1890-91.] REFORMS IN TIME BECKONING. 133 



maly is common to each of the seven days of the week ? Again, " local 

 time " is a familiar expression, but it is entirely incorrect. There is no 

 such thing as local time. The expression " local time " is based upon the 

 theory that time changes with the longitude ; that each meridian has a 

 separate and distinct time. Let us follow this theory out. Take a 

 hundred or a thousand different meridians. All meridians meet at two 

 common points, one in each of the hemispheres, the poles, so that at each 

 of these points we would have a hundred or a thousand different " local 

 times." This only requires to be stated to establish the impossibility and 

 absurdity of the theory that in nature there is a multiplicity of " local 

 times." Why do we use the terms " astronomical time," " solar time," 

 " sidereal time," " nautical^time," " mean time," and so on ? Expressions 

 which imply plurality of the conception which we call time ? Let us 

 endeavor to make clear that these terms are misleading, by asking what 

 time actually is. 



It is less difficult to say what it is not, than to define what time is. 

 This much we know, it is neither fluid nor solid ; it has no body or 

 spirit ; it is not distinguishable by any of the senses ; we can only form a 

 conception of time by its passage ; it is nevertheless a reality with an 

 infinite past and an infinite future. Continuity is its chief attribute ; it 

 may be likened to an endless chain composed of an infinite number of 

 links, each link inseparably connected with its fellow links, while the 

 whole moves onward in unalterable order. Unlike material bodies, time 

 cannot be divided into separate parts, to constitute two or more distinct 

 portions or classes of duration, in the sense in which solids and fluids 

 can be divided ; it may be likened to a stream diffused throughout 

 space, which uninterruptedly flows uniformly onward, and more than one 

 such stream is inconceivable. If time cannot be divided into separate 

 parts, it may be divided in another sense, but the divisions are not inter- 

 changeable ; it is not possible for any one division to be displaced, or 

 any two divisions to be transposed ; divisions of time cannot like books 

 in a library be classified and arranged in separate shelves, or be changed 

 from place to place ; they cannot as soldiers in a regiment fall out of 

 position in the ranks ; all divisions and sub-divisions of time remain in 

 an unbroken line, they advance in single file, never to pass out of con- 

 secutive order. Time remains uninfluenced by matter, by space, or by 

 distance ; it is universal and essentially non-local. There is only one 

 time, and its divisions can never be found side by side ; they only follow 

 one another. Different times, so-called, are merely divisions of the one 

 time ; they do not co-exist, but are parts of an inseparable whole. Time 

 is an absolute unity, the same throughout the entire universe, with 



