Presentations. — Psychology must begin, then, by describing observed appearances (the literal translation of the word " phenomena ") without any prejudging of the issue as to what is the cause of these. So, though it may speak of such phenomena as if they were things, it must not be regarded as asserting that they are, at bottom, anything more than effects associated with brain-workings. It leaves, at the outset, that question open. Field of Presentation. — All such phenomena it styles "Presentations" and it regards them as located within the individual's private "Field of Presentation" (We shall employ this term in preference to the commoner "Field of Conscious- ness,' ' which is insufficiently definite.) This field of presentation contains, at any given instant of Time, all the phenomena which happen to be offered for possible observation. Let us take a concrete example of what that means. You are now reading this book, and your field of presentation contains the visual phenomena connected with the printed letters of the word you are regarding. It contains also, at the same instant, the visual phenomenon pertaining to the little numeral at the bottom of the page. This you "failed to notice"; but the numeral in question was, clearly, inside the area covered by your vision — it was affecting your brain via the eye, its psychical "correlate" was being offered to your attention. And that statement holds good for a host of other visual phenomena. On reflection, you will also agree that J 5 16 AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME the field must have then contained — presented to attention but left "unnoticed" — certain muscular sensations such as pressures against your body, quite a number of sounds, and the pleasant feeling produced by the air flowing into your lungs as you breathed. Attention. — It would be unsafe to say that these comparatively unnoticed phenomena were not being consciously observed. When you are watching a fall of snow, observation may be concentrated upon a single floating flake ; but that does not mean that you fail to perceive the remainder. Were these to vanish, leaving the single flake in the air, their dis- appearance would instantly distract your startled attention from the object of your previous pre- occupation. When listening to the playing of an orchestra, you do not need to cease iollowing the music in order to be aware that the irritating person in the seat ahead has stopped beating time with his programme. As a general rule, however, observa- tion seems to be definitely centred upon one or another specific part of the crowd of presentations — though we have no psychical evidence to show that this is anything more than a matter of habit. Observation thus centred is called "Attention" It is usual to speak of the part of the field centred upon as being in the "Focus of Attention" ; and it is a matter of common knowledge that, at and around this " focus," attention may be concentrated in greater or less degree of intensity. In Physiology (the science which deals with the brain as a physical organism) the field of presenta- tion would be merely the particular part of the cere- brum which happens to be, at that moment, in the state of activity associated with the production of psychical phenomena. And the focus of attention AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 17 would be simply that particular brain path which the maximum current of nervous energy happened to be following. One would be apt to suppose, off- hand, that this maximum flow would be produced by whatever happened to be the greatest sensory stimulation; but such could not be the rule. The hungry man, coming to the luncheon table, has his attention focussed, not upon the brightness of the shining silver, but upon the far duller sensory stimulation of the well-browned mutton chop. Attention, therefore, may be either attracted from without the organism or directed from within. If we were to attribute such directing to the ultimate observer, we should be admitting him to the status of a full-blown animus with powers of intervention. For, as every schoolboy knows, the concentrating of attention has a very marked effect in the forma- tion of memories. But the physiologist would insist that we have no need to regard this internal directing of attention as originating in anything beyond the purely mechanical internal condition of the brain. Now, the field of presentation at any given moment may contain a great many observable phenomena besides those sensory appearances which we have been considering; It may contain, for example, "Memory Images."* What sort of a phenomenon is a "memory image"? Impressions. — Presentations may be divided into two sharply differing classes. The first of * I apologize to the modern psychologist for this revival of the ancient word " image." He will find, later on, that its use is perfectly justified, even though it does mean no more than the re-employment of a " disposition," or the rstimulation of a brain path. It has been rather surprising to discover how many persons there are who, while willing to concede that we habitually observe events before they occur, suppose that such prevision may be treated as a MINOR ogical difficulty, to be met by some trifling readjustment in one or another of our sciences or by the addition of a dash of transcendentalism to our metaphysics. It may well be emphasized that no tinkering or doctoring of that kind could avail in the smallest degree. If prevision be a fact, it is a fact which destroys absolutely the entire basis of all our past opinions, of the universe. Bear in mind, for example, that the foreseen event may be avoided. What, then, is its structure? I would suggest that we are lucky, on the whole, to be able to replace our vanished foundations by a system so simple as the ' ' serialism ' ' described in this book. Anyone who hopes to discover an explanation even simpler would be well advised to examine his own statement of the difficulty to be faced — viz., that we '''observe events before they occur." Let him ask himself to what time-orde? does that word " before " refer. Certainly not to the primary time- order in which the occurring events are arranged! He may see then that his statement {and every expression of his problem must bear that samegeneral form) is in itself a direct assertion that Time is serial. If Time be serial, the universe as described in terms of Time must be serial, and the descriptions, to be accurate, must be similarly serial — as suggested in Chapter XXV . If that be the case, the sooner we begin to recast physics and psychology on such lines, the sooner may we hope to reckon with our present discontinuities and set out upon a new and sounder pathway to knowledge. J. W. Dunne. Extract {by permission) from a letter written by Professor A. S. Eddington. ("Minkowski's world," referred to therein, is the "space-time" world adopted by Einstein for the purpose of his theory.} 1 ' I agree with you about ' serialism ' ; the ' going on of time ' is not in Minkowski's world as it stands. My own feeling is that the ' becoming ' is really there in the physical world, * but is not formulated in the description of it in classical physics (and is, in fact, useless to a scheme of laws which is fully deterministic). ' ' Yours truly, "A. S. Eddington. " Observatory, " Cambridge, " 1928, Feb. 1.

