Chapter IV (part 8)

We have that sense, therefore we sense motion. The time-sense is the sensation of changing moments. If we did not have this time-sense we could not feel motion. The "time-sense" is itself, in substance, the limit or the surface of our "space-sense." Where the "space-sense" ends, there the "time-sense" begins. It has been made clear that "time" is identical in its properties with "space," i.e., it has all the signs of space extension . However, we do not feel it as spatial extension, but we feel it as time, that is, as something specific, inexpressible—in other words, uninterruptedly bound up with "motion." This inability to sense time spatially has its origin in the fact that the time-sense is a misty space-sense ; by means of our time-sense we feel obscurely the new characteristics of space, which extend out from the sphere of three dimensions. But what is the time-sense and why does there arise the illusion of motion? p. 50 To answer this question at all satisfactorily is possible only by studying the forms and levels of psychic life. "I" is a complicated quantity, and within it goes on a continuous motion. About the nature of this motion we shall speak later, but this very motion inside of us creates the illusion of motion around us, motion in the material world. ______ The noted mathematician Riemann understood that when higher dimensions of space are in question, time, by some means, translates itself into space , and he regarded the MATERIAL ATOM as the entrance of the fourth dimension into three-dimensional space . In one of his books Hinton writes very interestingly about "surface tensions." The relationship of a surface to a solid or of a solid to a higher solid is one which we often find in nature. A surface is nothing more nor less than the relation between two things. Two bodies touch each other. The surface is the relationship of one to the other. If our space is in the same co-relation with higher space as is the surface to our space, then it may be that our space is really the surface, that is, the place of contact, of two higher-dimensional spaces. It is a fact worthy of notice that in the surface of a fluid different laws obtain from those which hold throughout the mass. There is a whole series of facts which are grouped together under the name of surface tensions, which are of great importance in physics, and by which the behavior of the surfaces of liquids is governed. And it may well be that the laws of our universe are the surface tensions of a higher universe. If the surface be regarded as a medium lying between bodies, then indeed it will have no weight, but be a powerful means of transmitting vibrations. Moreover, it would be unlike any other substance, and it would be impossible to get rid of it. However perfect a vacuum be made, there would be in this vacuum just as much of this unknown medium (i.e., of that surface) as there was before. Matter would pass freely through this medium . . . vibrations of this medium would tear asunder portions of matter. And involuntarily the conclusion would be drawn that this medium was unlike any ordinary matter. . . . These would be very different properties to reconcile in one and the same substance. p. 51 Now is there anything in our experience which corresponds to this medium? . . . Do we suppose the existence of any medium through which matter freely moves, which yet by its vibrations destroys the combinations of matter—some medium which is present in every vacuum however perfect, which penetrates all bodies, is weightless, and yet can never be laid hold of. The "substance" which possesses all these qualities is called the "ether." The properties of the ether are a perpetual object of investigation in science. . . .