Time Traveller,
a man's portraits at eight years,
fifteen years, seventeen years, twenty-three years, and so on, are sections, or rather
images, in three dimensions of a being of four dimensions who is a fixed and unalterable
thing. The differences between these sections express changes progressively occurring in
the constitution of the individual. These changes are organic and mental. Thus, inward
time has to be divided into physiological and psychological times.
Physiological time is a fixed dimension, consisting of the series of all organic changes
undergone by a human being from the beginning of his embryonic life to his death. It
may also be considered as a movement, as the successive states which build up our fourth
dimension under the eyes of the observer. Some of these states are rhythmic and
reversible, such as the pulsations of the heart, the contractions of the muscles, the
movements of the stomach and those of the intestines, the secretions of the glands of the
digestive apparatus, and the phenomena of menstruation. Others are progressive and
irreversible, such as the loss of the skin's elasticity, the increase in the quantity of the red
blood cells, the sclerosis of the tissues and the arteries. But the rhythmic and reversible
movements are likewise altered during the course of life. They themselves also undergo a
progressive and irreversible change. Simultaneously, the constitution of the tissues and
the humors becomes modified. This complex movement is physiological time.
The other aspect of inner time is psychological time. Consciousness, under the
influence of the stimuli coming from the outside world, records its own motion, the series
of its states. Time, according to Bergson, is the very stuff of psychological life. "Duration
is not one instant replacing another. . . . Duration is the continuous progress of the past
which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances. . . . The piling up of the past
upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by itself,
automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant. . . . Doubtless we
think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the
original bent of our soul, that we desire, will and act."
1
We are a history. And the length
of that history, rather than the number of our years, expresses the wealth of our inner life.
We obscurely feel that we are not today identical with what we were yesterday. The days
seem to fly more and more rapidly. But none of these changes is sufficiently precise or
constant to be measured. The intrinsic motion of our consciousness is indefinable. Certain
of our psychological activities are not modified by duration. They deteriorate only when
the brain succumbs to illness or to senility.
1
Bergson, Henri.
Creative Evolution,
4-5. Translation by Arthur Mitchell. New York, Henry Holt and
Company, Inc.
Inward time cannot be properly measured in units of solar time. However, it is
generally expressed in days and years because these units are convenient and applicable
to the classification of terrestrial events. But such a procedure gives no information about
the rhythm of the inner processes constituting our intrinsic time. Obviously,
chronological age does not correspond to physiological age. Puberty occurs at different
epochs in different individuals. It is the same with menopause. True age is an organic and
functional state. It has to be measured by the rhythm of the changes of this state. Such
rhythm varies according to individuals. Some remain young for many years. On the
contrary, the organs of others wear out early in life. The value of physical time in a
Norwegian, whose life is long, is far from being identical with that in an Eskimo, whose
life is short. To estimate true, or physiological, age, we must discover, either in the
tissues or in the humors, a measurable phenomenon, which progresses without
interruption during the whole lifetime.
Man is constituted, in his fourth dimension, by a series of forms following, and
blending into, each other. He is egg, embryo, infant, adolescent, adult, mature and old
man. These morphological aspects are the expression of chemical, organic, and
psychological events. Most of these variations cannot be measured. When measurable,
they are generally found to take place only during a certain period of the existence of the
individual. But physiological duration is equivalent to our fourth dimension in its entire
length. The progressive slackening of growth during infancy and youth, the phenomena
of puberty and of menopause, the diminution of basal metabolism, the whitening of the
hair, etc., are the manifestations of different stages of our duration. The rate at which
tissues grow also declines with age. Such growth activity may be roughly estimated in
fragments of tissues extirpated from the body and cultivated in flasks. But, as far as the
age of the organism itself is concerned, the information thus obtained is far from being
reliable. Indeed, some tissues grow more active, others less active, at certain periods of
physiological life. Each organ changes at its own rhythm, which differs from that of the
body as a whole. Certain phenomena, however, express a general modification of the
organism. For example, the rate of healing of a superficial wound varies in function of
the age of the patient. It is well known that the progress of cicatrization can be calculated
with two equations set up by Lecomte du Noüy. The first of these equations gives a
coefficient, called index of cicatrization, which depends on the surface and the age of the
wound. By introducing this index in a second equation, one may, from two measurements
of the wound taken at an interval of several days, predict the future progress of repair.
