Time as Dimension and History (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Time as Dimension and History

Basic as is the factor of time in all experience, the bare concept of time is extraordinarily difficult to isolate either with clarity or conviction. Yet the question of temporal patterns is a key problem for all branches of modern science. The study of causes and types of change, whether in physi cal, biological, or social science, is indeed the central focus of these disciplines. The Greek conception of Nature or Physis, which has set the stage for subsequent scientific investigation, is well defined in Aristotle's terms as the principle and cause of motion and rest.1 And it is the study and cataloging of types of change or motion, and the relating of these to some constant or res which has constituted a major part of our science. But the existence of change implies some sort of temporal reality, and the measure of change requires a temporal reality which is capable of being conceived as a dimension of events, i.e., a measurable continuum.

Not only is it in science, however, that questions of the nature of time emerge. In the study of value, in ethics, aesthetics, and religion, another type of temporal issue arises. Man has almost instinctively associated greater value with the more enduring or immutable characteristics of his universe. The hunger for eternity, it would seem, is closely related to the hunger for values. Even Kant, we remember, considered a temporal infinity necessary for the realization of moral values.

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