There does not appear to be anything in these 
pages that anyone is likely to find difficult to follow, 
provided that he avoids those occasional paragraphs 
in smaller print which have been written more par- 
ticularly for specialists. And Part V. may require 
reading twice. But there are a few commonplace 
semi-technical expressions which will crop up now 
and again ; and it is always possible that other people 
may be accustomed to attach to these words mean- 
ings rather different to those which the present writer 
is hoping to convey. Any such misunderstanding 
would result, obviously, in our being at cross-pur- 
poses throughout the greater part of the book. 
Hence it might be advisable for us to come to some 
sort of rough preliminary agreement, not as to how 
these terms ought rightly to be employed, but as 
to what they are to be regarded as meant to mean 
in this particular volume. By so doing we shall, at 
any rate, avoid that worst of all irritations to a 
reader — a text repeatedly interrupted by references 
to footnote or glossary. 

That the agreement will be entirely one-sided will 
make it all the easier to achieve. 



CHAPTER II 

Briefly, then : 

Let us suppose that you are entertaining a visitor 
from some country where the inhabitants are all 
born blind; and that you are trying to make your 
guest understand what you mean by "seeing.'' 
You discover, we will further assume, that the pair 
of you have, fortunately, this much in common : 
You are both thoroughly conversant with the mean- 
ings of all the technical expressions employed in 
the physical sciences. 

Using this ground of mutual understanding, you 
endeavour to explain your point. You describe 
how, in that little camera which we call the " eye," 
certain electro-magnetic waves radiating from a dis- 
tant object are focussed on to the retina, and there 
produce physical changes over the area affected; 
how these changes are associated with currents of 
" nervous energy " (possibly electrical) in the criss- 
cross of nerves leading to the brain-centres, and how 
molecular or atomic changes at those centres suffice 
to provide the "seer" with a registration of the 
distant object's outline. 

All this your visitor could appreciate perfectly. 

Now, the point to be noticed is this. Here is a 
piece of knowledge concerning which the blind man 
had no previous conception. It is knowledge which 
he cannot, as you can, acquire for himself by the 
ordinary process of personal experiment. In sub- 
stitution, you have offered him a description, framed 
in the language of physical science. And that sub- 
stitute has served the purpose of conveying the 
knowledge in question from yourself to him. 

