These views have been very ably and fully exemplified in a little work called "The Stars and the Earth," by an anonymous writer. And it is in his words that I propose to conclude this short inquiry into the nature of time:

"We have to show that the phenomena of the universe which are referable to space and time may be ... well conceived, as forming together a single point; . . . that a space of time which we call long or short, is actually and really caused by our human mode of comprehension.

"Let us suppose that from some given time, for example from to-day, the course of the stars and of our earth becomes twice as rapid as before, and that the year passes by in six months, each season in six weeks, and each day in twelve hours; that the period of the life of man is in like manner reduced to one half of its present duration, so that, speaking in general terms, the longest human life, instead of eighty years lasts for forty, each of which contains as many of the new days of twelve hours as the former years did when the days were twenty-four hours long; the drawing of our breath and the

in their occurrence, and would yet present the same proportional lengths of duration."

stroke of the pulse would proceed with double their usual rapidity, and our new period of life would appear to us of the normal length.

"The hands of the clock would no longer make the circuit in one hour and in twelve, but the long hand in thirty minutes, the short one in six hours. The development of plants and animals would take place with double their usual speed, and the wind and the lightning would consume in their rapid course but one half of their present time.

"With these suppositions, I ask in what way should we be affected by the change? The answer to this question is, We should be cognizant of no change. We should even consider one who supposed or who attempted to point out that such a change had taken place, was mad, or we should look upon him as an enthusiast. We should have no possible ground to consider that any other condition had existed.

"Now, as we can determine the lapse of any period of time only by comparison or by measuring it with some other period, and as every division of time which we use in our comparison or in our measurements has been lessened by

one half its duration, the original proportion would still remain unchanged.

"Our forty years would pass as the eighty did; we should perform everything twice as quickly as before; but as our life, our breath, and movements are proportionately hastened, it would be impossible to measure the increased speed, or even to remark it. As far as we could tell, everything had remained precisely as it was before, not comparative but absolutely, provided we had no standard external to the accelerated course of events in the world, by which we could perceive the changes or measure them.

"A similar result would follow if we imagined the course of time reduced to the fourth, instead of to the half, so that the year would consist of three months, -the greatest age of man would be reduced to twenty of the present years, - and our entire life, with that of all the creatures about us, would be passed in a proportionately shortened period. In this case we should not only not perceive the change, but we should in reality suffer no change, since we should live to see every thing which we should otherwise have seen, and all the experience and the events of our life, in their duration and with their con

sequences, would remain unchanged in the relations which they bear to one another.

"For the same reasons, if the period and processes of life, and the course of events in the world around us, were accelerated a thousand or a million times, or, in short, if they were infinitely shortened, we should obtain a similar result; and we can in this way imagine the entire course of the history of the world compressed into a single immeasurably short space of time, without our being able to perceive the change, in fact, without our having undergone any change. For, whether any space of time is longer or shorter, is a question which can only be answered, and which can indeed only be looked upon, as reasonable, if we are able to compare the time to be measured with some other limited period; but not if we compare it to the endless duration which is looked upon as without beginning and without end, which we call' Time.'

"Hence the proposition that for the occurrence of any given event a certain lapse of time is requisite, may be altogether rejected. This time which elapses during the occurrence is rather accidental than necessary, and it might as easily

be any other period. . . . From all those considerations it becomes sufficiently clear that Time is merely a mode and condition by which the human mind, with the assistance of human senses, perceives the occurrence of events, whilst the events themselves, in all their fulness and perfection, may occur in a longer or a shorter time, and thus must be looked upon as independent of time. A thought or an idea is something momentary. He who has such an idea, has it entire and at once. But he who wishes to communicate it to others, requires for the purpose a certain time, just as such a space is also necessary for those to whom it is communicated. Hence time is not necessary for the origination or existence of the idea, but only for its communication and comprehension; and the idea exists as independently of time, as, according to the points we have discussed before, the entire history of the world can and must be looked upon as independent of time. Time is only the rhythm of the world's history."

a

The preceding facts and suppositions, which have been brought forward with the view of illustrating what we believe to be the true

a The Stars and the Earth, p. 32.