"In proportion as the present supplants the past, states of consciousness disappear and are effaced. After a short time but little remains; the greater part are veiled in an oblivion whence they never emerge, and they take with them the quantity of duration inherent in each; consequently, the elimination of states of consciousness is an elimination of time. Now, the abbreviated processes... suppose such elimination. If, to reach a distant recollection, it were necessary to traverse the entire series of intervening terms, memory would be impossible, because of the length of time required for the operation."