The smaller the wound and the younger the man, the greater is the index. With the help of
this index, Lecomte du Noüy has discovered a constant that expresses the regenerative
activity characteristic of a given age. This constant is equal to the product of the index by
the square root of the surface of the wound. The curve of its variations shows that a
twenty-year-old patient heals twice as quickly as a forty-year-old one. Through these
equations, the physiological age of a man can be deduced from the rate of healing of a
wound. From ten to about forty-five years, the information thus obtained is very definite.
But later, the variations of the index of cicatrization are so small that they lose all
significance.
Blood plasma alone displays, throughout the entire lifetime, progressive modifications
characterizing the senescence of the body as a whole. We know that it contains the
secretions of all tissues and organs. Plasma and tissues being a closed system, any
alteration in the tissues reacts on the plasma, and vice versa. During the course of life,
this system undergoes continuous changes. Some of these changes may be detected both
by chemical analysis and by physiological reactions. The plasma or the serum of an aging
animal has been found to increase its restraining effect on the growth of cell colonies.
The ratio of the area of a colony living in serum, to that of an identical colony living in a
saline solution and acting as a control, is called the growth index. The older the animal to
which the serum belongs, the smaller is this index. Thus, the rhythm of physiological
time can be measured. During the first days of life, blood serum does not inhibit the
growth of cell colonies any more than does the control solution. At this moment the value
of the index approaches unity. As the animal becomes older, its serum restrains cell
multiplication more effectively. And the index decreases. During the last years of life, it
is generally equal to zero.
Although very imperfect, this method gives some precise information on the rhythm of
physiological time at the beginning of life, when aging is rapid. But in the final period of
maturity, when aging is slow, it becomes quite insufficient. By the variations of the
growth index the life of a dog can be divided into ten units of physiological time. The
duration of this animal may roughly be expressed in these units instead of in years. Thus,
it has become possible to compare physiological time with solar time. And their rhythms
appear to be very different. The curve showing the decrease of the index value in function
of chronological age falls sharply during the first year. During the second and third years,
its slope becomes less and less pronounced. The segment of the curve corresponding to
the mature years has a tendency to become a straight line. And the portion representing
old age does not deviate from the horizontal. Obviously, aging progresses much more
rapidly at the beginning than at the end of life. When infancy and old age are expressed in
solar years, infancy appears to be very short and old age very long. On the contrary,
measured in units of physiological time, infancy is very long and old age very short.
3
We have mentioned that physiological time is quite different from physical time. If all
the clocks accelerated or retarded their motion, and if the earth correspondingly modified
the rhythm of its rotation, our duration would remain unchanged. But it would seem to
decrease or to increase. In this manner, the alteration undergone by solar time would
become apparent. While we are swept onward upon the stream of physical time, we move
at the rhythm of the inner processes constituting physiological duration. Indeed, we are
not mere grains of dust floating on a river. But also drops of oil spreading out over the
surface of the water with a motion of their own, while being borne along by the current.
Physical time is foreign to us, whereas inner time is ourself. Our present does not drop
into nothingness as does the present of a pendulum. It is recorded simultaneously in
mind, tissues, and blood. We keep within ourselves the organic, humoral, and
psychological marks of all the events of our life. Like a nation, like an old country, like
the cities, the factories, the farms, the cultivated fields, the Gothic cathedrals, "the feudal
castles, the Roman monuments of Europe, we are the result of a history. Our personality
is enriched by each new experience of our organs, humors, and consciousness. Each
thought, each action, each illness, has definitive consequences, inasmuch as we never
separate ourselves from our past. We may completely recover from a disease, or from a
wrong deed. But we bear forever the scar of those events.
Solar time flows at a uniform rate. It consists of equal intervals. Its pace never changes.
On the contrary, physiological time differs from one man to another. In the races
enjoying long life, it is slower, and more rapid in those whose life is short. It also varies
within a single individual at the different periods of his life. A year is richer in
physiological and mental events during infancy than during old age. The rhythm of these
events decreases rapidly at first, and later on much more slowly. The number of units of
physical time corresponding to a unit of physiological time becomes progressively
greater. In short, the body is an ensemble of organic movements, whose rhythm is very
fast during infancy, much less rapid during youth, and very slow in maturity and old age.
It is when our physiological activities begin to weaken that our mind attains the summit
of its development.
