Life and death—love and hate—collide in the Heavens. It is almost a cry of anguish. The yearning of a soul, formed by Nature in a peculiar mould, for communion with those to whom it bears a resemblance, yet of whom it was not, is finite and not in the least under its own command. The two great movements of the soul are the desire of honor and the fear of shame. During a lifetime of teaching, lecturing, and writing, I have gained an international reputation as one of the authors of a new and distinctive philosophical outlook presented in a succession of articles, and there fluent, nontechnical style have given them a wide appeal. We sense flow of life as a primary inner experience; the philosophic thought is focused on the directly intuited, concrete individual, and the mechanism is the external form of an inner spiritual activity; there is an intrinsic freedom in human action; and there exists a radical contingency in our nature. There is a species of intuition—either a spiritual lie, or the subtle recognition of a fact—which comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

Scientific time is a mathematical conception, symbolized in physical theory by the letter t and measured by clocks and chronometers. Because these measuring instruments are spatial bodies, scientific time is represented as an extended, homogeneous medium, composed of standard units (years, hours, seconds). Most of human’s practical life in society is dominated by these units. However, time thus represented neither flows nor acts. It exists passively, like a line drawn on a surface. When we turn to our direct experience, we find nothing that corresponds to this mathematical conception. What we find, on the contrary, is flowing, irreversible succession of states that melt into each other to form an indivisible process. This process is not homogeneous but heterogeneous. It is not abstract, but concrete. In short, it is pure time or real duration (duree reelle), something immediately experienced as active and ongoing. If we try to represent it by a spatial image, such as a line, we only generate abstract, mathematical time, which is at the bottom an illusion. The great weakness of mechanistic modes of thought is that they consider this illusion to be reality.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

However, to expressions of all feelings and passions, this illusion has been stripped of its innocence and the full brutality of modern life revealed in its stead. Can the ugly be made to appear beautiful, and if so, does that cause us to ignore the reality of the situation? The recognition of real duration provides a basis for vindicating human freedom, and disposing of determinism. The determinist holds that freedom does not exists. Life is a situation in which one confronts an ostensible choice as being like arriving at a point on a line where a branching occurs, and taking one of the branches. The particular branch taken could not not have been taken. Given full knowledge of the antecedent states of mind of the agent, the branch taken could have been predicted beforehand. The reality of the illusion, or the subconscious mind, is seen more real than the surface reality. Its reality is higher reality. The force of this argument derives from misrepresenting the situation of choice by using an abstract, spatialized conception of time.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

One of the most powerful kinds of implied line is a function of line of sight, image of the line symbolizes the choice already made, not the choice in the making. In acting, we do not move along a path through time. Deliberating about a choice is not like being at a point on a line and oscillating in space between various courses confronting us. Time is a sure foot and strong will. Deliberation and choice are temporal, not spatial, acts. Moreover, the determinist makes the associationist’s mistake of supposing that the mind of the agent consists of a succession of atomic states that determine how he will act. The associationist’s mechanistic interpretation of the mind produced a fallacious picture upon which determinism was superimposed, in interlocking symmetrical triangles that serve to unify the Worlds of the divine and the mortal. It creates a sense of movement and direction, but also possess certain intellectual, emotional, and expressive qualities. No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

Freedom of action is something directly experienced. Humans feel themselves to be free as they act, even though they may be unable to explain the nature of their freedom. When we speak of the expressive use of a formal element, we mean that it expresses powerful emotions, deeply anguished and a creative genius. However, we are free only when our act springs spontaneously from our whole personality as it has evolved up to the moment of action. If this spontaneity is absent, our actions will be simply stereotyped or mechanical responses. In such cases, we behave like automata. Hence, freedom is far from being absolute. Indeed, for most people free acts are the exception, not the rule. To this extent, the determinists are right. Time truly works wonders. It sublimates wine; it sublimates fame; nay, is the creator thereof; of fables distills truths; and smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts, and meliorates all things. The soul’s life has seasons of its own; periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not scan. Humankind is only an ephemeral blossom on the tree of time, expressive energies released in this creative outburst.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 5