Continuum

“ But our ideational continuum is not a mere string of ideas of concrete things, least of all such concrete things as this view implies. Not till our daily life resembles that of a museum porter receiving specimens will our higher mental activity be comparable to that of the savant who sorts such specimens into cases and compartments. What we perceive is a world of things in continual motion, waxing, waning, the centres of manifold changes, affecting us and apparently affected by each other, amenable to our action and, as it seems, continually interacting among themselves. ”

“ If we try to imagine a line, it must have the characters of the physical continuum—that is to say, our representation must have a certain breadth. Two lines will therefore appear to us under the form of two narrow bands, and if we are content with this rough image, it is clear that where two lines cross they must have some common part. But the pure geometer makes one further effort; without entirely renouncing the aid of his senses, he tries to imagine a line without breadth and a point without size. ”

“ But the question is, Does this continuity terminate now in the living series, and is there then a break—a sharp, clear discontinuity, and beyond, another realm immeasurably less endowed, known as the realm of not-life? or Does what has been taken for the clear-cut boundary of the vital area, when more deeply searched, reveal the presence of a force at present unknown, which changes not-living into the living, and thus makes all nature an unbroken sequence and a continuous whole? ”

“ All the Concrete Sciences familiarize the mind with certain cardinal conceptions which the Abstract and Abstract-Concrete Sciences do not yield—the conceptions of continuity, complexity, and contingency. The simplest of the Concrete Sciences, Astronomy and Geology, yield the idea of continuity with great distinctness. I do not mean continuity of existence merely; I mean continuity of causation: the unceasing production of effect—the never-ending work of every force. ”

“ How do we parcel out the continuity of material extensity, given in primary perception, into bodies of which each is supposed to have its substance and individuality? No doubt the aspect of this continuity changes from moment to moment; but why do we not purely and simply realize that the whole has changed, as with the turning of a kaleidoscope? Why, in short, do we seek, in the mobility of the whole, tracks that are supposed to be followed by bodies supposed to be in motion? ”

“ The series of successive states which make up the history of a thing are the expression of the thing’s nature or structure. To understand the thing’s structure is to possess the key to the succession of its states, to know on what principle each gives way to its successor. And similarly, to have complete insight into the nature or structure of Reality as a whole would be to understand the principles according to which every transitory event in the history of the Universe, regarded as a series of events in time, is followed by its own special successor. ”

“ The law of continuity means there are no breaks or leaps in the life of a people. Development may hasten or slacken and may cease for a time, but it is always continuous; the law of differentiation means that thoughts and feelings of a people take on new forms in the process of growth."—Mace.
2. History is an evolution—a continuous movement, and causes always precede effects.
3. The historical attitude is this: Ascertainment of facts, interpretation of actions, investigation of motives, but regarding all events as "portions of human life." ”

“ For the identity in time of an existing thing (as in this work I have mentioned) you require both temporal continuity and again sameness in the thing’s proper character. And mutatis mutandis what is true here about temporal continuity is true also about spatial, and not to perceive this would be an error. Now whether a wholly unbroken continuity in time or space is requisite for the singleness of a thing, is a question I here pass by; [6] but some unbroken duration obviously is wanted if there is to be duration at all. ”

“ Every history is equally continuous, undisturbed by its beginnings and endings. Each action of time is preceded and followed by everything which precedes and follows it, and yet each action of time begins and ends with its own peculiar and individual precision. In affirming this we are affirming, by means of a particular instance, the metaphysical nature of continuity itself. For by continuity we mean the possibility of precise and definite distinctions. The continuity of a line may be divided at its middle point. ”

“ Our view declares that all the life of the world, and therefore all temporal sequences, are present at once to the Absolute. Our view also maintains that, without the least conflict with this sense in which the whole temporal order is known at once to the Absolute, there is another sense in which any portion of the temporal sequence of the world may be taken as present, when viewed with reference to the experience of any finite Self whose present it is, and when contrasted with what for this same point of view is the past and the future of the world. ”

“ For if we cannot conceive movement as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension, how can we conceive matter as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension? And how can we conceive matter as continuous without a previous knowledge of continuity, or time as enduring without a previous knowledge of duration? ”

“ This element is our feeling of succession, or time—a feeling, which necessarily, involves the notion of divisibility or series of parts, that is so essential a constituent of our more complex notion of matter,—and to which notion of continuous divisibility, if the notion of resistance be added, it is scarcely possible for us to imagine, that we should not have acquired, by this union, the very notion of physical extension,—that which has parts, and that which resists our effort to grasp it. ”

“ So strong a postulate is continuity! Now this book will tend to show that mental postulates are on the whole to be respected. The demand for continuity has, over large tracts of science, proved itself to possess true prophetic power. We ought therefore ourselves sincerely to try every possible mode of conceiving the dawn of consciousness so that it may not appear equivalent to the irruption into the universe of a new nature, non-existent until then.
Merely to call the consciousness 'nascent' will not serve our turn. ”

“ Thus by their continual motions backward and forward, upward and downward, the conjunction of the several parts of the universe is preserved; a union which, in the beauty we now behold it, must be eternal, or at least of a very long duration, and almost for an infinite space of time; and, whichever it is, the universe must of consequence be governed by nature. ”