Physiological time is far from having the precision of a clock. Organic processes
undergo certain fluctuations. Their rhythm is not constant. Their slackening in the course
of life is expressed by an irregular curve. These irregularities are due to accidents in the
concatenation of the physiological phenomena constituting our duration. At some
moments, the progress of age seems to cease. At other periods, it accelerates. There are
also phases in which personality concentrates and grows, and phases in which it
dissipates. As stated above, inner time and its organic and psychological substratum do
not possess the regularity of solar time. A sort of rejuvenation may be brought about by a
happy event, or a better equilibrium of the physiological and psychological functions.
Possibly, certain states of mental and bodily well-being are accompanied by
modifications of the humors characteristic of a true rejuvenation. Moral suffering,
business worries, infectious and degenerative diseases accelerate organic decay. The
appearance of senescence may be induced in a dog by injections of sterile pus. The
animal grows thin, becomes tired and depressed. At the same time, his blood and tissues
display physiological reactions analogous to those of old age. But those reactions are
reversible and, later, the organic functions reestablish their normal rhythm. An old man's
aspect changes but slightly from one year to another. In the absence of disease,
senescence is a very slow process. When it becomes rapid, the intervention of factors
other than physiological ones are to be suspected. In general, such a phenomenon may be
accounted for by anxiety and sorrow, by substances deriving from bacterial infections, by
a degenerating organ, or by cancer. The speeding up of senescence always expresses the
presence of an organic or moral lesion in the aging body.
Like physical time, physiological time is irreversible. In fact, it is as irreversible as the
processes responsible for its existence. In the higher animals, duration never changes its
direction. However, in hibernating mammals, it becomes partly suspended. In a dried
rotifer, its flow comes to a complete standstill. The organic rhythm of cold-blooded
animals accelerates when their environment becomes warmer. The flies kept by Jacques
Loeb at an abnormally high temperature aged much more rapidly and died sooner.
Likewise, the value of the physiological time of an alligator changes if the surrounding
temperature goes up from 20° to 40° C. In this instance, the index of cicatrization of a
superficial wound rises and falls with the temperature. But, in using such simple
procedures, it is not possible to induce in men any profound change of the tissues. The
rhythm of physiological time is not modifiable except by interference with certain
fundamental processes and their mode of association. We cannot retard senescence, or
reverse its direction, unless we know the nature of the mechanisms which are the
substratum of duration.
4
Physiological duration owes its existence and its characteristics to a certain type of
organization of animate matter. It appears as soon as a portion of space containing living
cells becomes relatively isolated from the cosmic world. At all levels of organization, in
the body of a cell or in that of a man, physiological time depends on modifications of the
medium produced by nutrition, and on the response of the cells to those modifications. A
cell colony begins to record time as soon as its waste products are allowed to stagnate,
and thus to alter its surroundings. The simplest system, where the phenomenon of
senescence is observed, consists of a group of tissue cells cultivated in a small volume of
nutritive medium. In such a system, the medium is progressively modified by the
products of nutrition and, in its turn, modifies the cells. Then appear senescence and
death. The rhythm of physiological time depends on the relations between the tissues and
their medium. It varies according to the volume, the metabolic activity, the nature of the
cell colony, and the quantity and the chemical composition of the fluid and gaseous
media. The technique used in the preparation of a culture accounts for the rhythm of life
of such culture. For example, a fragment of heart fed with a single drop of plasma in the
confined atmosphere of a hollow slide, and another one immersed in a flask containing a
large volume of nutritive fluids and gases, have quite different fates. The rate of
accumulation of the waste products in the medium, and the nature of these products,
determine the characteristics of the duration of the tissues. When the composition of the
medium is maintained constant, the cell colonies remain indefinitely in the same state of
activity. They record time by quantitative, and not by qualitative, changes. If, by an
appropriate technique, their volume is prevented from increasing, they never grow old.
Colonies obtained from a heart fragment removed in January, 1912, from a chick embryo,
are growing as actively today as twenty-three years ago. In fact, they are immortal.
Within the body, the relations of the tissues and of their medium are incomparably
more complex than in the artificial system represented by a culture of cells. Although the
lymph and the blood, which constitute the organic medium, are continually modified by
the waste products of cell nutrition, their composition is maintained constant by the
lungs, kidneys, liver, etc. However, in spite of these regulatory mechanisms, very slow
changes do take place in humors and tissues. They are detected by variations in the
growth index of plasma, and in the constant that expresses the regenerative activity of
skin. They correspond to successive states in the chemical composition of the humors.
