CONTRADICTIONS OF TIME. 63 



science as well as of theology, and that knowledge as 

 well as faith is reared upon the milk of mythology ? 

 § 6. If ^.^. we consider the conception of Time, 

 we find that Time is for scientific purposes taken as 

 discrete, and divided* into years, days, hours, minutes, 

 and seconds ; and indeed its accuracy in measuring 

 Time is one of the chief boasts of modern science. 

 And yet is not this very measurement of Time based 

 on all sorts of fictitious assumptions ? When we 

 ask how Time is measured, we perceive that our 

 measurements in the last resort are all based on the 

 supposed regularity of certain motions. And the 

 measurement of these motions again depends on the 

 supposed accuracy of our time-pieces. And further, 

 as far as our observation can check their vagaries, 

 we have every reason to believe that not one 

 of these motions is really regular. And so our 

 measurements of time move in a vicious circle : 

 Time depends on motion and motion on Time. 

 Some interesting corollaries would follow from this, 

 such as that if the motions on which our measure- 

 ment of Time depends were uniformly accelerated, 

 the flow of Time also would be accelerated in like 

 proportion, and the events of a lifetime might be 

 crowded into what would previously have been re- 

 garded as a few minutes. And if this acceleration 

 were conceived to go on indefinitely, any finite 

 series of events could be compressed into an in- 

 finitely short time. Or conversely, supposing that 

 the flow of Time could somehow be indefinitely 

 accelerated without corresponding acceleration in 

 the flow of events, a finite series of events would 

 last for an infinite Time. In either case the infinite 

 divisibility of Time would be equivalent to infinite 

 duration, and the essential subjectivity of Time 



