Duration, Modification, Comparison

Bergson basically agrees with the Phenomenalist that the familiar experience--warm water feeling hot to a hand that has just been in the cold--shows that the quality inheres in the subject, not in the object.  He diverges from that tradition by conceiving the transition from cold to hot to be a continuum, with no lacuna.  Regardless, what the example more precisely demonstrates is that the transition is not from cold to hot, but from colder to hotter, i. e. that its terms are comparative, not positive, qualities.  Furthermore, any experiential transition is a modification of some given.  In other words, Duration is Modification, and a result of a modification is what it is only in comparison to what has been modified.  The inherent comparativeness of Duration may not be obvious from hypothetical examples of random sequences the Physicist analysis of de-vitalized Motion, but it is plain in ordinary experience, which is typically constituted by action that aims at improving given conditions.