William James's discussion of the perception of time in Principles of Psychology (Vol. I, Ch. 15) provides a convenient starting point for a discussion of the "consciousness of time." James's main concern was to give an empiricist account of our temporal concepts. This is clear from the Lockean question with which he started: "What is the original of our experience of pastness, from whence we get the meaning of the term?" (p. 605) and from his answer that the "prototype of all conceived times is the specious present, the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible" (p. 631). A contemporary empiricist might formulate James's thesis thus: that all other temporal concepts can be defined in terms of the relation "earlier than" and that this relation is sense given or can be ostensively defined so that even if a person does not use the term...