Science and the Infinite by Sydney T. Klein (english books to improve english txt) 📖

finite up to the Reality; and even so it must be borne in mind that we have only travelled in one direction, whereas the path we have taken extends in the opposite direction also to infinity. We started with sixteen vibrations in a second, as the lowest number of beats we human beings can appreciate as a musical sound; let us now descend by octaves. The octave below is eight vibrations in a second, and there are probably many animals that can only hear these as a musical sound; the next octave is four, then two, and then one vibration in a second. But we do not stop there; the octave below this is one vibration in two seconds, then in four seconds, eight seconds, sixteen seconds, and so on, until it is possible to conceive that even one frequency in a million years might be appreciated as a musical sound, or even as one of the colours of the spectrum, by a being whose time sensations were enormously extended in both directions, but still finite.

Once more we must call a halt. Our finite minds become bewildered in attempting even to glance at these infinities of time.

We measure space by miles, yards, feet, and inches; we measure time by years, hours, minutes, and seconds; and by these finite units we try to fathom these two marvellous infinities. With our greatest efforts of thought we find, however, that we can get relatively no distance whatever from the Here of Space and the Now of Time. It is true that the present, as a mathematical point, appears to be hurrying and bearing us with it along the line stretching from the past to future eternity, but in reality we get no further from the one nor nearer to the other. Let us change our view and examine this subject under a different aspect.

First of all, look round a room and note the different objects to be seen. Even in a small room we do not see the objects as they really are at this instant, but only as they were at a certain fixed length of time ago. The present time is common to every point in space and each person is in the present, but only to his own perception; to everyone else in the room, each individual is, at this moment, being seen acting in the past; those objects which are further away are being seen further behind in point of time than those that are nearer; in fact, however near we are to an object, we can never see it as it is but only as it was. We are dealing with very minute differences here, they being based upon the rate at which light travels; but they are differences which are known with a wonderful degree of accuracy.

We have here another example of how perception without knowledge leads to false concepts. When anyone views an extended landscape, he thinks that his sight shows him that the same point of Time, which he is experiencing, is common to every man, animal, plant, or material visible there, but we know now that he is seeing every part of that scene in the past compared with himself. Just as all objects therein are situated at separate distinct points of space, so to our vision the objects of that scene are acting or existing in different epochs of time. An Artist gives us on a flat surface a picture of that landscape, and his representations of all objects in that scene appear therefore to us as being in the same moment of Time, but to get that effect he has to draw objects at a distance smaller than those close at hand; a fly in the foreground has to be drawn larger than a horse supposed to be in the distance, though both are on the same flat surface; they have the same parallax and are therefore the same distance from the observer, and as this produces a similar image on our retina, we accept it though we know it is only a make-believe; it serves its purpose by giving us an impression on our retina which we have learnt to interpret as representing that landscape, but such a picture would indeed be a marvel of absurdity to a being who had perfect sight, such as we have already referred to, and who could appreciate parallel rays; in such a vision there would be no perspective, no vanishing point in perception.

Now let us take a wider landscape. The Moon is 240,000 miles distant. We do not, therefore, ever see her as she is but as she was 1-1/4 seconds ago. In the same way we see the Sun as he was eight minutes ago, and we see Jupiter as he was nearly an hour ago. Let us look still further to one of the nearest fixed stars. We at this moment only see that star as it was more than ten years ago; that star may therefore have exploded or disappeared ten long years ago, and yet we still see it shining, and shall continue to see it there until the long line of light has run itself out; all around us, in fact, we see the appearance of blazing suns not as they are now but as they were thousands of years ago, and, by the aid of the telescope and of our sensitive plate, we are only now recording the light which started from clusters and firmaments probably millions of years ago.

