Succession and Duration
Succession and Duration
These concepts are inseparable from the idea of ‘flowing’ time in which every event endures relatively to a succession of other events. In Leibniz’s view, succession was the most important characteristic of time defined by him as “the order of succession.” Some thinkers, notably H. Bergson, regard duration (duree) as the very essence of time, “time perceived as indivisible,” in which the vital impulse (elan vital) becomes the creative source of all change comparable to a snow-ball rolling down a hill and swelling on its way. According to A. N. Whitehead, duration is ‘a slab of nature’ possessing temporal thickness, it is a cross-section of the world in its process, or “the immediate present condition of the world at some epoch.” — R.B.W.