The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures: The Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure (Part 3 of 3)

From The Ever-Present Origin, Chapter 5, "The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures," Section 3, "The Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure" (Part 3 of 3) 

(Continued from Part 2 of 3, "The Temporality of the Mythic Structure")

by Jean Gebser

3.  The Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure

In order for us to demonstrate the temporicity of the mythical structure, it was necessary to go back to the question of its spacelessness.  Similarly, if we wish to describe the spatial preoccupation of the mental structure, it would be necessary first of all to inquire into its form of time.  Yet the question of "time" is one that has resisted philosophical attempts to resolve it for some two and one-half thousand years, despite the many individual solutions, explanations, or abstractions which it has brought to light.  Now, it is not our intent to provide a philosophical solution to this age-old question, nor to seek out in the results of discoveries in the sciences, for even a psychological point of departure would be irrelevant here in that it represents only a partial aspect: partly philosophical, partly scientific.  We shall accordingly have to find a different point of departure.

The temporicity of myth differs from the temporality of the mind.  The temporistic movement of nature and the cosmos is unaware of the temporal phases of past, present, and future; it knows only the polar self-complementarity of coming and going which completely prevades it at all times.  It is devoid of directionality, whereas the past and the future, viewed from the present of any given person, are temporal directions.  It is this directional character of "time" which underscores its mental nature and therefore its constitutional difference from natural-cosmic temporistic movement which is mythical in nature.  Or, we might say that time differs from temporicity because of its directedness, and hence a retrogression into mythical movement can neither answer nor resolve the question as to the nature of our mental time.

Let us, rather, proceed along a route which we have taken before and inquire into the root of the word "time."  When we do this we discover that all of the words of our familiar languages for "time"--English "time," German Zeit, Latin tempus, French temps and so on--can be traced back to the Indo-Germanic root da. (23)  We have encountered this root before: it also formed the Greek verb daio, which in the Ionian dialect, the original language of Greek philosophy, meant "to divide, to take apart, to lay aprt, to tear apart, to lacerate."  In Sanskrit the root forms the words dayate and dayati, that is, "he divides, he cuts;" on this German word for "part" or "share," Teil, is based.  And the root is also the basis of the word "demonic" as was discussed earlier (see p. 94 and p. 157, note 13).

"Time," in other words, conveys the idea that it is a divisor, separating as well as cutting asunder.  But a divider of what?  We may be permitted the question although we know that time--and we will discuss this in detail below--has become an abstraction.  The word has shared the same fate as other concrete mythical images which have without exception become transformed into rational concepts in the mental realm.

As to our question of what "time" in fact divides, we have an answer if we remain cognizant of the mythical configuration.  We have noted repeatedly that magic occurs in the dark, indeed in darkness itself, while myth occurs in the night and dreams where a twilight is already present.  But the mind or the mental presents itself in the brightness of daylight.  There was once a close relationship between the "day" and the "time," indeed there was a certain degree of identity between them inasmuch as both words can be traced to the same root.  But, in a pre-eminently nocturnal world, what can the significance of utilizing a root with the inherent meaning of "to divide, to sever," to form a word expressing the day (Latin dies), if not to convey at the outset of the mental structure that the "day"--as opposed to our present-day sense--was a divider and partitioner of the night.

With the awakening of the mental structure, as diurnal things gradually assume a greater importance than those of the nocturnal and twilight realm, the "every day" world comes into greater prominence.  Not only does right-handed movement take precedence over left-handed or leftward movement (which always reverts toward darkness), as we have seen, there is an ascendancy of directedness and direction as  the "right" usurps the non-directional nature of circularity.  Those things which man prepares for himself predominate over things that simply lie in readiness for him.  In this connection it is no accident when we speak of preparing "meals" (Gerichte, originally richten, "to direct, orient") whenever we mean "mealtime."  Meals are day-to-day things, accomplishments or actions determined by time; mealtimes are the pre-eminent daily affairs: "the time for eating was time kat' exochen (time as such). (24)  Our very word "mealtime" is revealing in this respect as it is formed on both the root ma:me and on da:di,  that is, it measures and divides, and the affairs of the day are oriented around it. (25)

