Chapter 1 (The Time Machine)

01CHAPTER I.

02The time-traveller, for so it will be convenient to speak of him, was expounding a recondite matter to us.

03His gray eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated.

04The 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.

05Our 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.

06And he put it to us in this way, marking the points with a lean forefinger, as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over his new paradox, as we thought it, and his fecundity.

07You must follow me carefully.

08I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted.

09The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school, is founded on a misconception.

10Is not that a rather large thing to expect us to begin upon?

11said Philby, an argumentative person with red hair.

12I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it.

13You will soon admit as much as I need from you.

14You know, of course, that a mathematical line, a line of thickness, nil, has no real existence.

15They taught you that?

16Neither has a mathematical plane.

17These things are mere abstractions.

18That is all right, said the psychologist.

19Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.

20There I object, said Philby.

21Of course a solid body may exist, all real things, so most people think.

22But wait a moment.

23Can an instantaneous cube exist?

24Don't follow you, said Philby.

25Can a cube that does not last for any time at all have a real existence?

26Philby became pensive.

27Clearly, the time-traveler proceeded, any real body must have extension in four directions.

28It must have length, breadth, thickness, and duration.

29But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact.

30There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of space, and a fourth, time.

31There 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.

32That, said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp, that very clear indeed.

33Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked, continued the time-traveler, with a slight accession of cheerfulness.

34Really, this is what is meant by the fourth dimension, though some people who talk about the fourth dimension do not know they mean it.

35It is only another way of looking at time.

36There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space, except that our consciousness moves along it.

37But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea.

38You have all heard what they have to say about this fourth dimension.

39I have not, said the provincial mayor.

40It 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, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others.

41But some philosophical people have been asking, why three dimensions particularly?

42Why not another direction at right angles to the other three?

43And have even tried to construct a four-dimension geometry.

44Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago.

45You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four, if they could master the perspective of the thing.

46See?

47I 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.

48Yes, I think I see it now, he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.

49Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of four dimensions for some time.

50Some of my results are curious.

51For 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.

52All these are evidently sections, as it were, three-dimensional representations of his four-dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.

53Scientific 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.

54Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record.

55This line I traced with my finger shows the movement of the barometer.

56Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here.

57Surely the Mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of space generally recognized.

58But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude, was along the time dimension.

59But, 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?

60And why cannot we move in time as we move about in the other dimensions of space?

61The time-traveller smiled.

62Are you sure we can move freely in space?

63Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so.

64I admit we move freely in two dimensions.

65But how about up and down?

66Gravitation limits us there.

67Not exactly, said the medical man.

68There are balloons.

69But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.

70Still, they could move a little up and down, said the medical man.

71Easier, far easier down than up.

72And you cannot move at all in time.

73You cannot get away from the present moment.

74My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong.

75That is just where the whole world has gone wrong.

76We are always getting away from the present moment.

77Our 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.

78But the great difficulty is this, interrupted the psychologist.

79You can move about in all directions of space, but you cannot move about in time.

80That is the germ of my great discovery.

81But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in time.

82For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly, I go back to the instant of its occurrence.

83I become absent-minded, as you say.

84I jump back for a moment.

85Of 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.

86But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect.

87He 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?

88"'Oh, this,' began Philby, "'is all—why not?' said the time-traveller.

89"'It's against reason,' said Philby.

90"'What reason?' said the time-traveller.

91"'You can show black is white by argument,' said Philby.

92"'But you will never convince me.' "'Possibly not,' said the time-traveller.

93"'But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of four dimensions.

94Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine.' "'To travel through time!' exclaimed the very young man.

95"'That shall travel indifferently in any direction of space and time, as the driver determines.' Philby contented himself with laughter.

96"'But I have experimental verification,' said the time-traveller.

97"'It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the psychologist suggested.

98"'One might travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance.' "'Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the medical man.

99"'Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.' "'One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,' the very young man thought.

100"'In which case they would certainly plough you for the little go.

101The German scholars have improved Greek so much.' "'Then there is the future,' said the very young man.

102"'Just think.

103One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulated interest, and hurry on ahead.' "'To discover a society,' said I, erected on a strictly communistic basis.

104"'Of all the wild, extravagant theories,' began the psychologist.

105"'Yes, so it seemed to me.

106And so I never talked of it until—' "'Experimental verification!' cried I.

107"'You were going to verify that?' "'The experiment!' cried Philby, who was getting brain-weary.

108"'Let us see your experiment anyhow,' said the psychologist.

109"'Though it's all humbug, you know.' The time-traveler smiled round at us.

