ESSAYS TOWARDS A 

 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 



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TIME AND PERIODICITY 



WE can measure Time in one way only by 

 counting repeated motions. Apart from the opera- 

 tion of the physical Law of Periodicity we should 

 have no natural measures of Time. If that state- 

 ment be true it follows that apart from the operation 

 of this law we could not attain to any knowledge 

 of Time. 1 Perhaps this latter proposition may not 

 at first be readily granted. Few, probably, would 

 hesitate to admit that in a condition in which our 

 experience was a complete blank we should be 

 unable to acquire any knowledge of Time ; but it 

 may not be quite so evident that in a condition in 

 which experience consisted of a multifarious but 

 never repeated succession of impressions the Know- 



1 Plato in the dialogue Timceus tells us that Time was born with 

 the Heavens, and that Sun, Moon, and Planets were created in order 

 that Time might be. 



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