In the same connection we can note a significant passage from the research of Claude-Sosthene Grasset d'Orcet which refers to a sacrificial act. (We shall only mention in passing the important fact that the sacrifice and the sacrificial act were originally a part of the mealtime, whereas today a "sacrifice" refers mostly to an act of renunciation.)  d'Orcet writes: "The Hebrews, like other peoples of antiquity, levied a death-penalty on prisoners of war which they called doush.  The captives were laid on the threshing-floor among the sheaves of wheat, after which stones sled with razor-sharp stones (silex tranchants) were driven over them.  These sleds, which are still used throughout the Orient even today for threshing and cutting the straw, were called in Greek tribolos and in Hebrew doush.  Purification by tribolos was one of the principal dogmas of the cult of Bacchus (Dionysos); and for the adepts of the cut tribolos and Hades were synonymous.  On Greek vases the tribolos is depicted as a wagon drawn by three horses and steered by a goddes named Tis or Dais which is to say the "Dividing one" [celle qui divise]." (26)

We have quoted this passage since it affords insight into a process that is essential to the concept of time: the genesis or, more accurately, the mutation of time from temporicity which can be discerned from this account.  We attempted to elucidate the genesis of mythical, nocturnal temporicity from the self-contained and dark and timeless cavern world by using the mythologeme of Kronos and particular in the sound shift audible in the roots kel and gher; and it will be evident from the remarks of d'Orcet--which incidentally makes no mention of the word or subject of "time"--what the nature of  the process was which brought forth "time" from mythical temporicity.

Before we examine this extraordinarily revealing text word for word it should be noted that in Greek dais means "portion, meal, mealtime, share."  Unfortunately it is not possible to determine where d'Orcet obtained his knowledge of the goddess Tis or Dais; from the available reference material we consulted, only two complementary facts emerge.  First, the word or name of this goddess is derived from the root da:di from which, it will be recalled, the word "time" can be traced; and second, the significant fact that a goddess of this name can be dated back no farther than late Greek antiquity.  A fragment of Sophocles, for example, reads: elthen de Dais thaleia presbiste theon, which means "Dais, the eldest of the gods, came forth in all her beauty." (27)

The interpretations by Roscher and Pauly-Wissowa, as well as that of Gruppe, which suggestthat Dais had merely been elevated from the rank of a personification of the mealtime to that of a divinity, overlook the fact that she here invested with the stature of being the eldest of the gods.  What is significant, then, is not the personification but rather what is personified.  Sophocles, by giving her such prominence despite her apparent lack of an obvious role in mythology (he rcovert role is certain from the discussion by d'Orcet as well as from the remark by Harrison that Dais, like Thalia, represent a demonic principle in the magic ritual of sacrifice), shows that he either of her Kronos-destructive role, or he considered the time of the mealtime--time kat' exochen, a directed as well as a directing time--to be the most significant form of time in his mental conception of the world.

We can at least infer from the remarks from d'Orcet that Dais conquers Kronos and is thus the prototypical image of the mental structure overcoming the mythical.  This is indicated by the form of sacrifice.  It is not a genuine sacrifice, or the complete surrender of a vital element of one's own constitution, but rather a form of ransom showing, in its cruelty, evidence of the deficient sacrificial rituals characateristic of all rituals, including even certain mystical rituals of  thee gradually exhausted mythical structure. (28)

In the case of  this particular sacrifice, it is apparent from the context that we are dealing with the struggle between the awakening mental time and mythical temporicity.  Dais, symbol of the partitive principle, imitates in one sense Kronos, representative of the circular principle, while she destroys at the same time the power of the Kronos principle by virtue of the strengths of her dividing.  In the ritual it is not the sheaves which are sacrificed ("threshed") but rather the living humans, the captives. (29)

The configuration itself, being nocturnal, is Kronos-like and indicated by the presence of three horses.  As we noted above (p. 80), the number three has a definitely lunar character; a solar character does not come until the conception of a trinity. (30)  This Kronos aspect is accentuated by the location of the sacrifice, the threshing floor, and as noted above, by equating the victims with the sheaves.  Moreover, the Kronos aspect is further emphasized by the equivalence accorded to the tribolos and Hades in the Orphic tradition; Hades was the realm of Kronos after he had been banished there.  It is that realm through which Acheron flowed; and this is another way of saying that the nocturnal underworld or realm of the shades, with its incipient temporicity, owed its life and source to timelessness.  For Acheron means "non-temporistic," or to quote Grasset d'Orcet (who offers no further explanation), it is a realm "where one does not count time." (31)