The proteins of blood serum become more abundant and their characters are modified. It
is chiefly the fats which give to serum the property of acting upon certain cell types and
of diminishing the rapidity of their multiplication. These fats increase in quantity and
change in nature during life. The modifications of serum are not the result of a
progressive accumulation, of a sort of retention of fats and proteins in the organic
medium. It is quite easy to remove from a dog the greater part of its blood, to separate the
plasma from the corpuscles, and to replace it by a saline solution. The blood cells, thus
freed from the proteins and fatty substances of plasma, are reinjected into the animal. In
less than a fortnight, plasma is observed to be regenerated by the tissues, without any
change in its composition. Its state is, therefore, due to the condition of the tissues, and
not to an accumulation of harmful substances. And this state is specific of each age. Even
if blood serum is removed several times, it always regenerates with the characteristics
corresponding to the age of the animal. The state of the humors during senescence thus
appears to be determined by substances contained in the organs as in almost inexhaustible
reservoirs.
In the course of life, the tissues undergo important alterations. They lose much water.
They are encumbered with nonliving elements and connective fibers, which are neither
elastic nor extensible. The organs acquire more rigidity. Arteries become hard.
Circulation is less active. Profound modifications take place in the structure of the glands.
Epithelial cells lose their qualities little by little. They regenerate more slowly, or not at
all. Their secretions are less rich. Such changes occur at various rates, according to the
organs. Certain organs grow old more rapidly than others. But we do not know as yet the
reason for this phenomenon. Such regional senescence may attack the arteries, the heart,
the brain, the kidneys, or any other organ. The aging of a single system of tissues is
dangerous. Longevity is much greater when the elements of the body grow old in a
uniform way. If the skeletal muscles remain active when the heart and the vessels are
already worn out, they become a danger to the entire body. Abnormally vigorous organs
in a senile organism are almost as harmful as senile organs in a young organism. The
youthful functioning of any anatomical system, either sexual glands, digestive apparatus,
or muscles, is very dangerous for old men. Obviously, the value of time is not the same
for all tissues. This heterochronism shortens the duration of life. If excessive work is
imposed on any part of the body, even in individuals whose tissues are isochronic, aging
is also accelerated. An organ which is submitted to overactivity, toxic influences, and
abnormal stimulations, wears out more quickly than the others. And its premature senility
brings on the death of the organism.
We know that physiological time, like physical time, is not an entity. Physical time
depends on the constitution of the clocks and of the solar system. Physiological time, on
that of tissues and humors, and on their reciprocal relations. The characteristics of
duration are those of the structural and functional processes specific of a certain type of
organization. The length of life is conditioned by the very mechanisms that make man
independent of the cosmic environment and give him his spatial mobility. By the small
volume of the blood. By the activity of the systems responsible for the purification of the
humors. These systems do not succeed in preventing certain progressive modifications of
the serum and the tissues from occurring. Perhaps the tissues are not completely freed of
waste products by the blood stream. Perhaps they are insufficiently fed. If the volume of
the organic medium were much greater, and the elimination of waste products more
complete, human life might last longer. But our body would be far larger, softer, less
compact. It would resemble the gigantic prehistoric animals. We certainly would be
deprived of the agility, the speed, and the skill that we now possess.
Like physiological time, psychological time is only an aspect of ourselves. Its nature, as
that of memory, is unknown. Memory is responsible for our awareness of the passage of
time. However, psychological duration is composed of other elements. Personality is
partly made up of recollections. But it also comes from the impression left upon all our
organs by every physical, chemical, physiological, or psychological event of our life. We
obscurely feel the passing of duration. We are capable of estimating such duration, in a
grossly approximative manner, in terms of physical time. We perceive its flux as,
perhaps, do muscular or nervous elements. Each cell type records physical time in its own
way. The value of time for nerves and muscles is expressed, as already mentioned, in
chronaxies. All anatomical elements are far from having the same chronaxy. The
isochronism and heterochronism of cells play a capital part in their work. This estimation
of time by the tissues may possibly reach the threshold of consciousness, and be
responsible for the indefinable feeling in the depths of our self of silently flowing waters,
on which float our states of consciousness, like the spots of a searchlight on the dark
surface of an immense river. We realize that we change, that we are not identical with our
former self. But that we are the same being. The distance from which we look back upon
the small child, who was ourself, is precisely the dimension of our organism and of our
consciousness which we compare to a spatial dimension. Of this aspect of inward time
we know nothing, except that it is both dependent and independent of the rhythm of
organic life, and moves more and more rapidly as we grow older.
