The Time Machine

Time Machine, The

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Title: The Time Machine
Author: H.G. (Herbert George) Wells
Release Date: July, 1992 [EBook #35] [This file was first posted on August 19, 2003]
[Most recently updated: August 19, 2003]
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Language: English
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The Time Machine, by H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells [1898]

I
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a
recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was
flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our
chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon,
and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free
of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way--marking the points with a
lean forefinger--as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as
we thought it:) and his fecundity.
`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost
universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on
a misconception.'
`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative
person with red hair.
`I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will
soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a
line of thickness NIL, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a
mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'
`That is all right,' said the Psychologist.
`Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.'
`There I object,' said Filby. `Of course a solid body may exist. All real things--'
`So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an INSTANTANEOUS cube exist?'
`Don't follow you,' said Filby.
`Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?'
Filby became pensive. `Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, `any real body must have
extension in FOUR directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and--Duration.
But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we
incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the
three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an
unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens
that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the
beginning to the end of our lives.'
`That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the
lamp; `that . . . very clear indeed.'

`Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' continued the Time
Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. `Really this is what is meant by the
Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not
know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. THERE IS NO
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIME AND ANY OF THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF
SPACE EXCEPT THAT OUR CONSCIOUSNESS MOVES ALONG IT. But some
foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they
have to say about this Fourth Dimension?'
`I have not,' said the Provincial Mayor.
`It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three
dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness,