in space, on the other that of consciousness with sensations. Now, certainly the difference is irreducible (as we have shown in an earlier work[1]) between quality on the one hand and pure quantity on the other. But this is just the question: do real movements present merely differences of quantity, or are they not quality itself, vibrating, so to speak, internally, and beating time for its own existence through an often incalculable number of moments? Motion, as studied in mechanics, is but an abstraction or a symbol, a common measure, a common denominator, permitting the comparison of all real movements with each other; but these movements, regarded in themselves, are indivisibles which occupy duration, involve a before and an after, and link together the successive moments of time by a thread of variable quality which cannot be without some likeness to the continuity of our own consciousness. May we not conceive, for instance, that the irreducibility of two perceived colours is due mainly to the narrow duration into which are contracted the billions of vibrations which they execute in one of our moments? If we could stretch out this duration, that is to say, live it at a slower rhythm, should we not, as the rhythm slowed down, see these colours pale and lengthen into successive impressions, still coloured, no doubt, but nearer and nearer to coincidence
- ↑ H. Bergson, Time and Free Will. Sonnenschein & Co.
