Sequence is a series most resembling a procession of objects in a
natural group (second category). It differs therefrom in that the
objects cannot be seen together. It differs from concretion in that
the order in which the objects appear cannot be altered, or if they
are human and alterable we cease to treat them as a sequence. They
no longer have the predictive value which moves us to form artificial
groups of objects.
Satisfactory examples of reasoning in sequence are less numerous than
might be supposed. It is a poor category for argument. Series either
occur with perfect regularity, like the seasons of the year, phases
of the moon, &c., and then they rapidly become mere recollections and
lose the problematical character essential to a true inference, or
the connection between the objects is too casual for argumentative
purposes. Darwin's theory of the formation of coral atolls is a fine
argument in sequence, but the application of this theory to reefs not
examined by him is hardly uncertain enough to be an argument. It is
the first sequential inference that is valid--the rest are foregone
conclusions.
Geology supplies some good sequences. It has been noticed, for
instance, that the sea leaves ripple-marks on sandy beaches, and
stones with similar marks have been found at a distance from the sea;
it is a valid sequential inference that the marks in the latter case
have also been formed by the action of the waves. Here the difference
in locality between the two compared series--the modern complete
and the ancient incomplete--supplies that slight element of doubt
essential to an argument.
So as regards the mode of making ancient flint tools: it has been
found that tools exactly similar to the ancient can now be made with
the simplest possible means, and it is a true argument to infer that
the ancient implements were made by these means. The conclusion is
highly probable without being infallibly certain, and that is what a
dialectical conclusion ought to be.
We may admit that some of the astronomical sequences are forms of
reasoning, for they were such to their first discoverers, and to minds
not thoroughly conversant with them they are still in the nature of
predictions that might fail of accomplishment. Political, financial,
and sporting forecasts are sequential arguments, and we may also
include speculations on the future states of all growing organisms and
developing institutions.
_Time._ The intervals between the objects of a sequence are imagined
after the model of lateral intervals in association. This is Time.
Like space it is mere blanks in experience, though treated by realists
as external and self-subsisting. It can be measured by reference to
objects on whose sequential recurrence we have the most reliance, such
as the phases of the moon, the positions of the sun in the ecliptic,
the movements of the hands of a clock or the chiming of its bells.
Abstract or unbounded time is called 'eternity'; like abstract space
it is a refined form of nothing. Time and space are usually coupled
together as if co-ordinate, but eternity is the co-ordinate of space.
Time is divided sequence and would correspond to materially divided
space, that is, space with objects in it at regular intervals.
Matter, space, and time are the three pillars of the realistic world.
We have now seen what they are made of. Matter is a general idea
compiled by ourselves from phenomenal consciousness. It is no
substance--only an average. Space has even less reality. It is first
the interval between two objects in association; then this interval
is used metaphorically as an expression and measure of perspective
decadence. Time is an application of the same associative interval
to express the blanks between objects in sequence. Space and time
are thus pure nullities--negatives with positive names. These three
notions being exploded as entities, there remain as a residuum of true
fact and the starting-point of philosophy--_minds_, their _energies_,
and their _consciousness_. This is a very ancient triad.
Science constantly confounds sequence and causation. We are told that
the moon _causes_ eclipses of the sun, that heat _causes_ objects to
expand, that a seal _causes_ an imprint. This is a metaphor from human
causation, and the expression is now so rooted in language that it
would hardly be possible to introduce a more correct phraseology. Yet
it is as incorrect as to say that one o'clock causes two o'clock, or
that daylight causes darkness. The confusion has arisen from the fact
that both sequence and causation deal with fixed inconvertible series,
but only in the latter is there real power exerted to produce the
effect. Material things and their apparent effects are due to a cause
lying behind both.