“ This "law of becoming" in all things—this universal law of progressive inter-connected change—may be called the law of continuity. We all recognize the universal relation of things, gravitative or other, in space. This asserts the universal causal relation of things in time. This is the universal law of evolution. ”

“ These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen universe—to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate. ”

“ Space and time are thus vehicles of continuity, by which the world's parts hang together. The practical difference to us, resultant from these forms of union, is immense. Our whole motor life is based upon them.
3. There are innumerable other paths of practical continuity among things. Lines of INFLUENCE can be traced by which they together. Following any such line you pass from one thing to another till you may have covered a good part of the universe's extent. Gravity and heat-conduction are such all-uniting influences, so far as the physical world goes. ”

“ If we reflect upon the species of multiplicity required to constitute extension, we shall observe that it must be accompanied by continuity. Sensations of touch as well as of sight involve continuity; for it is impossible for us to see or to touch, without receiving the impression of objects continuous, immediately adjoining each other, co-existing in their duration, and at the same time presented as continuous one with another in space. Without this continuity, multiplicity does not constitute extension. ”

“ The great continua of time, space, and the self envelope everything, betwixt them, and flow together without interfering. The things that they envelope come as separate in some ways and as continuous in others. ”

“ A moving continuity is given to us, in which everything changes and yet remains: whence comes it that we dissociate the two terms, permanence and change, and then represent permanence by bodies and change by homogeneous movements in space? ”

“ A truly continuous creation could be bound by no programme; by definition it could have neither date in time nor location in space. And, what is of even greater moment, a continuous creator, ever present and ever active, could never be more or less than the persistent reality of the world itself. ”

“ The inter-objective relations of presentations, on which their second characteristic, that of revivability and associability depends, though of the first importance in themselves, hardly call for examination in a general analysis like the present. But there is one point still more fundamental that we cannot wholly pass by: it Continuity of Consciousness. is—in part at any rate—what is commonly termed the unity or continuity of consciousness. From the physical standpoint and in ordinary life we can talk of objects that are isolated and independent and in all respects distinct individuals. ”

“ It may be that the present period of material existence is but one of an indefinite series of like periods. All that we can see, and feel, and infer, and reason about may be, as it were, but a part of one single pulsation in the existence of the universe. ”

“ Here, as in the cosmic life-sphere, the field of operation of which is infinite space, everything is generated, develops, accomplishes its aim in life, and then decays and dissolves in order to arise again to a new life entity in the eternal, infinite, unified and divine cycle of universal life. What we call "progress" is no more than the development of a being from the germ stage to the mature life stage. ”

“ Here, then, are two absolute ideas found in the depths of consciousness—the ideas of IMMENSITY and ETERNITY; ideas as real, as natural, and as necessary as the notions of extension and duration. Immensity and Eternity are attributes of God. Extension and Duration are attributes of finite, dependent existence. Space and time are relations between co-existing things and successive events. ”

“ That continuity is a concept which springs from experience can scarcely be doubted, and it can be accounted for by the inability of our crude senses to differentiate between impressions which are almost alike. ”

“ The visible or sensible discontinuity reposes on, and is to be explained by, an invisible or ideal continuity. Each body, for instance, in nature, appearing to have a separate existence of its own, is only a stage isolated or insulated in a continuing process: and that process, binding, as it does, past to future, is the process of a Mind. ”

“ And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given. Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance. ”

“ The supposed difficulties of continuity all have their source in the fact that a continuous series must have an infinite number of terms, and are in fact difficulties concerning infinity. Hence, in freeing the infinite from contradiction, we are at the same time showing the logical possibility of continuity as assumed in science. ”

“ The whole series of things, as they appear to us, must be contemplated in time, that is in succession, and we conceive or suppose intervals between one state of things and another state of things, so that there is priority and sequence, and interval, and Being, and a ceasing to Be, and beginning and ending. But there is nothing of the kind in the Nature of Things. ”

“ As a law of causation, as well as of consecutive thought, there must be in the order of life (all life) a continuous chain of ideas linking the past to the present, the present to the future, and the future to eternity. ”

“ I take the position that the transition from nature to culture, i.e., from reactions caused by natural stimuli to reflections and awareness, is marked by both continuity and discontinuity. The continuous aspect refers to the biological structure projected into the universe of interactions with similar or dissimilar entities. ”

“ To this conception recent science has made an important addition in the notion of a continuous evolution or development as manifesting itself throughout the series. So that we may ultimately define the physical order as a body of events occupying position in time and space, conforming to general laws with rigid and undeviating uniformity, and exhibiting continuous evolution. ”

“ In the development of time into causation, persistence becomes state and change becomes event. In the development of judgment into conception, consciousness becomes recollection and choice becomes inference. ”

“ In the same way He wills that His creation shall develop itself in time and space and sequence, but He creates these conditions as well as the events. He creates the whole, in one act, complete, unchangeable, and it is then unfolded like a rolling panorama, with its predetermined contingencies. ”

“ Seeing the difficulties of a theory of evolution based upon the principle of continuity alone, we may emphasize, with many popular interpreters, not so much this principle of continuity, as that of progress. Evolution would then mean not a mere shifting of the elements, a redistribution of matter and motion, but a creative synthesis, an epigenesis. ”