Moving at a
certain pace, it takes certain views, snapshots of the continuous flux
of reality, of which it is itself a moving part. The special views that
it picks out and registers, depend entirely upon the relation between
its movement and the rhythm or movement of other aspects of the flux. It
is obvious that there are a variety of rhythms or tensions of duration.
For example, in what is the fraction of a second of our own duration,
hundreds of millions of vibrations, which it would need thousands of our
years to count, are taking place successively in matter, and giving us
the sensation of light. It is therefore clear that there is a great
difference between the rhythm of our own duration and the incredibly
rapid rhythms of physical matter. If an alteration took place in our
rhythm, these same physical movements would make us conscious--not of
light--but of some other thing quite unknown.
"Would not the whole of history," asks Bergson, "be contained in a very
short time for a consciousness at a higher degree of tension than our
own?" A momentary quickening of rhythm might thus account for the
sensation of timelessness, of the "participation in Eternity" so often
described by the mystic as a part of the Vision of God.
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