The cart or wagon (Greek harma), on the other hand, which later becomes the tribolos in the Orphic ritual, is indicative of the inceptual nature of the sacrificial rite, for its root is ar:(r). (32)  This sacrificial rite was one of purification and among the most significant for the Orphics whose lamellae, as we noted earlier, clearly manifested the mental principle.  But what was the guilt that had to be atoned for through purification, if not the transgression against the mythical world--the world of Kronos and the world of tradition which they left behind by their turn toward the right?

Since they no longer lived in accord with mythical temporicity, they sacrificed it to the captives whom they had subjugated: those who were thus "beneath" them by still belonging to the mythical wolrd that they had left behind.  With these captives--their "possessions" as it were--they sacrificed their mythical structure as a form of purifying themselves (a sufficiently ambivalent act).  In the mythical tableau, however, it is Dais who carries out the sacrifice which they have presented as an offering; it is Dais who is the principle who prevails whenever the Kronos sacrifice is repeated.  Here the protective circle is disrupted, and the partitive principle comes into evidence: "time" supersedes temporicity.  This is tantamount to a triumph of awakened "time" over mythical temporicity: the victory of the day, with its mental brightness, over the night of the twilight myth.

Once again there is evidence that "time" and the "day" are essentially the same, for the root from which Dais and "time" are derived is identical to that for "day" (Latin dies) and Zeus, the (bright!) god who dwells on Mt. Olympus and not in the mountain (cavern).  Both are dividers of the night.  At the outset, day and night are not opposites; we make them antithetical by our way of thinking.  The partitive brightness of the day is merely a principle, expressing attentiveness (Achtsamkeit) and wakefulness; the complement of the night was "eight" (acht) (see above, p. 17), just as sleep was the complement of wakefulness.

This also explains the interrelationship between Zeus and "day" which scholarship has been hitherto unable to elucidate; beyond this, it affords insight into the connection between Dais and "time."  And since we cannot consider the day and time in this manner, we can also think of mythical temporicity as being "nocturnal" and mental time as being "diurnal" time.  But as we do not wish to imply that they are antithetical it is perhaps best if we stay with the terms "temporicity" and "time," particularly as they have the further distinguishing characteristic that the one is rhythmic, the other metric, i.e., measured and measuring. (33)

With the irruption of the mental structure, the Dais-principle, as the divisor or partitioner, is not only destructive but has also a pre-eminently constitutive aspect.  The word-root da:di has at the beginning the dual denotation of "giving" as well as "dividing."  And the moment this dual princicple becomes effective, the mental structure with its temporal character is also present; but it divides and thus destroys the image of the world which is replaced by a conception of the world. (34) 

Let us now step forth from the mythical realm and its mages of Dais, or Athena, or Metis or Zeus, in which time is foreshadowed in dream.  In tattempting to describe the dream-like from which time mutated we have endeavored to transpose the tableau surrounding Dais into language amenable to our rational understanding and to suggest what might conceivably lie "behind" the nocturnal veil of that other Dais, the goddess from Sais: the unfathomable mystery of magic unity.  Having again touched upon the darkness and obscurities, let us not lose sight of the illuminating point of departure for our journey over the previous several pages: that all words in our familiar languages expressing "time" go back to the word root da:di (see the compilation of the relevant words in our fifth "Remark on Etymology," p. 558 below).

Time, we reiterate, is a divider which partitions as well as severs.  It severs, not itself, but rather the ker-gher principle: the temporistic and mythical image of the world.  We have witnessed this same process in the shift from the equilibrium of the Mu- principle to the acuity of the Me-.  Just as the demonic is at first nothing other than the "severance of myth"--not without good reason does Harrison speak of the demonic character of Dais--so is time, in the sense of a directed course of events, something utterly different from the non-directed and autonomous reversional movement of myth with respect to dimensions.  Time, that is, our mentally-oriented conception of "time," the divider of mythic movement and the partitioner of the circle, severs its two-dimensionality and thereby creates the possibility of three-dimensional space.