3 



4 AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 

But in " seeing " there is, of course, a great deal 
more than mere registration of outline. There is, 
for example — Colour. 

So you continue somewhat on the following lines. 
That which we call a " red " flame sets up electro- 
magnetic waves of a certain length: a "blue" 
flame sets up waves exactly similar save only that 
they differ slightly in this matter of length. The 
visual organs are so constituted that they sort out 
waves showing such disparity in length, and this in 
such a way that these differences are finally regis- 
tered by corresponding differences in those physical 
changes which occur at the brain centres. 

From the point of view of your blind guest, this 
description, also, would be entirely satisfactory. 
He could now understand perfectly how it is that a 
physical brain is able to register wave-length-differ- 
ence. And, if you were content to leave it at that, 
he would depart gratefully convinced that the lan- 
guage of physics had again proved equal to the task, 
and that your description in physical terms had 
equipped him with a knowledge of, for instance, 
what other people call "red " as complete in every 
respect as that which they themselves possess. 

But this supposition of his would be absurd. For 
concerning the existence of one very remarkable 
characteristic of red he would still, obviously, know 
nothing whatsoever. And that characteristic (pos- 
sibly the most puzzling, and certainly the most 
obtrusive of them all) is — its redness. 

Redness? Yes. Without bothering about whether 
redness be a thing or a quality or an illusion or any- 
thing else, there is no escaping the fact (i) that it 
is a characteristic of red of which you and all seeing 
people are very strongly aware, nor the further fact 
(2) that your visitor, so far, would have not the 



AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 5 

faintest shadow of an idea that you or others experi- 
ence anything of the kind, or, indeed, that there 
could exist anything of the kind to be experienced. 
If, then, you intend to complete your self-imposed 
task of bringing his knowledge on the subject of 
"seeing" up to the same level as your own, there 
remains yet another step before you. 

Realizing this, you mentally glance down your 
list of physical expressions, and — a moment's 
inspection is enough to show you that, for the pur- 
pose of conveying to your blind guest a description 
of redness, there is not a single one of these expres- 
sions which is of the slightest use whatsoever. 

You might talk to him of particles (lumps, — 
centres of inertia), and describe these as oscillating, 
spinning, circling, colliding, and rebounding in any 
kind of complicated dance you cared to imagine. 
But in all that there would be nothing to introduce 
the notion of redness. You might speak of waves 
— big waves, little waves, long waves, and short 
waves. But the idea of redness would still remain 
unborn. You might hark back to the older physics, 
and descant upon forces (attractions and repul- 
sions), magnetic, electrical, and gravitational ; or 
you might plunge forward into the newer physics, 
and discourse of non-Euclidean space and Gaussian 
co-ordinates. And you might hold forth on such 
lines until exhaustion supervened, while the blind 
man nodded and smiled appreciation; but it is 
obvious that, at the end of it all, he would have no 
more suspicion of what it is that (as Ward puts it) 
' ' you immediately experience when you look at a 
field poppy " than he had at the outset. 

Physical description cannot here provide the 
information which experience could have given. 

Now, redness may not be a thing — but it is very 



6 AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 

certainly a fact. Look around you. It is one of 
the most staring facts in existence. It challenges 
you everywhere, demanding, clamouring to be 
accounted for. And the language of physics is 
fundamentally unadapted to the task of rendering 
that account. 

It is obvious that dubbing redness an " illusion " 
would not help the physicist. For how could 
physics set about describing or accounting for the 
entry of the element of redness into that illusion? 
The universe pictured by physics is a colourless 
universe, and in that universe all brain-happenings, 
including " illusions, *' are colourless things. It is 
the intrusion of Colour into that picture, whether 
as an illusion or under any other title, which requires 
to be explained. 

