Note 104 — Chapter V · THE WORLD OF THINGS—(2) CHANGE AND CAUSALITY
Reading edition
It is no answer to this suggestion to urge that the present, being real, cannot be conditioned by the future, which is unreal. Such a rejoinder commits the metaphysical petitio principii of taking for granted that only the present is real. It is obvious that one might say with equal cogency that the past, being over and gone, is now unreal and therefore cannot influence the real present.