Immeasurable and "lasting" agitation is a form of expression of the mythical structure; timelessness is another form of expression, that of the magic structure.  Time--as a conceptualization and concept, and as a measuring element--is yet a further form of expression or conceptualization, that of  the mental structure.  The mythical form of expression evidences an increase in dimensions over against the magic, the mental an increase over the mythical, since magic timelessness is pre-dimensional, mythical temporicity is non-dimensional, and only mental temporality one-dimensional or dimensional in the strict sense.

These increments in dimensionality must be borne in mind, just as we must not lose sight of the fact that mythical agitation, temporicity, and "duration" must not be placed in opposition to our conceptual time, as this would account for only the mental factors and leave out our awareness of the structure of integral data and events.  If we make antitheses of mythical temporicity and mental temporality or conceptual time, we are guilty of creating an inappropriate dualism, inappropriate because these terms are not antithetical but rather different in their constitution.

Ever since Plato such dualizing has been a favorite intellectual pasttime of philosophers.  Plato, for instance, makes the distinction in Timaeus between the mythical accentuation of "unity" of aion (i.e., "time"), and the various parts and forms of chronos, and thus initiated the falsification of mythical-cosmic time into a form of time defined as "universal time."  It was then possible to place into an antithetical relationship with so-called "individual time."  But even then the basic concept of aion, which is usually rendered as "duration, era, epoch," has a rational character inasmuch as it is derived from the root ai-, which means "to divide." (35)  the word itself survives in such words as "eternity" and in Gernan Ewigkeit (from a medieval word, ewe). (36)  Eternity is only a large section or portion of what we described as temporicity with its emphasis on Kronos.

At the beginning of the mental world "time" retained a certain connection to temporicity and agitation.  Aristotle, for example, speaks of time touching the soul, (37) and Plotinus says: "Time is the life of the soul." (38)  And as we have seen, Augustine recalled this connection as well.  For all the soul is, however, also the individual soul, and the time they relate to it is consequently actually "time," the partitioning and severing "individual time."

This connection and the interdependence of the soul and time were perhaps most clearly perceived by Nichalos Cusanus, who defined time in a sense appropriate to its nature as a mental phenomenon.  In his dialoge De ludo globi he writes: "Therefore time, the measure of movement, is an instrument of judgment and understanding.  The understanding soul [ratio animae] thererfore is not dependent on time, but rather the understanding measure of movement, which is called time, is dependent on the understanding soul.  For this reason the understanding soul is not subject to time but precedes time [ad tempus se habit anterioriter] just as sight precedes the eye.  Although sight requires the eye, it does not proceed from the eye since the eye is merely the instrument." (39)

The "understanding soul" spoken of here may be understood as describing the process of thought or that "logos of the soul" (logos psyches mentioned by Plato).  Plato has also postulated a tripartition of the soul, (40) which like any trinitary form is characteristic of the mental structure and may be seen as a direct connection to the tripartition of time effected by Parmenides, who was the first to posit the three-phase nature of time.  This gave rise not only to the problematic aspect of the future, but also to the question of becoming and the entire problem of the dimensioning of time, which later loomed so large in the philosophy of Romanticism in the works of Baader, Schelling, and Fichte.  The dimension of the  future necessarily lends a forward thrust to spatiality, giving both space and time a semblance of direction.

Let us take note of this result: our conceptual time is not a psychic but a mental phenomenon which proceeded from the psychic; it is the line that severs the circle and thus forms the basic dimension of a four dimensional space.  By virtue of the fact that it was itself divided, time became measurable; but it thereby forfeited its original character.  In the course of philosophical speculation it was to a great extent spatialized and, as it has a spatializing tendency, was to a considerable extent de-mentalized.  This transposition or reversal is a typical speculatio rationis: the divider, instead of being treated as such, is itself divided.  Commensurately with this transposition there is necessarily a devaluation of the concept of time which engenders a manifest debasement of time, particularly in the wake of the discovery of perspective and the complete spatialization of the world.

