The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-01-20
THE DIVISION OF TINE.

The imagination ia strongly affected
by our artificial division of time. W.
have come to look upon it as some.
thing aolid and tangible. The end Of
one year and the beginning of anothe,
| is to US like the closing of one exeihi-
ton and the opening of another. We
seem to ourselves 10 step over q def.
mite line, out OF one existence into
another. Each year has character
and a sort OF individuality in the
mind. December ia the last page in
our ledger; with January we open q
| new set of books. The arbitrary divi-
sion of the year into months imposes
on US in the same way. Each month
is not only a definite space in our
lives, bat it has character. In Civ
ing it q name and certain space CT
duration We have made it an entity,
and we cannot escape from the
thralldom of this al bitrary succession.
This is convenient in many ways.
bat it has its disadvantages. The
chopping up of time into rigid peri
DDS is an invasion of Individual free
dom, aud makes no allowance for
differences in temperament and feel
ing.
Let US illustrate. This sharp divi-
sion does not mark with equal Justice
the flight of time. The world is prae
tioalIy divided into two classes
debtof and creditor. This classical
ton ia no more accurate than that OF
saints and sinners, but it holds true
that some men are naturally debtors,
and others naturally creditors. In
the district school even, where the
stock in trade is slate-pencils. Dish
hooks, and chewing-gum, there are
certain to be two or three boys who
are capitalists. always making cor
ner in their trousers pockets. while
the rest of the boys are borrowers.
Now the creditors like this system of
months and years. They watch the
manner OF these artificial periois
with interest, in order to send in
their bills and exhort their profits.
They have nearly mined the glad
New Year-taken all the poetry out
OF it. They have filled it with mer>
camille and sordid suggestions. They
often poison the most sordid sugges-
tions. The writer, who at family
prayers. daily, and for years. heard
his grandfather say, the bells of
mortality are sounding in our ears"
grew up with the impression that be
was saving "the bills of mortality are
sounding in our ears" The debtor
hates this artificial and vexatious ar
rangemen. OF time. He would like it
to flow on unbroken like q river,
peacefully, without dams, and with
out the constant apprehension of
checks to his serenity. He is not
dishonest. 1t is this being called to
account by an artificial system that
worries him. He is perfectly sincere,
according to his nature, when he says
ST will pay in time" This fragrant
Injustice is still more marked in the
reckoning of the age of people, II
assumes that all people grow old at
the same pace. VIGOROUSLY this is
untrue. Women feel the injustice OF
this calendar, especially single wo-
men, No wonder, therefore, that
they refuse to tell how many years
they have been ia the world, for our
habit is to reckon age by years. For
this reason woman who knows that
che is only Is does not like to confess
that she has had forty birthdays. not
because she is ashamed of her real
age, but because OF the falseness of
reckoning age by the artificial peri
DDS we have adopted. Some people
are old at 20, others are young at 60.
Some people live three years in one,
and thus come to old age before two
score. Others live and grow slowly,
and it is mere Misrepresentation to
say OF them that they are 80 years
old, and We must say in our artificial
method. II is absurd TO reduce life to
q mathematical statement.
We we're saying that the twelve
mopths have come to have an indi-
vidual character, as distinct in some
minds, perhaps, as that of the twelve
apostles. They are distractions, like
the hours. and. in way. like num-
bers, like figures, like the letters of
the alphabet. But the tendency is to
think Of the things in the concrete,
and the inquiry has arisen, how DO
different people think OF the month";,
the hours, and 80 on2 What sort OF
shape do these things assume in the
mind? How do We see them? One
person always sess the numerals ar.
ranged in a straight line, extending
indefinitely, or sees them up to 100,
or 1 900, and greater number repeat
themselves In that form. One person
declares that he thinks of the figures
1, 2, 3. 4. 5. 6, z. s, 9, 10; that is, he
sees them, never in line but always
irregularly placed. according to
certain value that he cannot explain.
And people see the letters of the al
phabet, and months and days, with
the same differences. How do you
coo fbc poorths-fho kualvn rnOntha