5
The greatest desire of men is for eternal youth. From Merlin down to Cagliostro,
Brown-Sequard, and Voronoff, charlatans and scientists have pursued the same dream
and suffered the same defeat. No one has discovered the supreme secret. Meanwhile, our
need of it is becoming more and more urgent. Scientific civilization has destroyed the
world of the soul. But the realm of matter is widely opened to man. He must, then, keep
intact the vigor of his body and of his intelligence. Only the strength of youth gives him
the power to satisfy his physiological appetites and to conquer the outer world. In some
measure, however, we have realized the ancestral dream. We enjoy youth, or its
appearance, for a much longer time than our fathers did. But we have not succeeded in
increasing the duration of our existence. A man of forty-five has no more chance of dying
at the age of eighty years now than in the last century.
This failure of hygiene and medicine is a strange fact. In spite of the progress achieved
in the heating, ventilation, and lighting of houses, of dietary hygiene, bathrooms, and
sports, of periodical medical examinations, and increasing numbers of medical
specialists, not even one day has been added to the span of human life. Are we to believe
that hygienists, chemists, and physicians are mistaken in their ruling of the existence of
the individual, like politicians, economists, and financiers in the organization of the life
of the nation? After all, it may be that modern comfort and habits imposed upon the
dwellers of the new city do not agree with natural laws. However, a marked change has
taken place in the appearance of men and women. Owing to hygiene, athletics, alimentary
restrictions, beauty parlors, and to the superficial activity engendered by telephone and
automobile, all are more alert than in former times. At fifty, women are still young.
Modern progress, however, has brought in its train counterfeit money as well as gold.
When their visages, lifted and smoothed by the beauty surgeon, again become flabby,
when massage no longer prevails against invading fat, those women whose appearance
has been girlish for so many years look older than their grandmothers did at the same age.
The pseudo-young men, who play tennis and dance as at twenty years, who discard their
old wife and marry a young woman, are liable to softening of the brain, and to diseases of
the heart and the kidneys, Sometimes they die suddenly in their bed, in their office, on the
golf-links, at an age when their ancestors were still tilling their land or managing their
business with a firm hand. The causes of this failure of modern life are not exactly
known. Indeed, hygienists and physicians cannot be held responsible for it. The
premature wearing out of modern men is probably due to worries, lack of economic
security, overwork, absence of moral discipline, and excesses of all sorts.
A better knowledge of the mechanisms of physiological duration could bring a solution
of the problem of longevity. But the science of man is still too rudimentary to be useful.
We must, then, ascertain, in a purely empirical manner, whether life can be made longer.
The presence of a few centenarians in every country demonstrates the extent of our
temporal potentialities. No practical conclusions, however, have resulted so-far from the
observation of these centenarians. Obviously, longevity is hereditary. But it depends also
on the conditions of development. When descendants of families where longevity is usual
come to dwell in large cities, they generally lose, in one or two generations, the capacity
of living to be old. A study of animals of pure stock and of well-known ancestral
constitution would probably show in what measure environment may augment the span
of existence. In certain races of mice, mated between brothers and sisters over many
generations, the duration of life remains quite constant. However, if one places the
animals in large pens, in a state of semi-liberty, instead of keeping them in cages, and
allows them to burrow and return to more primitive conditions of existence, they die
much earlier. When certain substances are removed from the diet, longevity is also found
to decrease. On the contrary, life lengthens if the animals are given certain food or
subjected to fasting during certain fixed periods for several generations. It is evident that
simple changes in the mode of existence are capable of influencing the duration of life.
Man's longevity could probably be augmented by analogous, or other, procedures.
We must not yield to the temptation to use blindly for this purpose the means placed at
our disposal by medicine. Longevity is only desirable if it increases the duration of youth,
and not that of old age. The lengthening of the senescent period would be a calamity. The
aging individual, when not capable of providing for himself, is an encumbrance to his
family and to the community. If all men lived to be one hundred years old. the younger
members of the population could not support such a heavy burden. Before attempting to
prolong life, we must discover methods for conserving organic and mental activities to
the eve of death. It is imperative that the number of the diseased, the paralyzed, the weak,
and the insane should not be augmented. Besides, it would not be wise to give everybody
a long existence. The danger of increasing the quantity of human beings without regard to
their quality is well known. Why should more years be added to the life of persons who
are unhappy, selfish, stupid, and useless? The number of centenarians must not be
augmented until we can prevent intellectual and moral decay, and also the lingering
diseases of old age.
