real Time, which is radically different from space, cannot be any
homogeneous medium. It is heterogeneous in character. We are aware of it
in relation to ourselves, for it has reference not to the existence of
a multiplicity of material objects in space, but to a multiplicity of
a quite different nature, entirely non-spatial, viz., that of conscious
states. Being non-spatial, such a multiplicity cannot be composed of
elements which are external to one another as are the objects existing
in space. States of consciousness are not in any way external to one
another. Indeed, they interpenetrate to such a degree that even the use
of the word "state" is apt to be misleading. As we saw in the chapter on
The Reality of Change, there can be strictly no states of consciousness,
for consciousness is not static but dynamic. Language and conventional
figures of speech, of which the word "state" itself is a good example,
serve to cut up consciousness artificially, but, in reality, it is,
as William James termed it, "a stream" and herein lies the essence of
Bergson's duree--the Real as opposed to the False Time. "Pure Duration"
(la duree pure), he says, "is the form which the succession of our
conscious states assumes when our Ego lets itself live, when it refrains
from separating its present state from its former states. For this
purpose, it need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or
idea, for then, on the contrary, it would no longer 'endure.' Nor
need it forget its former states; it is enough that in recalling these
states, it does not set them alongside its actual state as one point
alongside another, but forms both the past and the present states
into an organic whole, as happens when we recall the notes of a tune,
melting, so to speak, into one another. Might it not be said that
even if these notes succeed one another, yet, we perceive them in one
another, and that their totality may be compared to a living being whose
parts, although distinct, permeate one another just because they are so
closely connected?" [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 100 (Fr. p. 76).]
Such a duration is Real Time. Unfortunately, we, obsessed by the idea of
space, introduce it unwittingly and set our states of consciousness side
by side in such a way as to perceive them alongside one another; in
a word, we project them into space and we express duree in terms of
extensity and succession thus takes the form of a continuous line or a
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