Ramble
Our words survive us and we take pleasure in their survival -- just as we take pleasure in the survival of our children. But very few men are survived by their own words -- for most, a saying or a turn of phrase will descend a few generations, but no longer (though a small selection of the phrases and the sayings survive, it is true, in the local dialect, a small selection of these, perhaps, becoming more generally known and bequeathing themselves to that culture which they later come to represent). Written documents, it is true, survive longer, but they require to be copied, if the words they contain will be preserved -- and the process of copying, over time, generates errors, so that one wonders if it is possible to devise a copying system which, over the turn of millennia (even excepting the calamities of millennia), will maintain the majority of the words copied and in the same order they were in originally. Excepting that, the men who are survived by documents they write, and thus by the words contained in those documents, are few. And even now, we are doubtful of what some men who lived thousands of years ago really said. (One should not suppose, also, that our own case will be any different, now that we have discovered better means of copying and preservation -- since what we cannot predict, is precisely that future generations will receive these better methods, and value them enough to practice them -- whether because of calamity or the degradation of intellectual culture, which is itself a calamity.) What does survive more reliably, and survives, as long as we survive (since we do not consider any of our ancestors men before we find evidence that they have spoken, and since, I suppose, our posterity would never come to think we were men, unless they discovered we had spoken -- unless indeed they again come to suppose that speech belongs to animals and the gods), is our language, but even that not without its transmutations. But running across all of these transmutations is translation, which promises in every act of speech a thought. And it is our thoughts, we think, which survive us, and which are constantly being reborn. Thought certainly will live as long as the human race, and there are some thoughts, such as the observation that this before me is red, which are being continually reborn and passing out of existence. Or at least, the act of thinking them is performed again and again. And whereas it is dubious whether any string of words can be forever preserved the same, it seems that the thought that there is something red before me, which a man had 1000 years ago, is the very thought, that I have now. We imagine that we can represent features of our experience with words, so that we can communicate, to other people, the presence of those features. I mean that we represent the presence of those features with words to other people. The presence of the feature is the being of the feature in the thing that has it, and we communicate, by our words, that this being is had by this thing, to others who, because they know what it means for this thing to have that being, since they have experienced it themselves, understand us. We imagine, then, because we can have the same experience as someone else had long before us, that there is something eternal in the experience. And if there is such a thing as a thought of the experience, which appears again and again in expiring words, we think that the thought somehow involves the experience, and so involves eternity, since the experience seems to be something fixed and eternal.
What are these experiences? They are experiences of the being thus of this. Is the being thus something apart from the this, which is thus? Philosophers have supposed the being thus is something apart, which is in every place there is a being thus, and in everything that is thus, and this being thus, being common to things over places and times, is everywhere and always the same as itself, so eternal, and is also perfectly thus, though not in the same way as those beings which are thus but are not the same as being thus. The things which are thus, however, are not eternal, nor are they eternally thus, but they undergo change, and go into and out of existence.
The being thus is held to be eternal, but the presence of the being thus (the being of the being thus in the being that is thus) comes into and passes out of existence. If every being thus is eternal, then the being in of a being thus, is not some kind of being thus, since the being in of a being thus passes in and out of existence.
Time is a succession of beings-in, and becoming is a relation which holds between a being, and two beings-in of two beings-thus -- a being becomes being thus from being so, so that the presence of being thus, is succeeded by the presence of being that, in the thing. Further, the being so must, as Aristotle observed, be the contrary of the being thus (in that it is impossible for a being to be both thus and so, though it may be neither thus nor so).
The distinction between form and participation is, perhaps, the distinction between being thus and being in, or between being thus and presence. (And the presence of a being thus, is a different thing again, from that in which the presence is.)
What are these experiences? They are experiences of the being thus of this. Is the being thus something apart from the this, which is thus? Philosophers have supposed the being thus is something apart, which is in every place there is a being thus, and in everything that is thus, and this being thus, being common to things over places and times, is everywhere and always the same as itself, so eternal, and is also perfectly thus, though not in the same way as those beings which are thus but are not the same as being thus. The things which are thus, however, are not eternal, nor are they eternally thus, but they undergo change, and go into and out of existence.
The being thus is held to be eternal, but the presence of the being thus (the being of the being thus in the being that is thus) comes into and passes out of existence. If every being thus is eternal, then the being in of a being thus, is not some kind of being thus, since the being in of a being thus passes in and out of existence.
Time is a succession of beings-in, and becoming is a relation which holds between a being, and two beings-in of two beings-thus -- a being becomes being thus from being so, so that the presence of being thus, is succeeded by the presence of being that, in the thing. Further, the being so must, as Aristotle observed, be the contrary of the being thus (in that it is impossible for a being to be both thus and so, though it may be neither thus nor so).
The distinction between form and participation is, perhaps, the distinction between being thus and being in, or between being thus and presence. (And the presence of a being thus, is a different thing again, from that in which the presence is.)