Now let us take the converse of this. To anybody on the moon at this moment the earth would be seen from there not as it is, but as it was 1-1/4 seconds ago, and from the sun as it was eight minutes ago, and if we were in Jupiter, and were looking back, we should, at this particular moment, be viewing what was happening on this earth, and seeing what each of us was doing an hour ago. Now let us go in imagination to one of the nearest fixed stars, and looking back we should see what was happening ten years ago; going still further to a far-off cluster, the light would only just now be arriving there, which started from the earth at the time when man first appeared; or we might go to so remote a distance that the scene of the formation of the Solar System would be only now arriving there, and all the events which have taken place from that remote time to the present would, as time rolled on, reach there in exactly the same succession as they have happened on this earth; and remember that we should be looking, from that great distance, at all these past events with the same intuitional advantage as though we were actually present here in time, for however near we are to an object, we never see it as it is but only as it was in the past.

Let us but turn to any point of space and we shall find at each point, according to its remoteness, the actual scenes of the past being enacted, in fact it may be said that throughout infinite space every event in past eternity is now indelibly recorded.

A murder committed hundreds of years ago, in a country house, may never have been found out, the criminal and his victim have alike turned to dust, the blood has been washed from the floor, the very house and its surroundings have crumbled and disappeared, and in their place a waving corn field is all that can be seen, but at this very moment if we were at a certain point in space, we should now be witnessing there, the whole actual living scene from beginning to end, as though we were present here hundreds of years ago: the murderer standing over his victim, the knife driven in and the blood gushing out. If we went further away we should at this same moment be seeing the criminal just arriving and knocking at the door of that house, then going upstairs into the room, and the same terrible scene with all its minutiæ would again be enacted. From a point still further removed, we should now see him, say, having lunch at a country inn some miles away, concocting his villainy, then he would be seen walking across the fields towards the house, again knocking at the door, mounting the staircase, and once more would that murderous scene be enacted before our eyes, and so on for ever; the scene, with the house and its surroundings, have indeed been completely swept away from the present here, but the whole tragedy will always be acting in the future there in the presence of the Reality.

Let us now come, in imagination, towards the earth, from some far-off cluster of stars. If we traverse the distance in one year, the whole of the events from the formation of this world would appear before us, only thousands of times quicker. Make the journey in a month, a day, an hour, a second, or a moment of time, and all past events, from the grandest to the most trivial, would be acted in an infinitesimal portion of time.

When we have fully grasped this we recognise that Omniscience is synonymous with Omnipresence, and some may find, in this thought, a glimpse of that Great Book wherein are said to be registered every thought, word, and deed, which, in the direction of the Reality, has helped to nourish, or, in the direction of the shadow, has tended to starve the personality of each one of us; for we know that every word we utter, or that has been uttered from the beginning of the world, and every motion of our brain connected with thought is indelibly imprinted upon every atom of matter. If our sense of perception were greatly increased we need not go to Palestine to see on the rocks there the impressions of the image of Christ and His disciples, or of the words they uttered as they passed by, but any stone by the wayside here would show His every action and resound with every word He uttered. In fact, every particle of matter on this earth is a witness to that which has happened, every point in space and every moment of time contains the history of the past in the smallest minutiæ. The Here, embracing all space, and the Now, embracing all time, are the only realities to the Omniscient.

Let us once more change the scene and we may grasp even more clearly that Time and Space are not realities but are only modes or conditions under which our material senses act. A tune may be played either a thousand times slower or a thousand times quicker, but it still remains the same tune, it contains the same sequence of notes and proportion in time, the only characteristics by which we recognise a tune. And so in the same way with our sense of sight, an event may be drawn out to a thousand times its length or acted a thousand times quicker, it is still the same scene. An insect vibrates its wings several thousands of times in a second and must be cognisant of each beat, whereas we have seen that we, with our Senses of Sight and Hearing, can only appreciate respectively at the most seven and sixteen vibrations in a second as separate beats. That insect must therefore be able to follow a flash of lightning under the conditions of a Time microscope magnifying a thousand times compared with our vision. The whole life of some of these insects extends over a few hours only, but owing to their quick unit of perception it