The Idea of Time

94. Materialism is also the foundation of Idolatry.

Men would never have worshipped the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and every other Object of the Senses if they knew that these were only ideas in their own minds.

Instead, they would rather address their Homage to that Eternal Invisible Mind which produces and sustains all Things.

95. The same absurd materialist Principle had mingled itself with the Articles of our Faith, creating Difficulties to Christians.

For Example, the Socinians and others have raised objections about the Resurrection.

But do not the most plausible of them depend on the supposition, that a Body is denominated the same, with regard not to the Form or that which is perceived by Sense, but the material Substance which remains the same under several Forms?

Take away this material Substance, about the Identity whereof all the Dispute is, and mean by Body what every plain ordinary Person means by that Word, to wit, that which is immediately seen and felt, which is only a Combination of sensible Qualities, or Ideas: And then their most unanswerable Objections come to nothing.

Matter being once expelled out of Nature, drags with it so many sceptical and impious Notions, such an incredible number of Disputes and puzling Questions, which have been Thorns in the Sides of Divines, as well as Philosophers, and made so much fruitless Work for Mankind; that if the Arguments we have produced against it, are not found equal to Demonstration (as to me they evidently seem) yet I am sure all Friends to Knowledge, Peace, and Religion, have reason to wish they were.

The Doctrine of abstract Ideas, as explained in the Introduction, is another great Source of Errors and Difficulties.

Every body knows physical Time, Place, and Motion.

But when explained by a Metaphysician, they become too abstract and fine to be apprehended by Men of ordinary Sense.

Tell your Servant meet you at such a Time, in such a Place.

He shall never challenge the meaning of those Words.

But not for a Philosopher.

98. Whenever I attempt to frame a simple Idea of Time, abstracted from the uniform succession of Ideas in my Mind, participated by all Beings, I am lost in inextricable Difficulties.

I have no Notion of it at all.

Others say that it is infinitely divisible.

They speak of it in a way that gives me odd Thoughts of my Existence.

This is because this makes me think either:

• of innumerable Ages without a Thought, or
• that I am annihilated every moment of my Life

These are equally absurd.

Time therefore is nothing when it is abstracted from the Sucession of Ideas in our Minds.*

It follows that the Duration of any finite Spirit must be estimated by the Number of Ideas or Actions succeeding each other in that same Spirit or Mind.

Hence it is a plain consequence that the Soul always thinks.

But it is not easy to divide one’s Thoughts, or abstract the Existence of a Spirit from its Cogitation.

99. This is why when we attempt to abstract Extension and Motion from all other Qualities, and consider them by themselves, we lose sight of them and run into great Extravagancies.

All which depend on a two-fold Abstraction:

1. It is supposed that Extension, for Example, may be abstracted from all other sensible Qualities

2. The Entity of Extension may be abstracted from its being perceived.

But whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible Qualities are alike Sensations, and alike real; that where the Extension is, there is the Colour too, to wit, in his Mind, and that their Archetypes can exist only in some other Mind: And that the Objects of Sense are nothing but those Sensations combined, blended, or (if one may so speak) concreted together: None of all which can be supposed to exist unperceived.

100. What it is for a Man to be happy, or an Object good, every one may think he knows.

But to frame an abstract Idea of Happiness, prescinded from all particular Pleasure, or of Goodness, from every thing that is good, this is what few can pretend to. So likewise, a Man may be just and virtuous, without having precise Ideas of Justice and Virtue.

The Opinion that those and the like Words stand for general Notions abstracted from all particular Persons and Actions, seems to have rendered Morality difficult, and the Study thereof of less use to Mankind. And in effect, the Doctrine of Abstraction has not a little contributed towards spoiling the most useful Parts of Knowledge.