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The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells [1898] |
I |
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) |
was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and |
twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The |
fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent |
lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and |
passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and |
caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that |
luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully |
free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this |
way--marking the points with a lean forefinger--as we sat and lazily |
admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) |
and his fecundity. |
'You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two |
ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for |
instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.' |
'Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' |
said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair. |
'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable |
ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You |
know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness _nil_, |
has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a |
mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.' |
'That is all right,' said the Psychologist. |
'Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a |
real existence.' |
'There I object,' said Filby. 'Of course a solid body may exist. All |
real things--' |
'So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an _instantaneous_ |
cube exist?' |
'Don't follow you,' said Filby. |
'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real |
existence?' |
Filby became pensive. 'Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, 'any |
real body must have extension in _four_ directions: it must have |
Length, Breadth, Thickness, and--Duration. But through a natural |
infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we |
incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, |
three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. |
There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between |
the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that |
our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the |
latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.' |
'That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight |
his cigar over the lamp; 'that ... very clear indeed.' |
'Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' |
continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of |
cheerfulness. 'Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, |
though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know |
they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. _There is |
no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space |
except that our consciousness moves along it_. But some foolish |
people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all |
heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?' |
'_I_ have not,' said the Provincial Mayor. |
'It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is |
spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, |
Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to |
three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some |
philosophical people have been asking why _three_ dimensions |
particularly--why not another direction at right angles to the other |
three?--and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. |
Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York |
Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat |
surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of |
a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models |
of three dimensions they could represent one of four--if they could |
master the perspective of the thing. See?' |
'I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his |
brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one |
who repeats mystic words. 'Yes, I think I see it now,' he said after |
some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. |
'Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this |
geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results |
are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight |
years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at |
twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it |
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