6
It would be more useful to discover a method for rejuvenating individuals whose
physiological and mental qualities justify such a measure. Rejuvenation can be conceived
as a complete reversal of inward time. The subject would be carried back to a previous
stage of his life by some operation. One would amputate a part of his fourth dimension.
However, for practical purposes, rejuvenation should be given a more restricted meaning
and be considered as an incomplete reversal of duration. The direction of psychological
time would not be changed. Memory would persist. Tissues and humors would be
rejuvenated. With the help of organs in possession of their youthful vigor, the subject
could utilize the experience acquired in the course of a long life. The word rejuvenation,
when used in connection with the experiments and operations carried out by Steinach,
Voronoff, and others, refers to an improvement in the general condition of the patients, to
a feeling of strength and of sprightliness, to a revival of the sexual functions. But such
changes occurring in an old man after the treatment do not mean that rejuvenation has
taken place. Studies of the chemical composition of the blood serum, and of its
physiological reactions, are the only means of detecting a reversal of physiological age. A
permanent increase in the growth index of serum would demonstrate the reality of results
claimed by the surgeons. For rejuvenation is equivalent to certain physiological and
chemical modifications measurable in blood plasma. Nevertheless, the absence of such
findings does not necessarily mean that the age of the subject has not decreased. Our
techniques are still far from perfect. They cannot reveal, in an old individual, a reversal of
physiological time of less than several years. If a fourteen-year-old dog were brought
back to the age of ten, the change in the growth index of his serum would be hardly
discernible.
Among the ancient medical superstitions, there was a persistent belief in the virtue of
young blood, in its power to impart youth to an old and worn-out body. Pope Innocent
VIII had the blood of three young men transfused into his veins. But after this operation,
he died. As it is quite likely that death was due to a technical accident, perhaps the idea
deserves reconsideration. The introduction of young blood into an old organism might
bring about favorable changes. It is strange that such an operation has not been tried
again. This omission is due, possibly, to the fact that endocrine glands have gained the
favor of the physicians. Brown-Séquard, after having injected into himself a fresh extract
of testicle, believed that he was rejuvenated. This discovery brought him very great fame.
However, he died shortly afterwards. But faith in the testicle as an agent of rejuvenation
survived. Steinach attempted to demonstrate that the ligature of its duct stimulates the
gland. He performed this operation on many old men. But the results were doubtful.
Brown-Séquard's idea was taken up again and extended by Voronoff. The latter, instead
of simply injecting testicular extracts, grafted in old men, or men prematurely aged,
testicles from chimpanzees. It is incontestable that the operation was followed by an
improvement in the general condition and the sexual functions of the patients. But the
testicle of a chimpanzee does not live long in a man. During the process of degeneration,
it may set free certain secretory products, and these substances, passing into the
circulating blood, probably activate the sexual and other endocrine glands of the subject.
Such operations do not give lasting results. Old age, as we know, is due to profound
modifications of all the tissues and humors, and not to the deficiency of a single gland.
The loss of activity of the sexual glands is not the cause of senescence, but one of its
consequences. It is probable that neither Steinach nor Voronoff has ever observed true
rejuvenation. But their failure does not by any means signify that rejuvenation is forever
impossible to obtain.
We can believe that a partial reversal of physiological time will become realizable.
Duration, as already mentioned, consists of certain structural and functional processes.
True age depends on progressive changes of the tissues and humors. Tissues and humors
are one and the same system. If an old man were given the glands of a still-born infant
and the blood of a young man, he would possibly be rejuvenated. Many technical
difficulties remain to be overcome before such an operation can be undertaken. We have
no way of selecting organs suitable to a given individual. There is no procedure for
rendering tissues capable of adapting themselves to the body of their host in a definitive
manner. But the progress of science is swift. With the aid of the methods already existing,
and of those which will be discovered, we must pursue the search for the great secret.
Man will never tire of seeking immortality. He will not attain it, because he is bound by
certain laws of his organic constitution. He may succeed in retarding, perhaps even in
reversing in some measure, the inexorable advance of physiological time. Never will he
vanquish death. Death is the price he has to pay for his brain and his personality. But
some day, medicine will teach him that old age, free from diseases of the body and the
soul, is not to be feared. To illness, and not to senescence, are due most of our woes.
7
The human significance of physical time is bound naturally to the nature of inner time.
