I Introduction chapter 1 paragraph 10 among 52 paragraphs
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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.”
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“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to
relight his cigar over the lamp; “that . . . very clear
indeed.”
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“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?”
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“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-Dimensional 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?”
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“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.
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“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 were, Three-Dimensional representations
of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
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“Scientific people,” proceeded the Time Traveller, after the
pause required for the proper assimilation of this, “know very well
that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a
weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the
barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this
morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did
not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognised?
But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must
conclude, was along the Time-Dimension.”
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“But,” said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the
fire, “if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it,
and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot
we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of
Space?”
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The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so sure we can move freely in
Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and
men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how
about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.”
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“But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the
inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical
movement.”
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“My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where
the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present
moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions,
are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the
cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel down if we began our
existence fifty miles above the earth’s surface.”
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“But the great difficulty is this,” interrupted the
Psychologist. ’You can move about in all directions of Space,
but you cannot move about in Time.”
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“That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say
that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an
incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become
absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no
means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an
animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilised man is
better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against
gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may
be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even
turn about and travel the other way?”
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