Still they could move a little up and down, said the Medical Man.
Easier, far easier down than up.
And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the
present moment.
My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the
whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present
moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no
dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform
velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel _down_
if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth s surface.
But the great difficulty is this, interrupted the Psychologist. You
_can_ move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about
in Time.
That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that
we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an
incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I
become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course
we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than
a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
civilised man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go
up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that
ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the
Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?
Oh, _this_, began Filby, is all
Why not? said the Time Traveller.
It s against reason, said Filby.
What reason? said the Time Traveller.
You can show black is white by argument, said Filby, but you will
never convince me.
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