110Then, still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, he walked slowly out of the room, and we heard his slipper shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory.

111The psychologist looked at us.

112I wonder what he's got.

113"'Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the medical man, and Philby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem.

114But before he had finished his preface, the time-traveler came back, and Philby's anecdote collapsed.

115The thing the time-traveler held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made.

116There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance.

117And now I must be explicit, for this that follows, unless his explanation is to be accepted, is an absolutely unaccountable thing.

118He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearth-rug.

119On this table he placed the mechanism.

120Then he drew up a chair and sat down.

121The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model.

122There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel, and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated.

123I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the time-traveler and the fireplace.

124Philby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder.

125The medical man and the provincial mayor watched him in profile from the right, the psychologist from the left.

126The very young man stood behind the psychologist.

127We were all on the alert.

128It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.

129The time-traveler looked at us and then at the mechanism.

130Well, said the psychologist.

131This little affair, said the time-traveler, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, is only a model.

132It is my plan for a machine to travel through time.

133You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.

134He pointed to the part with his finger.

135Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.

136The medical man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing.

137It's beautifully made, he said.

138It took two years to make, retorted the time-traveler.

139Then, when we had all imitated the action of the medical man, he said, Now, I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion.

140This saddle represents the seat of a time-traveler.

141Presently, I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go.

142It will vanish, pass into future time, and disappear.

143Have a good look at the thing.

144Look at the table, too, and satisfy yourselves.

145There is no trickery.

146I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.

147There was a minute's pause, perhaps.

148The psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind.

149Then the time-traveler put forth his finger towards the lever.

150No, he said suddenly.

151Lend me your hand.

152And turning to the psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own, and told him to put out his forefinger.

153So that it was the psychologist himself who sent forth the model time-machine on its interminable voyage.

154We all saw the lever turn.

155I am absolutely certain there was no trickery.

156There was a breath of wind, and the lamp-flame jumped.

157One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second, perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory.

158And it was gone.

159Vanished.

160Save for the lamp, the table was bare.

161Everyone was silent for a minute.

162Then Philby said he was damned.

163The psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table.

164At that, the time-traveler laughed cheerfully.

165Well, he said, with a reminiscence of the psychologist.

166Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us, began to fill his pipe.

167We stared at each other.

168Look here, said the medical man.

169Are you in earnest about this?

170Do you seriously believe that that machine has traveled into time?

171Certainly, said the time-traveler, stooping to light a spill at the fire.

172Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the psychologist's face.

173The psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar, and tried to light it uncut.

174What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there, he indicated the laboratory, and when that is put together, I mean to have a journey on my own account.

175You mean to say that that machine has traveled into the future?

176said Philby.

177Into the future, or the past, I don't for certain know which.

178After an interval, the psychologist had an inspiration.

179It must have gone into the past, if it has gone anywhere, he said.

180Why?

181said the time-traveler.

182Because, I presume, that it has not moved in space, and if it traveled into the future, it would still be here all this time, since it must have traveled through this time.

183But, I said, if it traveled into the past, it would have been visible when we came first into this room, and last Thursday, when we were here, and the Thursday before that, and so forth.

184Serious objections, remarked the provincial mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the time-traveler.

185Not a bit, said the time-traveler, and to the psychologist.

186You think you can explain that?

187It's presentation below the threshold, you know.

188Diluted presentation.

189Of course, said the psychologist, and reassured us.

190That's a simple point of psychology.

191I should have thought of it.

192It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully.

193We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air.

194If it is traveling through time, fifty times, or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute, while we get through a second, the impression it creates, will, of course, be only one-fiftieth, or one-hundredth, of what it would make, if it were not traveling in time.

195That's plain enough.

196He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been.

197You see?

198He said, laughing.

199We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so.

200Then the time traveler asked us what we thought of it all.

201It sounds plausible enough tonight, said the medical man, but wait until tomorrow.

202Wait for the common sense of the morning.

203Would you like to see the time machine itself?

204asked the time traveler.

205And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, drafty corridor to his laboratory.

206I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how, there in the laboratory, we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes.

207Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory.

208Parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal.

209The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystal and bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it.

210Quartz it seemed to be.

211Look here, said the medical man.

212Are you perfectly serious?

213Or is this a trick, like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?

214Upon that machine, said the time traveler, holding the lamp aloft, I intend to explore time.

215Is that plain?

216I was never more serious in my life.

217None of us quite knew how to take it.

218I caught Philby's eye over the shoulder of the medical man, and he winked at me solemnly.

219End of chapter 1