240 . SYDNEY T. KLEIN, F.L.S., F.R.A.S., ON 



vibration in twenty-four hours ; there could then be no know- 

 ledge of the sun except as a broad band of light always extend- 

 ing across the heavens, one could not follow its movements so as 

 to see its shape. Let us look at this from another aspect : we 

 are looking at the insect whose wings are beating 10,000 per 

 second and if we travel away from it at the rate of light, the 

 present will always be with us ; the wing, although still 

 vibrating at that enormous rate, will appear to be stationary 

 and will continue in that state for a million years provided 

 we continued our flight with the rays of light. If we travelled 

 a little slower than light, say one minute less in a thousand 

 years, the same scene would be presented to us, but that which 

 was acted upon this earth during one minute of time would now 

 take a thousand years to accomplish ; the swiftest railway train 

 would appear standing still, it would take 5| days and nights 

 to cover each inch of ground. It is thus possible to understand 

 how the growth of a flower, the flight of a bird, or the lightning 

 flash might be drawn out and examined under conditions of 

 time which would lead to the discovery and tracing of even the 

 principle of life itself. The same conditions may be attained 

 by greatly increasing our power of perception, and I have been 

 able to construct what may be called a time microscope to show 

 this effect. Instead of an insect's wing I use a large tuning-fork 

 kept in rapid vibration by an electro magnet, the whole being 

 projected on a screen and, as our perception is increased, the 

 projection of the tuning fork on the screen will be seen to slow 

 down and at last come to rest, althouoh it can still be seen and 

 heard vibrating at its full capacity. But let us go one step 

 further and increase our flight beyond the rate at which light 

 travels, scenes would now progress in the opposite direction to that 

 which we are accustomed to ; men would get out of bed and dress 

 themselves at night and go to bed in the morning, old men would 

 grow young again, tall trees would grow backwards and enter 

 the earth, embedding themselves in the seed, and the seed would 

 rise upwards to the branch that nourished it; the dead would be 

 taken from their graves, brought back to their homes. The 

 future would change places with the past, the effect would give 

 birth to the cause as presented to our finite senses ; but to the 

 Great Eeality there is no change, the here and the now com- 

 prising all beginnings, ends, causes and effects. 



Once more we must call a halt: we again see that time and 

 space are only relative modes by which our senses appreciate our 

 surroundings ; if everything connected with us were from this 

 moment to move twice as quickly and be half the size, we should 



