I
It is, in certain respects, quite inexplicable that we should not know
the Future. Probably a mere nothing, the displacement of a cerebral
lobe, the resetting of Broca's convolution in a different manner, the
addition of a slender network of nerves to those which form our
consciousness: any one of these would be enough to make the future
unfold itself before us with the same clearness, the same majestic
amplitude as that with which the past is displayed on the horizon not
only of our individual life, but also of the life of the species to
which we belong. A singular infirmity, a curious limitation of our
intellect causes us not to know what is going to happen to us, when we
are fully aware of all that has befallen us. From the absolute point of
view to which our imagination succeeds in rising, although it cannot
live there, there is no reason why we should not see that which does not
yet exist, considering that that which does not yet exist in its
relation to us must needs already have its being and manifest itself
somewhere. If not, it would have to be said that, where Time is
concerned, we form the centre of the world, that we are the only
witnesses for whom events wait so that they may have the right to appear
and to count in the eternal history of causes and effects. It would be
as absurd to assert this for Time as it would be for Space, that other
not quite so incomprehensible form of the two-fold infinite mystery in
which our whole life floats.
Space is more familiar to us, because the accidents of our organism
place us more directly in relation with it and make it more concrete. We
can move in it pretty freely, in a certain number of directions before
and behind us. That is why no traveller would take it into his head to
maintain that the towns which he has not yet visited will become real
only at the moment when he sets his foot within their walls. Yet this is
very nearly what we do when we persuade ourselves that an event which
has not yet happened does not yet exist.