Charles Sanders Peirce

Let there be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole …

Consciousness must essentially cover an interval of time; for if it did not, we could gain no knowledge of time, and not merely no veracious cognition of it, but no conception whatever. We are therefore, forced to say that we are …

If the sensation that precedes the present by half a second were still immediately before me, then on the same principle, the sensation preceding that would be immediately present, and so on ad infinitum. Now, since there is a time …

How can a past idea be present?... it can only be going, infinitesimally past, less past than any assignable past date. We are thus brought to the conclusion that the present is connected to the past by a series of real infinitesimal steps.

Some minds will jump here jump to the conclusion that a past idea cannot in any sense be present. But that is hasty and illogical. How extravagant too, to pronounce our whole knowledge of the past to be mere delusion! Yet it would seem …

We have here a question of difficulty, analogous to the question of nominalism and realism.

What distinct meaning can attach to saying that an idea in the past in any way affects an idea in the future, from which it is completely detached?

We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions.

Logical analysis applied to mental phenomenon shows that there is but one law of mind, namely that ideas tend to spread continuously and to affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar relation of affectibility. In this …

The tendency to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in philosophy conveniently may be be termed synechism. The present paper is intended chiefly to show what synechism is, and what it …

A serious student of philosophy will be in no haste to accept or reject this doctrine; but he will see in it one of the chief attitudes which speculative thought may take, feeling that it is not for an individual, nor for an age, to …

To "postulate" a proposition is no more than to hope it is true.

May some future student go over this ground again, and have the leisure to give his results to the world.

Chance is First, Law is Second, the tendency to take habits is Third. Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third.

A philosophy which emphasises the idea of the One, is generally a dualistic philosophy in which the conception of Second receives exaggerated attention: for this One (though of course involving the idea of First) is always the other of a …

First is the conception of being or existing independent of anything else. Second is the conception of being relative to, the conception of reaction with, something else. Third is the conception of mediation, whereby a first and second are …

Three conceptions are perpetually turning up at every point in every theory of logic, and in the most rounded systems they occur in connection with one another.

The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in Cartesianism, as two radically different kinds of substance, will hardly find defenders to-day. Rejecting this, we are driven to some form of hylopathy, otherwise called monism.

The law of mind only makes a given feeling more likely to arise.

The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands.

Feelings, by being excited, become more easily excited, especially in the ways in which they have previously been excited. The consciousness of such a habit constitutes a general conception.

The one primary and fundamental law of mental action consists in a tendency to generalisation.

The only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for uniformity in general is to suppose them results of evolution. This supposes them not to be absolute, not to be obeyed precisely.

Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason.