64 



SYDNEY T. KLEIN ON THE INVISIBLE IS THE REAL. 



It is a remarkable fact that the human race on this particular 

 world has in some inexplicable way come to look upon the future 

 as non-existent until we arrive at it and are able to perceive 

 with our senses what is happening there. This is all the more 

 inexplicable when we realise that in traversing space we have to 

 mnve to get anywhere, but in traversing time we have nothing 

 equivalent to movement. This way of looking upon the future 

 as non-existent is probably another sign that our race is still in 

 its infancy and that v\-e have hitherto looked upon time not only 

 as a reality but as actually moving or extending along a line from 

 what we call the past to future etermty; whereas, under our 

 present outlook, we have no consciousness of the existence of 

 time exc:pt as intervals between successive thoughts. Our con- 

 sciousness of the existence of time is based upon our repeating 

 the present by saying to ourselves the words Xow-Xow-Xow ; 

 but there is nothing that can be called m.ovement in this any 

 more than when we stand still and repeat the words Here-Here 

 Here relating to space. 



Our present conception of the future may at any time be 

 rectified by either a slight rearrangement of the slender network 

 of nerves or microscopical filaments attached to the cells in the 

 grey cortical layer, or even by a single bridge thrown across from 

 one convolution to another in the brain: a very slight alteration 

 would open up to our consciousness the present existence of the 

 futm'e. The prime perceivable difference between our brain and 

 that of the apes and other animals is the laro[er number of 

 enfoldments or convolutions that are developed in the human. 

 Each new line of thought, or sequence of thoughts, requires and 

 is provided with a new wrinkle or microscopical convolution, and 

 it probably only requires the attention of the race to be focussed 

 for a time on the subject to evolve the slight alteration or bridore 

 necessar\^ to enable us to realise that the future, as also the past, 

 does actually exist and is included in the Now. It may make 

 this a little clearer to consider that if we maintain that, ir. 

 traversing the duration of time, the future does not exist until 

 we arrive there, we should also maintain that, in traversing the 

 extension of space, our destination, say Eome, does not exist 

 until we anive there and can see it with our eyes. 



That is as far as I can take you. in this present paper, towards 

 the appreciation of this curious illusion of time, but I would 

 like to say here that I could take you mu(!h further and 

 that, from my own personal experience, it is not impossible to 

 grasp the realisation referred to. In another place* I have indeed 

 shown logically that it is quite conceivable that, at a not far 

 distant date, the books which are noiv being written in the future, 

 say even 5.000 years hence, may actually be in our hands, so 



* Science and Infinite. 



