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The objects which we perceive are changeable ; there is nothing either in their nature or in their modifications which involves existence. If they are, they may cease to be; and if this change does not con- stantly occur in their substance, it does in their accidents. Therefore we cannot affirm the absolute, but only the con- ditional contradiction of their being and not-being ; it ex- ists only on the supposition of simultaneousness. 128 If we conceived only necessary being, we could have no idea of time : its existence absolutely excludes its non-existence, and therefore the contradiction would be always absolute, never conditional. 129 A most important consequence results from this analysis. prev next |