We have already mentioned that physiological time is a flux of irreversible changes of the
tissues and humors. It may be approximately measured in special units, each unit being
equivalent to a certain functional modification of blood serum. Its characteristics depend
on the structure of the organism and on the physiological processes connected with such
structure. They are specific of each species, of each individual, and of the age of each
individual.
Physiological time is generally referred to physical time, to the time of a clock,
inasmuch as we are part of the material world. The natural periods of our life are
measured in days or years. Infancy, childhood, and adolescence last about eighteen years.
Maturity and old age, fifty or sixty years. Thus, man consists of a brief period of
development and of a long period of completion and decay. On the contrary, physical
time may be referred to physiological time, and the time of a clock expressed in terms of
human duration. Then, a strange phenomenon occurs. Physical time loses the uniformity
of its value. The content of a year in units of physiological time becomes variable. It is
different for each individual, and for each period of an individual's life.
One perceives, more or less clearly, the changes in the value of physical time, which
occur in the course of one's life. The days of our childhood seemed very slow, and those
of our maturity are disconcertingly rapid. Possibly we experience this feeling because we
unconsciously place physical time in the frame of our duration. And, naturally, physical
time seems to vary inversely to it. The rhythm of our duration slows down progressively.
Physical time glides along at a uniform rate. It is like a large river flowing through a
plain. At the dawn of his life, man briskly runs along the bank. And he goes faster than
the stream. Toward midday, his pace slackens. The waters now glide as speedily as he
walks. When night falls, man is tired. The stream accelerates the swiftness of its flow.
Man drops far behind. Then he stops, and lies down forever. And the river inexorably
continues on its course. In fact, the river never accelerates its flow. Only the progressive
slackening of our pace is responsible for this illusion. The seeming length of the first part
of our existence and the brevity of the last may also be due to the well-known fact that,
for the child and for the old man, a year represents quite different proportions of the past.
It is more probable, however, that our consciousness vaguely perceives the slowing down
of our time, that is, of our physiological processes. And that each one of us runs along the
bank and looks at the streaming waters of physical time.
The value of the days of early childhood is very great. Every moment should be utilized
for education. The waste of this period of life can never be compensated. Instead of being
allowed to grow like plants or little animals, children should be the object of the most
enlightened training. But this training calls for a profound knowledge of physiology and
psychology, which modern educators have not yet been given the opportunity of
acquiring. The declining years of maturity and senescence have little physiological value.
They are almost empty of organic and mental changes. They have to be filled with
artificial activities. The aging man should neither stop working nor retire. Inaction futher
impoverishes the content of time. Leisure is even more dangerous for the old than for the
young. To those whose forces are declining, appropriate work should be given. But not
rest. Neither should physiological processes be stimulated at this moment. It is preferable
to hide their slowness under a number of psychological events. If our days are filled with
mental and spiritual adventures, they glide much less rapidly. They may even recover the
plenitude of those of youth.
8
Duration is wedded to man, like the shape to the marble of the statue. Man refers all the
events of his world to himself. He uses his span of life as a time unit in his estimation of
the age of the earth, of the human race, of civilization, of the length of his own
undertakings. Nevertheless, an individual and a nation cannot be placed in the same
temporal scale. Social problems should not be considered in the same light as individual
ones. They evolve very slowly. Our observations and our experiences are always too
short. For this reason, they have little significance. The results of a modification in the
material and mental conditions of the existence of a population rarely manifest
themselves in less than a century. However, the investigation of the great biological
questions is confined to isolated individuals. There is no provision for the continuation of
their work when they die. In a like manner, scientific and political institutions are
conceived in terms of individual duration. The Roman Catholic Church is the only
organization to have realized that the progress of humanity is very slow, that the passing
of a generation is an insignificant event in the history of the world. In the evolution of
mankind, the duration of the individual is inadequate as a unit of temporal measure. The
advent of scientific civilization necessitates a fresh discussion of all fundamental
subjects. We are witnessing our own moral, intellectual, and social failure. We have been
living under the delusion that democracies would survive through the weak and short-
sighted efforts of the ignorant. We begin to understand that they are decaying. Problems
involving the future of the great races demand a solution. It is now imperative to prepare
for distant events, to mold young generations with a different ideal. The government of
nations by men who estimate time in function of their own duration leads, as we well
know, to confusion and to failure. We have to stretch our temporal outlook beyond
ourselves.
