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as movement in a straight line. Bare contemplation without conscious progress is felt to occupy time; it is for the measure, not for the fact of time, that we revert to external events at the expiration or change of a single absorbing feeling. There is doubtless some succession in every phase of mind, but it is not necessary for us to contemplate these minor and obscure transitions to be aware that every act, the very act of attention, occupies time. We might as well endure an intense, absorbing pain for an hour as for an instant, if we were not able to distinguish between the two cases. That which we urge is, that the notion of time imposes the sense of sequence where there is no proper sequence in the sensations as sensations, and the alternate consideration of A, B, like the beat of a clock, marks distinctly the flow of time. Indeed all consciousness is made sequential, no matter what the order of its states, by the very notion of time in which they transpire. We can not escape the inner succession of impressions, because we cannot elude the interpreting idea, that of time. The position of " states of consciousness " can be only that of succession, whatever their character or the number of times they are repeated. The inner law overrules the outward appearance, and imposes the notion of sequence.

Suppose, on the other hand, with Spencer, that we could pass from A to Z, without the idea of time. In that case we should not only be destitute of it, but have made no progress towards it. We should simply have experienced sensations without interpretation. No repetition of this process, however frequent, could make it fruitful of a new notion. The simple idea must be present to open the inquiry. Time must be a sensation, like that of green and red, or its distinct abstraction can not follow from repetition. The sensation green is given in each particular instance, and then, by distinguishing attention, assumes the