This brings us to the spatial emphasis of the mental structure which we discussed in considerable detail in our remarks on the perspectival world.  As this spatial emphasis is particularly characteristic of the rational phase of the mental structure, we would also point out the corroboration of our discussion on this spatial emphasis in the remarks of W. Gent, a distinguished authority on the time question. (41)  He has repeatedly called attention to the "modern tendency" to devalue time, as in the following statement: "It is really not surprising that even in the work of Thomas Hobbes we can discern a disdain of anything having to do with time, for to him also the spatial world . . . is immeasurably closer."  And with respect to Descasrtes he writes: "When he describes time as ens in anima he is unquestionably devaluating it over against space.  This represents naturalism as a world view.  Time as no proper place within his system."  And again: "For such men as William Gilbert, Johann Kepler, and G.Galilei, time does not represent a special problem; it surfaces in their work merely as a numerical quantity in the form (say) of infinitesimal time segments." (42)

The spatial emphasis of this mental structure is also expressed in its dualization of  time.  From Duns Scotus to Volkelt, including Locke, Kant, and Bergson, (43) it is separated into the objective time of things and the subjective time of the soul, or into some other conceptual dualism.  As we have said, this is a speculatio rationalis.  But it is precisely these recurrent attempts to dualize time--whether as Bergson's antithesis of time versus natural "duration," or understood as being in opposition to itself as begun by Aristotle and continued down through Volkelt (44)--which are in danger of a psychization or mythologization.  It is not our intent to adduce the numerous examples which any history book of philosophy can furnish as proof of this psychization, but only to not a symptomatic example from Aristotle.  He proceeds from the point of view that the "Now" does not exist, since it is at once the end ot he past and the beginning of the future; consequently he considers it to be merely a kind of "in between" which interrupts or internlinks as a fixed point in space a time without beginning or end.

The apostrophe may well be an unconscious reversion to the mythical attitude, one whose impact is not lessened by the fact that Aristotle implicitly places past and future into opposition and thereby dualizes them at the same time he attributes to them a psychistic lack of beginning and end.  By this dualization, or as Volkelt has called it, "two-dimensionality," time is linearly spatialized.  As soon as the Now is interposed as an "in between" between past and future, it ceases to be purely a mental modality of time and becomes a spatialized modality.  It is no longer merely oriented, but has the additional (and deficient) aspect of spatiality.  In the sense of "in-betweenness" the Now is a conceptual positing as a part of time, a definitely spatializing and rationalizing act of consciousness applied, not to space, but to time which spatializes space.

This spatializing aspect is also evident in language, evidence of the pervasive grasp of spatialized thought on the European mentality.  In French, for example, maintenant ("now") suggests literally "holding in hand"' German Augenblick ("moment") means literally "glance of the eye."  The measured aspect of time is expressed Spanish ahora, "one the hour," while German jetzt, "now," reflects a certain abstractness because of the abstract nature of the adverb in general. (45)

The setting-fast of time as "in-betweenness" is a perversion of time, since time thereby acquires spatiality and ceases to be the initiator and function of space as a result of its partitive and severing characteristic.  Time, and with it the temporal as well as the timeless, is a basic constituent of space; it is not a part of space, that is, is a disqualified dimension, but its very basis and basic dimension.  (We shall see farther on that it is more appropriately defined as an "a-mension" because it reaches beyond dimensionality; see pp. 340, 383, and 458f. below.)  This "dimension" is only today coming to awareness, or, more exactly, is only able to come to awareness when it is no longer conceived of as "time," "movement," or "timeless being," but as the presence of origin.  One point of departure for this kind of time concretion today is the fact that time is considered to be "reversible," a manifestation of a pervasive departure from the rationalistic and perspectivistic attitude, since time is then no longer divisive and directinally oriented in only one "sense."

The division of measurable time into past and future is a form of deficient spatialization and psychization, if only because past and future are invariably characterized by their emphasis on joy and suffering.  It is this characteristic of the experiential tension that reveals the deficient and psychistic nature of the dualism.  Anyone who indulges in this manner of thinking is confined to the psyche right down to the very level of his abstractions.  He is a psychist, the unknowing counterpart of the materialist.

This is manifest in the case of Volkelt who devises ane "experiential time" in his defense of the two-dimensionality of time.  "Experiential time" is of course merely a fiction.  A phenomenon of the magic sphere, vital experience, cannot be merely coupled with a mental phenomenon, time, without rendering both phenomena and their respective spheres deficient. And this deficiency leads inevitably to a rational destruction of time, to that amorphous nothingness into which man in Heidegger's view is "thrown" out of a worrisome "now."

