not pass them over
altogether.

As to the statement that time is a _necessary_ idea, we may freely admit
that we cannot in thought _annihilate_ time, or _think it away_. It does
not seem to mean anything to attempt such a task. Whatever time may be,
it does not appear to be a something of such a nature that we can
demolish it or clear it away from something else. But is it necessarily
absurd to speak of a system of things--not, of course, a system of things
in which there is change, succession, an earlier and a later, but still a
system of things of some sort--in which there obtain no time relations?
The problem is, to be sure, one of theoretical interest merely, for such
a system of things is not the world we know.

And as for the infinity of time, may we not ask on what ground any one
ventures to assert that time is infinite? No man can say that infinite
time is directly given in his experience. If one does not directly
perceive it to be infinite, must one not seek for some proof of the fact?
The only proof which appears to be offered us is contained in the
statement that we cannot conceive of a time before which there was no
time, nor of a time after which there will be no time; a proof which is
no proof, for written out at length it reads as follows: we cannot
conceive of a time _in the time_ before which there was no time, nor of a
time _in the time_ after which there will be no time. As well say: We
cannot conceive of a number the number before which was no number, nor of
a number the number after which will be no number. Whatever may be said
for the conclusion arrived at, the argument is a very poor one.

When we turn to the consideration of time as infinitely divisible, we
seem to find ourselves confronted with the same difficulties which
presented themselves when we thought of space as infinitely divisible.
Certainly no man was immediately conscious of an infinite number of parts
in the minute which just slipped by. Shall he assert that it did,
nevertheless, contain an infinite number of parts? Then how did it
succeed in passing? how did it even _begin_ to pass away? It is
infinitely divisible, that is, there is no end to the number of parts
into which it may be divided; those parts and parts of parts are all
successive, no two can pass at once, they must all do it in a certain
order, one after the other.

Thus, something must pass _first_. What can it be? If that something
has parts, is divisi