DISTINCTION OF SPACE AND TIME 51 



into the neutral wedge; they are kept absolutely sepa- 

 rated by the Seen-Now lines which we have identified with 

 the grain of absolute structure in the world. We have 

 recovered the distinction which the Astronomer Royal 

 confused when he associated time with the merely arti- 

 ficial Now lines. 



I would direct your attention to an important differ- 

 ence in our apprehension of time-extension and space- 

 extension. As already explained our course through the 

 world is into the absolute future, i.e. along a sequence 

 of time-relations. We can never have a similar experi- 

 ence of a sequence of space-relations because that 

 would involve travelling with velocity greater than light. 

 Thus we have immediate experience of the time-relation 

 but not of the space-relation. Our knowledge of space- 

 relations is indirect, like nearly all our knowledge of the 

 external world — a matter of inference and interpretation 

 of the impressions which reach us through our sense- 

 organs. We have similar indirect knowledge of the 

 time-relations existing between the events in the world 

 outside us; but in addition we have direct experience 

 of the time-relations that we ourselves are traversing — 

 a knowledge of time not coming through external sense- 

 organs, but taking a short cut into our consciousness. 

 When I close my eyes and retreat into my inner mind, 

 I feel myself enduring, I do not feel myself extensive. It 

 is this feeling of time as affecting ourselves and not 

 merely as existing in the relations of external events 

 which is so peculiarly characteristic of it; space on the 

 other hand is always appreciated as something external. 



That is why time seems to us so much more mysteri- 

 ous than space. We know nothing about the intrinsic 

 nature of space, and so it is quite easy to conceive it 

 satisfactorily. We have intimate acquaintance with the 



