LECTURE 



ON 



THE REIATIOIS OF TIME AND SPACE. 



By professor S. ALEXANDER, 



OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JEE3ET. 



-.-xANT of the truths with which we are conversant have not so much 

 to do with things as with the relation of things. There are no such 

 things, in themselves considered, as 3, 4, 7, or 2^ ; and even length, 

 breadth, thickness, and capacity are not things in themselves consid- 

 ered, although they belong to all material substances. As with us, 

 so far as we have to do with them, time and space are not things, but 

 the relation of beings and things. We occupy space, and pass our 

 lives in time. There was, therefore, force as well as truth in the ob- 

 servation of Franklin: "Dost thou love life, then do not squander 

 time, for time is the stuff that life is made of." We avail ourselves 

 of this pithy saying of his Poor Richard in order that we may vindi- 

 cate the necessity for our going a little further and ascertaining the 

 material of which time itself is constituted. This, in the largest sense 

 of the term, is duration. Now, without attempting to define either 

 space or duration, we may readily describe both. Thus it will be con- 

 ceded that space is that wherein there is room for the whole material 

 creation, so that bodies in it may exist apart. And so, in a somewhat 

 metaphorical sense, duration is that wherein there is room for events 

 to occur; it is that wherein, in one sense, things may happen, or in 

 which it is essential to space that its portions should be diverse in 

 position. All experience tells us that our right hand cannot occupy 

 the same place with our left, and the accurate experiments of natural 

 philosophy abundantly confirm this conclusion. Not only so, but also 

 when my right hand goes to the place where my left hand was, it for- 

 sakes its place, leaves behind that part of space it occupied, and goes 

 to another part of space, so that it is essential to space that the por- 

 tions of it should be diverse in position. It is just as essential to 

 duration, in so far as we have to do with it, that its portions should 

 exist in succession. Tuesday cannot, by any device, become Wed- 

 nesday; it has preceded that day. Thursday cannot, in like manner, 

 become Wednesday; it must succeed it. It is essential to space, there- 

 fore, that its portions should be diverse, and essential to duration that 

 its portions should exist in succession. It is, moreover, a result of all 



