The question of the nature of time is one which brings us into close contact with Philosophic and Metaphysical thought and one is apt to find oneself in very deep waters indeed. Still I think it is possible to show how the higher space ideas come in without involving myself in controversial statements. I shall leave it to others to decide whether, as I am inclined to suspect, the acceptance of higher space concepts as actualities would provide Metaphysicians with a somewhat new field of speculation or modified methods of expression.
It has been suggested by some writers that "the fourth dimension is time."
At first sight this definition would seem to conflict with our original statement that it is an unknown direction in space at right angles to every direction which we can find. But, as a matter of fact there is a certain amount to be said for the idea. It might be pointed out, for instance that for an object to exist at all it must possess some "extension" in time. It must, that is to say, not only possess a certain length and breadth and thickness but must also exist for a certain time. Otherwise it simply does not exist. Then, again, if we were able to "travel" in time we might fairly claim to be travelling in a previously unknown direction, different that is from any direction at present known to us.
Moreover, as I showed at the end of the first chapter, changes in our space could be accounted for by supposing them to represent our perception of a series of parallel sections made by our three-dimensional space cutting an assemblage of suitably shaped and arranged four-dimensional solids. It is here that I think we find a clue which may perhaps be relevant to the present discussion.
I am far from being prepared to say that the fourth dimension is time because I doubt whether time as commonly understood is an "absolute" thing. It seems to me to be rather a limitation of our finite consciousness.
In the Divine Consciousness which I take to be alone Absolute there can be, surely, no Past or Future; all must be comprehended in the Eternal Now.
But I do think it possible that if we were not limited to three dimensions in thought and experience we might be able greatly to modify our present conceptions of time and to understand many things with regard to it which at present appear obscure.
Let us start by considering for a moment our ordinary idea of "Time." To start with we associate it with clocks and next, if we go a step further back, with the movement of the earth relative to the sun and stars. A clock is merely a mechanical device for subdividing into equal parts of suitable size the intervals between successive recurrences of certain astronomical events. In fact our ordinary ideas of time are determined by a wholly fortuitous arrangement of the component parts of the Solar System. If the masses etc. were other than they are, our day and year would be altered accordingly. It is quite conceivable that in some highly complex system of several "suns" moving under the influence of their mutual attractions and attended each by its own sub-system of satellites, there might be a world from which all the observable astronomical phenomena would be so complicated that its inhabitants could detect no regularity in them at all.
If, for instance, any given astronomical grouping of the observable bodies only recurred once in a hundred generations of the inhabitants, the measurement of time from astronomical data would be scarcely practicable.