On the contrary, in the organization of transitory social groups, such as a class of
children, or a gang of workmen, individual time alone must be taken into account. The
members of a group are obliged to work at the same rhythm. The intellectual activity of
school children composing a class must be of practically the same standard. In factories,
banks, stores, universities, etc., the workers are supposed to accomplish a certain task in a
certain time. Those whose strength declines on account of age or illness impede the
progress of the whole. So far, human beings are classified according to their
chronological age. Children of the same age are placed in the same class. The date of
retirement is also determined by the age of the worker. It is known, however, that the true
condition of an individual does not depend on his chronological age. In certain types of
occupation, individuals should be grouped according to physiological age. Puberty has
been used as a way of classifying children in some New York schools. But there are still
no means of ascertaining at what time a man should be pensioned. Neither is there any
general method of measuring the rate of the organic and mental decline of a given
individual. However, physiological tests have been developed by which the condition of a
flyer can be accurately estimated. Pilots are retired according to their physiological, and
not their chronological, age.
Young and old people, although in the same region of space, live in different temporal
worlds. We are inexorably separated by age from one another. A mother never succeeds
in being a sister to her daughter. It is impossible for children to understand their parents,
and still less their grandparents. Obviously, the individuals belonging to four successive
generations are profoundly heterochronic. An old man and his great-grandson are
complete strangers. The shorter the temporal distance separating two generations, the
stronger may be the moral influence of the older over the younger. Women should be
mothers when they are still very young. Thus, they would not be isolated from their
children by a temporal gap too great to be bridged, even by love.
9
From the concept of physiological time derive certain rules of our action on human
beings. Organic and mental developments are not inexorable. They can be modified, in
some measure, according to our will, because we are a movement, a succession of
superposed patterns in the frame of our identity. Although man is a closed world, his
outside and inside frontiers are open to many physical, chemical, and psychological
agents. And those agents are capable of modifying our tissues and our mind. The
moment, the mode, and the rhythm of our interventions depend on the structure of
physiological time. Our temporal dimension extends chiefly during childhood, when
functional processes are most active. Then, organs and mind are plastic. Their formation
can effectively be aided. As organic events happen each day in great numbers, their
growing mass can receive such shape as it seems proper to impress permanently upon the
individual. The molding of the organism according to a selected pattern must take into
account the nature of duration, the constitution of our temporal dimension. Our
interventions have to be made in the cadence of inner time. Man is like a viscous liquid
flowing into the physical continuum. He cannot instantaneously change his direction. We
should not endeavor to modify his mental and structural form by rough procedures, as
one shapes a statue of marble by blows of the hammer. Surgical operations alone produce
in tissues sudden alterations which are beneficial. And still, recovery from the quick work
of the knife is slow. No profound changes of the body as a whole can be obtained rapidly.
Our action must blend with the physiological processes, substratum of inner time, by
following their own rhythm. For instance, it is useless to administer to a child a large
quantity of cod-liver oil in a single dose. But a small amount of this remedy, given each
day for several months, modifies the dimensions and the form of the skeleton. Likewise,
the mental factors act only in a progressive manner. Our interventions in the building up
of body and consciousness have their full effects only when they conform to the laws of
our duration.
A child may be compared to a brook, which follows any change in its bed. The brook
persists in its identity, in spite of the diversity of its forms. It may become a lake or a
torrent. Under the influence of environment, personality may spread and become very
thin, or concentrate and acquire great strength. The growth of personality involves a
constant trimming of our self. At the beginning of life, man is endowed with vast
potentialities. He is limited in his development only by the extensible frontiers of his
ancestral predispositions. But at each instant he has to make a choice. And each choice
throws into nothingness one of his potentialities. He has of necessity to select one of the
several roads open to the wanderings of his existence, to the exclusion of all others. Thus,
he deprives himself of seeing the countries wherein he could have traveled along the
other roads. In our infancy we carry within ourselves numerous virtual beings, who die
one by one. In our old age, we are surrounded by an escort of those we could have been,
of all our aborted potentialities. Every man is a fluid that becomes solid, a treasure that
grows poorer, a history in the making, a personality that is being created. And our
progress, or our disintegration, depends on physical, chemical, and physiological factors,
on viruses and bacteria, on psychological influences, and, finally, on our own will. We
are constantly being made by our environment and by our self. And duration is the very
material of organic and mental life, as it means "invention, creation of forms, continual
elaboration of the absolutely new."
2
2
Bergson, Henri,
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