Development Of The Human Soul

Appendix 8. (1214).

I say here 'and not of the impetus', that is, of the endeavour to move, in order to avoid any question about the endeavour's being communicated through continuous communication, and not at frequent instants with small durations between them. However, if we did want to pose this question, it would not be difficult, I think, to find facts in nature which prove that even the endeavour to move requires time to communicate itself. Consequently, the communication of living force is intermittent. This is necessary if time is to be employed. If this communication were continuous, its changes would be instantaneous, but the sum even of an infinite number of instants gives nothing more than a single instant; no time, therefore, would be noticed in this communication. Note that when weights fall, the attracting force is increased in proportion to times and brief moments.

This force is communicated, therefore, in time. We see the same thing in examples of minimal attraction. If you pick up a hair or handkerchief as soon as it falls to the ground, you will find that it has less dust on it than if you leave it on the ground for some time. This can only happen because time is needed to attract the dust which sticks to it. If, for instance, you leave your Spanish snuff in the snuff-box for a long time, it curls up, but so slowly that the movement goes unnoticed while you look at the snuff. Moreover, chemists know perfectly well that time is needed to obtain effects from affinities. Again, just as the endeavour to move needs time to communicate itself, so it needs time to be eliminated. A body shot into the air needs time to extinguish the movement which carries it up. Before falling, it halts for a tiny moment. The earth, for example, when it reaches its solstice, pauses and then takes up its reverse movement slowly, etc.