Once you have thoroughly realized that redness 
is something beyond a complex of positions, a com- 
plex of motions, a complex of stresses, or a mathe- 
matical formula, you will have little difficulty in per- 
ceiving that Colour is not the only fact of this kind. 
If your hypothetical visitor were deaf, instead of 
blind, you could never, by giving him books of 
physics to read, arouse in him even the beginning 
of a suspicion regarding the nature of "Sound," 
as heard. Now, Sound, as heard, is a fact : (put 
down this book and listen). But in the world 
described by physics there is no such fact to be 
found. All that physics can show us is an altera- 
tion in the positional arrangement of the brain par- 
ticles, or alterations in the tensions acting upon 
those particles. And in no catalogue of the mag- 
nitudes and directions of such changes could there 
be anything to suggest that there exists anywhere in 
the universe a phenomenon such as that which you 
directly experience when a bell tolls. In fact, just 



AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 7 

as physics cannot deal with the element of redness 
in "red," so is it inherently unable to account for 
the intrusion of that clear bell-note into a universe 
which it can picture only as an animated diagram of 
groupings, pushings, and pullings. 

But if, in such a diagram, there can be nothing of 
either Colour or Sound, is it likely to be of any use 
our hunting therein for phenomena like "Taste" 
and "Smell"? The utmost that we could hope 
to find would be those movements of the brain-par- 
ticles which accompany the experiences in question ; 
or, possibly, some day, the transference equations 
relating to some hitherto unsuspected circuit of 
energy. Your hypothetical visitor and yourself 
might each possess the fullest possible knowledge 
of these brain-disturbances, the most complete 
acquaintance with such energetic equations as may 
still remain to be written ; but, if you could actually 
taste and smell, and he could not, it is incontro- 
vertible that your knowledge of each of these 
phenomena would include something quite unknown 
to, and, indeed, quite unimaginable by, him. 

Now, when we say of any occurrence that it is 
"physical," we mean thereby that it is potentially 
describable in physical terms. (Otherwise the ex- 
pression would be wholly meaningless.) So it is 
perfectly correct to state that, in every happening 
with which our sensory nerves are associated, we 
find, after we have abstracted therefrom every 
known or imaginable physical component, certain 
categorically non-physical residua. 

But these remnants are the most obtrusive things 
in our universe. So obtrusive that, aided and 
abetted by our trick of imagining them as situated 
at our outer nerve-endings, or as extending beyond 
those endings into outer Space, they produce the 



8 AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 

effect of a vast external world of flaming lights and 
colours, pungent scents, and clamorous, tumultuous 
sounds. Collectively, they bulk into a most amaz- 
ing tempest of sharply-differentiated phenomena. 
And it is a tempest which remains to be considered 
after physics has completed its say. 

Physics. — Nor is this last a matter for wonder- 
ment. For the ideal object of physics is to seek 
out, isolate, and describe such elements in Nature as 
may be credited with an existence independent of 
the existence of any immediate observer. Physics 
is, thus, a science which has been expressly designed 
to study, not the universe, but the things which 
would supposedly remain in that universe if we were 
to abstract therefrom every effect of a purely sensory 
character. From the very outset, then, it renounces 
all interest in such matters as those colours, sounds, 
etc., of which we are directly aware,— matters essen- 
tially dependent upon the presence of an immediate 
observer, and non-existent in his absence, — and it 
limits itself to a language and a set of conceptions 
serviceable only for the description of facts pertain- 
ing to its own restricted province. 

Psychology and Psychical. — But, as scientific 
investigators of the situation in which we find our- 
selves, we cannot, of course, neglect to study a 
mass of phenomena so large and so obtrusive as to 
constitute, to first appearance, the whole of the 
world we know. Consequently, a separate science 
has gradually arisen which endeavours to deal with 
these and other of the rather bulky leavings of 
physics. This science is called "Psychology," 
and the facts with which it deals — facts existing 
only in the presence of an immediate observer 
— are dubbed "mental," or, more commonlv, 
"Psychical." 



