o more notion of time than of space. The conception
of being is more general than either, and might therefore with greater
plausibility be affirmed to be a condition or quality of the mind. The a
priori intuitions of Kant would have been as unintelligible to Plato as
his a priori synthetical propositions to Aristotle. The philosopher of
Konigsberg supposed himself to be analyzing a necessary mode of thought:
he was not aware that he was dealing with a mere abstraction. But now
that we are able to trace the gradual developement of ideas through
religion, through language, through abstractions, why should we
interpose the fiction of time between ourselves and realities? Why
should we single out one of these abstractions to be the a priori
condition of all the others? It comes last and not first in the order of
our thoughts, and is not the condition precedent of them, but the last
generalization of them. Nor can any principle be imagined more suicidal
to philosophy than to assume that all the truth which we are capable of
attaining is seen only through an unreal medium. If all that exists
in time is illusion, we may well ask with Plato, 'What becomes of the
mind?'

Leaving the a priori conditions of sensation we may proceed to consider
acts of sense. These admit of various degrees of duration or intensity;
they admit also of a greater or less extension from one object, which is
perceived directly, to many which are perceived indirectly or in a less
degree, and to the various associations of the object which are latent
in the mind. In general the greater the intension the less the extension
of them. The simplest sensation implies some relation of objects to
one another, some position in space, some relation to a previous or
subsequent sensation. The acts of seeing and hearing may be almost
unconscious and may pass away unnoted; they may also leave an impression
behind them or power of recalling them. If, after seeing an object we
shut our eyes, the object remains dimly seen in the same or about the
same place, but with form and lineaments half filled up. This is the
simplest act of memory. And as we cannot see one thing without at
the same time seeing another, different objects hang together in
recollection, and when we call for one the other quickly follows. To
think of the place in which we have last seen a thing is often the
best way of recalling it to the mind. Hence memory is dependent on
association. The act of recoll