act exhibited in any other act of
sense-awareness of that mind, but the two corresponding durations which
are respectively related by simultaneity to the two discerned components
are necessarily distinct. This is an exhibition of the temporal passage
of nature; namely, one duration has passed into the other. Thus not only
is the passage of nature an essential character of nature in its _role_
of the terminus of sense-awareness, but it is also essential for
sense-awareness in itself. It is this truth which makes time appear to
extend beyond nature. But what extends beyond nature to mind is not the
serial and measurable time, which exhibits merely the character of
passage in nature, but the quality of passage itself which is in no way
measurable except so far as it obtains in nature. That is to say,
'passage' is not measurable except as it occurs in nature in connexion
with extension. In passage we reach a connexion of nature with the
ultimate metaphysical reality. The quality of passage in durations is a
particular exhibition in nature of a quality which extends beyond
nature. For example passage is a quality not only of nature, which is
the thing known, but also of sense-awareness which is the procedure of
knowing. Durations have all the reality that nature has, though what
that may be we need not now determine. The measurableness of time is
derivative from the properties of durations. So also is the serial
character of time. We shall find that there are in nature competing
serial time-systems derived from different families of durations. These
are a peculiarity of the character of passage as it is found in nature.
This character has the reality of nature, but we must not necessarily
transfer natural time to extra-natural entities. (ii) For two minds, the
discerned components of the general facts exhibited in their respective
acts of sense-awareness must be different. For each mind, in its
awareness of nature is aware of a certain complex of related natural
entities in their relations to the living body as a focus. But the
associated durations may be identical. Here we are touching on that
character of the passage nature which issues in the spatial relations of
simultaneous bodies. This possible identity of the durations in the case
of the sense-awareness of distinct minds is what binds into one nature
the private experiences of sentient beings. We are here considering the
spatial side of the passage of nature. Passage in