CHAPTER III 

Now, although it is scientifically indisputable that 
the brain, regarded as a purely physical piece of 
mechanism, cannot create, unassisted and out of 
nothingness, any of those vivid psychical appear- 
ances we call "colour," "sound," "taste," etc., 
it may be taken as experimentally established that 
these phenomena do not come into existence unless 
accompanied by some stimulation of the corre- 
sponding sense organs. Moreover, they vary in 
character according to the character of the sense 
organ involved : lights and colours accompany 
activities of the optic nerves ; sounds are associated 
with the existence of ears ; tastes with palates. The 
psychical phenomena are different because the sen- 
sory organizations are different. Colour experi- 
ences in man range from violet to deep red, accord- 
ing to the wave-lengths of the electro-magnetic rays 
impinging upon the eye. If that wave-length be 
further slightly increased, the associated psychical 
experience is one of heat alone. But we know that, 
with a very little modification of the sensitive optical 
elements involved, those heat experiences would be 
accompanied by experiences of a visible infra-red 
colour. 

Thus, the physical brain, though it cannot create 
such sensory appearances, is a prime factor in their 
characterization, and, for that reason, an important 
factor in whatever process it may be that causes them 
to appear. 

The situation, thus far, is usually summed up in 
the cautious statement that these particular kinds of 



io AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 

psychical phenomena, on the one hand, and their 
corresponding sense-organ stimulations, on the 
other, invariably accompany one another, or run, so 
to say, on parallel tracks in Time. This, be it 
noted, is never advanced as an "explanation" : it 
is merely supposed to be a simple way in which the 
facts can be announced without dragging in the 
various metaphysical creeds favoured by the various 
announcers. 

Psychoneural Parallelism. — The assumption 
that this "parallelism" of psychical and neural 
(nervous) events extends to all observable thought- 
experience — that there is no observable psychical 
activity without some corresponding activity of 
brain — is called "Psychoneural Parallelism" \ the 
activity in either class being referred to as the 
" correlate " of that in the other. 

The accumulated evidence in favour of this view 
is practically overwhelming. Hard thinking induces 
brain fatigue; drugs which poison the brain inter- 
fere with our reasoning processes; brain deteriora- 
tion affects our ability to form new memories. 
Above all, "concussion" of the brain appears to 
destroy all memory of the events which immediately 
f receded the accident — indeed, it is by the failure 
of the patient to remember what led up to that acci- 
dent that the physician diagnoses concussion. This 
provides us with almost indisputable evidence that 
the means of remembering are "brain-traces" 
which require a little time for their assured estab- 
lishment. 

That such brain-traces (insulated paths formed 
by the passage of nervous currents) do, in fact, 
exist, is well known; and, moreover, it has been 
shown that the greater the ability of the individual 
to perform associative thinking, the more numerous 



AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME u 

and the more complex in their ramifications are the 
brain paths in question. 

Observer. — We have now arrived within intro- 
ductory range of that very meek-spirited creature 
known to modern science as the "Observer." It 
is a permanent obstacle in the path of our search for 
external reality that we can never entirely get rid of 
this individual. Picture the universe how we may, 
the picture remains of our making. On the other 
hand, it is, probably, equally true that, paint the 
picture how we will, we have to do it with the paints 
provided. But there is no reason why either of 
these limitations should invalidate the result re- 
garded as a map by which we may safely set our 
course. Moreover, we can test it in that respect; 
and experience has shown that, thus tested, it proves 
reliable. Therein lies the justification of our search 
for knowledge. 

It is worth noting that, from the study of a pic- 
ture, we may always infer a little about the character 
and situation of the unincluded artist. Science, 
indeed, is often obliged to decide that certain 
changes or peculiarities in what is observed are only 
to be accounted for by inferring changes or pecu- 
liarities in the observer. 

