enuine duration than
that contained in the numerical succession. Even in astronomy there
is less anticipation than judgment of constancy and stability, the
phenomena being almost strictly periodic, while the hazard of prediction
bears only upon the minute divergence between the actual phenomenon and
the exact period attributed to it. Notice under what figure common-sense
imagines time: as an inert receptacle, a homogeneous milieu, neutral and
indifferent; in fact, a kind of space.

The scholar makes use of a like image; for he defines time by its
measurement, and all measurement implies interpretation in space.
For the scholar the hour is not an interval, but a coincidence, an
instantaneous arrangement, and time is resolved into a dust of fixities,
as in those pneumatic clocks in which the hand moves forward in jerks,
marking nothing but a sequence of pauses.

Such symbols are sufficient, at least for a first approximation, when
it is only a question of matter, the mechanism of which, strictly
considered, contains nothing "durable." But in biology and psychology
quite different characteristics become essential; age and memory,
heterogeneity of musical phases, irreversible rhythm "which cannot be
lengthened or shortened at will." ("Creative Evolution", page 10.)

Then it is that the return of time becomes necessary to duration.
How are we to describe this duration? It is a melodious evolution of
moments, each of which contains the resonance of those preceding and
announces the one which is going to follow; it is a process of enriching
which never ceases, and a perpetual appearance of novelty; it is an
indivisible, qualitative, and organic becoming, foreign to space,
refractory to number.

Summon the image of a stream of consciousness passing through the
continuity of the spectrum, and becoming tinged successively with each
of its shades. Or rather imagine a symphony having feeling of itself,
and creating itself; that is how we should conceive duration.

That duration thus conceived is really the basis of ourselves Mr Bergson
proves by a thousand examples, and by a marvellous employment of the
introspective method which he has helped to make so popular. We cannot
quote these admirable analyses here. A single one will serve as model,
specially selected as referring to one of the most ordinary moments of
our life, to show plainly that the perception of real duration always
accompanies us in secret.

"At the moment wh