Chapter IV (part 5)

There results in the other case a life upon some sort of needle-point called the present , which is surrounded on all sides by an abyss of non-existence, a journey in a country which does not as yet exist , a life in a world which is born and dies every moment, in which nothing ever returns . And both these opposite views are equally untrue, because the truth, in the given case, as in so many others, is contained in a union of two opposite understandings in one. In every given moment all the future of the world is predestined and is existing, but is predestined conditionally, i.e., it will be such or another future according to the direction of events at a given moment, unless there enters a new fact , and a new fact can enter only from the side of consciousness and the will resulting from it. It is necessary to understand this, and to master it. Besides this we are hindered from a right conception of the relation of the present toward the future by our misunderstanding of the relation of the present to the past. The difference of opinion p. 45 exists only concerning the future ; concerning the past all agree that it has passed, that it does not exist now!— and that it was such as it has been . In this last lies the key to the understanding of the incorrectness of our views of the future. As a matter of fact, in reality our relation both to the past and to the future is far more complicated than it seems to us. In the past, behind us, lies not only that which really happened, but that which could have been . In the same way, in the future lies not only that which will be, but everything that may be . The past and the future are equally undetermined, equally exist in all their possibilities, and equally exist simultaneously with the present. By time we mean the distance separating events in the order of their succession and binding them in different wholes. This distance lies in a direction not contained in three-dimensional space, therefore it will be the new dimension of space . This new dimension satisfies all possible requirements of the fourth dimension on the ground of the preceding reasoning . It is incommensurable with the dimensions of three-dimensional space , as a year is incommensurable with St. Petersburg. It is perpendicular to all directions of three-dimensional space and is not parallel to any of them. As a deduction from all the preceding we may say that time (as it is usually understood) includes in itself two ideas : that of a certain to us unknown space (the fourth dimension), and that of a motion upon this space. Our constant mistake consists in the fact that in time we never see two ideas, but see always only one. Usually we see in time the idea of motion, but cannot say from whence, where, whither, nor upon what space. Attempts have been made heretofore to unite the idea of the fourth dimension with the idea of time. But in those theories which have attempted to combine the idea of time with the idea of the fourth dimension appeared always the idea of some spatial element as existing in time, and along with it was admitted motion upon that space . Those who were constructing these theories evidently did not understand that leaving out the possibility of motion they were advancing the demand for a new time, because motion cannot proceed out of time. And as a result time goes ahead of us, like our shadow, receding according p. 46 as we approach it. All our perceptions of motion have become confused. If we imagine the new dimension of space and the possibility of motion upon this new dimension, time will still elude us, and declare that it is unexplained, exactly as it was unexplained before.