If we take Heidegger at his word--since he delights in taking statements at their word to the point of rationalizing them into formulas devoid of any content--this "being thrown" is itself evidence of the inhumanity of his philosophy  (earlier only animals were "thrown," i.e., brought forth).  Heidegger's philosophy is a clear example of the consequences of such psychistic deficiency, for his positing of a "nothing of nothingness" in opposition to a "being of being" is surely nothing else but a rebellion of the one-time interpreter Duns Scotus. (46)

By abandoning the religious sphere surrounding the work of Duns Scotus in a mood of resentment, and seeking escape from its protective polarity by making it into a rational antithesis, Heidegger necessarily went astray in the wake of the incomplete transition: he did not realize his psychic confinement that he was already operating in a different structure, substituting in his confusion a negative caricature of the mythical, with its religious bond, for the mental.  Instead of transcending his point of departure, he negates it by his deficiency.  And this means that at best there is a negative transcendence of his point of departure; it is the naught, the zero, the activated amorphous dust that triumphs in the negatively activated "nothing of nothingness."  It is no wonder that Heidegger accorded to "care" and "worry" such a crucial place in his philosophy. (47)

Let these brief remarks suffice to call attention to the perils inherent in the improper view and application of  the purely mental conception of time to our spatial world and our lives.  Dividing time, which is itself a divider, leads to atomization, whether of the ratio or of the spatial world; a psychistic mode of understanding leads to a deficient mythologization in the guise of an abstraction; and spatialization divests space itself of its foundation.

The degree to which labyrinthine entanglement of rationality can be manifest is evident from the fact that, since Parmenides, notably since Plato, now space, now time, and yet again duration have been equaled with being.  We have repeatedly pointed out this basic error which led to the postulation of non-being or non-beings (p. 80, among others), a self-destructive antithesis because it lacks a congruent counterpart.  This antithesis, moreover, is able to activate this non-being into a nullifying nothingness.  Athena's well-aimed lance which overtakes space threatens to dissolve into dust, thereby bringing to an end the space which it has opened up and dominated.

It should by now be evident from the above discussion that the spatial emphasis of the mental structure is threatened with the destruction of its laboriously acheived three-dimensionality.  This threat lies in the amorphous nullity which occurs whenever the concept of time is spatialized into a psychistic and deficiently mentalized manner.  This spatialization is subject to dissolution because it destroys the very basis for space.  We will see later on the degree to which our rational thought is a spatializing act and the expression of this spatialization.  Here we would only note once again that the phenomenon of "lack of time" is characteristic of our material, spatially accentuated world:  How is anyone to have time if he tears it apart? 

It is sufficient for us to know that time ruptured the mythical circle and thus made possible our world of thought and detachment.  Let us take care that the inappropriate manipulation of time does not bring about its destruction and the destruction of what is dependent on it.  Let us ensure that it is used effectively according to its nature in the four-dimensionalty where it can establish a new possibility of the world: concretized and integrated, and superseding the mere spatial emphasis of the mind.

Wherever time is able to become "the present," it is able to render transparent "simultaneously" the timelessness of magic, the temporicity of myth, and the temporality of the mind.  Therer is already signs of this inceptual mutation that can be demonstrated (and it is the task of the second part of the present work  to make this demonstration).  What has been said up to this moment has endeavored to give evidence of the spatial emphasis of the mental structure on the basis of its principle component, time, and not as before on the basis of perspectivity.

Space will change, indeed, it is already changing.  In this change it will lose its conceptualized material emphasis when presentiality shows through.  Our exposition of the dimensional aspects was addressed to te foundations of a new mutation of consciousness from which the capabilities of diaphany and presentiation will appear impossible only to those who are caught up exclusively in their magic, mythical, or mental spheres: and they will necessarily react with fanaticism, emotion, or sophistry to our discussion as a result. 

But these are only conditionalities, inevitabilities, and limitations: what is more important is the attempt to establish that mankind is able to catch sight of values and inceptual events precisely at that moment when it faces bankruptcy and suicide.  Are there visible inceptions which point "beyond" this Western civilization?  The answer is positive: nowhere does the "new" seem so visible as where something is going to "rack and ruin": the ruins which themselves contain the basis for the new.