Note 43 — Chapter II · TIME AND SPACE

If it were not so far from Gassendi’s general position, this point would deserve further consideration. Modern psychology utilizes this distinction of quality and quantity in order to correlate the time-reference contained in an act of memory with the time-expanse of the experience remembered. This line of thought is entirely useless for the explanation of Gassendi, because it is not the nature of thought but the nature of real time that he is trying to explain. His position therefore leaves him with an existence that has a Time but no times, the whole without the parts. Timeless thought may or may not be more intelligible, but it is certainly not Gassendi’s present topic.