durations. As we
look out of a railway carriage in an express train, the present is past
before reflexion can seize it. We live in snippits too quick for
thought. On the other hand the immediate present is prolonged according
as nature presents itself to us in an aspect of unbroken rest. Any
change in nature provides ground for a differentiation among durations
so as to shorten the present. But there is a great distinction between
self-change in nature and change in external nature. Self-change in
nature is change in the quality of the standpoint of the percipient
event. It is the break up of the 'here' which necessitates the break up
of the present duration. Change in external nature is compatible with a
prolongation of the present of contemplation rooted in a given
standpoint. What I want to bring out is that the preservation of a
peculiar relation to a duration is a necessary condition for the
function of that duration as a present duration for sense-awareness.
This peculiar relation is the relation of cogredience between the
percipient event and the duration. Cogredience is the preservation of
unbroken quality of standpoint within the duration. It is the
continuance of identity of station within the whole of nature which is
the terminus of sense-awareness. The duration may comprise change within
itself, but cannot--so far as it is one present duration--comprise
change in the quality of its peculiar relation to the contained
percipient event.

In other words, perception is always 'here,' and a duration can only be
posited as present for sense-awareness on condition that it affords one
unbroken meaning of 'here' in its relation to the percipient event. It
is only in the past that you can have been 'there' with a standpoint
distinct from your present 'here.'

Events there and events here are facts of nature, and the qualities of
being 'there' and 'here' are not merely qualities of awareness as a
relation between nature and mind. The quality of determinate station in
the duration which belongs to an event which is 'here' in one
determinate sense of 'here' is the same kind of quality of station which
belongs to an event which is 'there' in one determinate sense of
'there.' Thus cogredience has nothing to do with any biological
character of the event which is related by it to the associated
duration. This biological character is apparently a further condition
for the peculiar connexion of a percipient event with the per