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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-The Time Machine by H.G. Wells


3

CHAPTER 1

THE TIME TRAVELLER (for so it will be convenient to speak of
him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone
and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated.
The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and
passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and
caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was
that luxurious afterdinner atmosphere when thought runs
gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in
this way-marking the points with a lean forefinger-as we sat and
lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we
thought it) and his fecundity.

‘You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or
two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for
instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.’
‘Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?’ said
Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.

‘I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable
ground for it.

You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of
course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real
existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane.
These things are mere abstractions.’ ‘That is all right,’ said the
Psychologist.

‘Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a
real existence.’ ‘There I object,’ said Filby. ‘Of course a solid body
may exist. All real things’ ‘So most people think. But wait a
moment. Can an instantaneous cube exist?’ ‘Don’t follow you,’ said
Filby.

‘Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real
existence?’ 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
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