IT is two hours, and ten minutes—and no more—cried my father, looking
at his watch, since Dr. _Slop_ and _Obadiah_ arrived—and I know not how
it happens, Brother _Toby_—but to my imagination it seems almost an
age.
——Here—pray, Sir, take hold of my cap—nay, take the bell along with it,
and my pantoufles too.
Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present
of ’em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter.
Though my father said, “_he knew not how it happen’d_,”—yet he knew
very well how it happen’d;——and at the instant he spoke it, was
pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle _Toby_ a clear account of
the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of _duration
and its simple modes_, in order to shew my uncle _Toby_ by what
mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid
succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse
from one thing to another, since Dr. _Slop_ had come into the room, had
lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent.——“I
know not how it happens—cried my father,—but it seems an age.”
——’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to the succession of our
ideas.
My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of
reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it
too—proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of
ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of
his hands by my uncle _Toby_, who (honest man!) generally took every
thing as it happened;——and who, of all things in the world, troubled
his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and
space—or how we came by those ideas—or of what stuff they were made——or
whether they were born with us—or we picked them up afterwards as we
went along—or whether we did it in frocks——or not till we had got into
breeches—with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about INFINITY
PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth, upon whose desperate and
unconquerable theories so many fine heads have been turned and
cracked——never did my uncle _Toby_’s the least injury at all; my father
knew it—and was no less surprized than he was disappointed, with my
uncle’s fortuitous solution.
Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?
No more than my horse, replied my uncle _Toby_.
Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two
hands together——there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother
_Toby_——’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll
tell thee.——
To understand what time is aright, without which we never can
comprehend _infinity_, insomuch as one is a portion of the other——we
ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of
_duration_, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by
it.——What is that to any body? quoth my uncle _Toby_.[7] _For if you
will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind_, continued my father, _and
observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I
are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we
receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and
so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of
ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succession of any
ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing
co-existing with our thinking——and so according to that
preconceived_——You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle _Toby_.
——’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of
time, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months——and of
clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out
their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us——that
’twill be well, if in time to come, the _succession of our ideas_ be of
any use or service to us at all.
Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound
man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or
other, which follow each other in train just like——A train of
artillery? said my uncle _Toby_——A train of a fiddle-stick!—quoth my
father—which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain
distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned
round by the heat of a candle.—I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, mine
are more like a smoke-jack.——Then, brother _Toby_, I have nothing more
to say to you upon that subject, said my father.
[7] Vide Locke.