The general procedure, however, in every science, 
is to begin by the accurate tabulating of differences 
in what is observed. If we subsequently discover 
that these differences are due to the character or 
actions of the observer, we can note that such is the 
explanation of the difference and draft our science 
accordingly; but that addition to our knowledge 
does not invalidate our previous analysis of the 
differences as observed. 

All sciences deal only with a standard observer, 
unless the contrary is explicitly stated ; and 



12 AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 

psychology is no exception to this rule. Its ob- 
server is assumed to be any normally constituted 
individual. And this individual is the same observer 
as is ultimately employed in physics. In what the 
psychologist says about the colours of "after-im- 
pressions," and in what the physicist says about the 
"spectra" of certain stars, this same standard ob- 
server is implicated. And it is assumed that he is 
not colour-blind. 

Now, it must be admitted that the tenets of 
psychoneural parallelism are not very encouraging 
to this "observer." For they suggest that, when 
the brain-workings come to an end, the psychical 
phenomena cease likewise from troubling. More- 
over, the scientific procedure of pushing the ob- 
server as far back as possible — so as to get as much 
as possible of the picture into the category of that 
which is observed — tends to reduce him to the level 
of a helpless onlooker with no more capacity for 
interference than has a member of a cinema audience 
the ability to alter the course of the story develop- 
ing before him on the screen. Nor is there much 
more comfort to be obtained from a study of the 
various metaphysical interpretations (none of them 
offer an explanation) of this parallelism of Mind 
and Body. Idealist and Realist may dispute hotly 
as to precisely how far the observer colours, so 
to say, the phenomena which he observes ; but 
decisions arrived at in that respect need not suggest 
that he has any power of changing either the colour- 
ing he confers or the thing perceived as thus 
coloured — much less the ability to continue observ- 
ing when there is no longer any brain activity to be 
observed. 

Animism. — In this connection, however, we must 
recognize the existence of a small but very vigorous 



AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME 13 

group of philosophers known as " Animists." In 
this twentieth century the leading exponent of 
Animism is indubitably Professor William Mc- 
Dougall, whose book, " Body and Mind," sets out 
the arguments for and against the theory with 
scrupulous fairness. Indeed, I cannot call to mind 
anyone who has stated the case against Animism 
with such devastating force. 

Animism holds that the observer is anything but 
a nonentity. He is no "conscious automaton." 
He may, indeed, stand right outside the pictured 
universe ; but he is a " soul, ' ' with powers of inter- 
vention which enable him to alter the course of 
observed events — a mind which not only reads the 
brain, but which employs it as a tool. Much as the 
owner of an automatic piano may either listen to 
its playing or play on it himself. 

The inference is that this observer can survive 
the destruction of that brain which he observes. As 
for his intervention, there is no insuperable objec- 
tion to that from the physical side. McDougall 
quotes and suggests various ways in which interven- 
tion could be effected without adding to or sub- 
tracting from the amount of energy in the nervous 
system. 

The man-in-the-street is always at a loss to 
understand why the great majority of men of science 
are so coldly opposed to the idea of a " soul." The 
religious man in particular cannot comprehend why 
his arguments should arouse not merely opposition, 
but bitter contempt. Yet the reason is not far to 
seek. It is not that the idea is attributed to man's 
inordinate conceit (though this is sometimes done 
by the unreflecting) ; for, all said and done, a navvy 
who can walk into a public-house and order a pot 
of beer is an infinitely more wonderful thing than 


is the biggest lump of cooling mud that ever swam 
in the skies. But there can be no reasonable doubt 
that the idea of a soul must have first arisen in the 
mind of primitive man as the result of observation 
of his dreams. Ignorant as he was, he could have 
come to no other conclusion but that, in dreams, he 
left his sleeping body in one universe and went 
wandering off into another. It is considered that, 
but for that savage, the idea of such a thing as a 
"soul" would never have even occurred to man- 
kind ; so that arguments subsequently introduced to 
bolster up a case thus tainted at its source can have 
no claim to anyone's serious attention.