represent one of four if they could master the perspective of the
thing. See?
I think so, murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows,
he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who
repeats mystic words. Yes, I think I see it now, he said after some
time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry
of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For
instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at
fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All
these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional
representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and
unalterable thing.
Scientific people, proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause
required for the proper assimilation of this, know very well that Time
is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a
weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of
the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then
this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the
mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space
generally recognised? But certainly it traced such a line, and that
line, therefore, we must conclude, was along the Time-Dimension.
But, said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, if
Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has
it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move
about in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?
The Time Traveller smiled. Are you so sure we can move freely in
Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough,
and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions.
But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.
Not exactly, said the Medical Man. There are balloons.
But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the
inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.
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