Sense datum

“ The reference to the past becomes more and more definitely localized in time, the higher the recognitive moment rises in the scale of evolution. This process of localization of the recognized event in the past depends entirely on the time-sense becoming fully definite with the more or less greater perfection of the conceptual time scheme. ”

“ Our mind is so wedded to the process of seeing an other beside every item of its experience, that when the notion of an absolute datum is presented to it, it goes through its usual procedure and remains pointing at the void beyond, as if in that lay further matter for contemplation. In short, it spins for itself the further positive consideration of a nonentity enveloping the being of its datum ”

“ A clock of the second type yields what is called a relative date, placing an event as before or after another event, but does not tell us exactly how far they are apart in time nor how long ago they occurred. ”

“ Periodicity is fundamental to certain departments of mathematics, that is evident; it is perhaps less evident that periodicity is a factor that has gone to the making of ritual, and hence, as we shall see, of art.53 And yet this is manifestly the case. All primitive calendars are ritual calendars, successions of feast-days, a patchwork of days of different quality and character recurring; pattern at least is based on periodicity. But there is another and perhaps more important way in which periodicity affects and in a sense causes ritual. ”

“ The concept of ‘period of time’ marks the disclosure in sense-awareness of entities in nature known merely by their temporal relations to discerned entities. Still further, this separation of the ideas of space and time has merely been adopted for the sake of gaining simplicity of exposition by conformity to current language. What we discern is the specific character of a place through a period of time. This is what I mean by an ‘event.’ We discern some specific character of an event. But in discerning an event we are also aware of its significance as a relatum in the structure of events. ”

“ Yet in whatever sense we speak of the real present time of the world, this present, whether it is the present second, or the present century, or the present geological period, it is, for our conception, as truly a divisible and connected whole region of time, within which a succession of events takes place, as it is a world-embracing and connected time, within whose span the whole universe of present events is comprised. A mathematically indivisible present time, possessing no length, is simply no time at all. ”

“ I have said, then, that we measure periods of time as they pass so that we can say that this time is twice as long as that one or that this is just as long as that, and so on for the other fractions of time which we can count by measuring.
So, then, as I was saying, we measure periods of time as they pass. And if anyone asks me, “How do you know this?”, I can answer: “I know because we measure. We could not measure things that do not exist, and things past and future do not exist.” But how do we measure present time since it has no extension? ”

“ When dates have been taken from computations of time other than the Christian era, it should be understood that the corresponding day has been made to conform to our own era, and consequently perfect accuracy can not be claimed for them. ”

“ If the still longer units of time—the month and the year—had equally been made to consist of an integral number of days much confusion and misunderstanding might have been avoided, and the annals of ancient times would have presented fewer pitfalls to the historian than is now the case. ”

“ We have, however, seen reasons, which, applied to time, would lead us to declare that an absolute insight would view the temporal order as a discrete series of facts ordered as any succession of facts expressing one purpose would be ordered, viz. like the whole numbers. On the other hand, we have no reason to suppose that our human consciousness distinctly observes intervals of time that in brevity anywhere nearly approach to the final truth about the temporal order. Within what is for us the least observable happening, a larger insight may indeed discriminate multitudes of events. ”

“ Spalding, deeply intrigued. “That,” said the philosopher, “is time which is not linear succession, time which has turned on itself twice to take up the past and future into its present. For as the point is repeated to form the line of space, so the instant is repeated to form the linear time of past, present, future. And as the one-dimensional line turns at right angles to itself to form the two-dimensional plane, so linear or one-dimensional time turns on itself to form two-dimensional or plane time, the past-present, or present-future. ”

“ But don't let us forget in the hours of quiet that there is no reason at all to expect that any of these arbitrary, and conventional, and unreal distinctions of calendars and dates make any difference in that uniform strand of our life which just runs the same, which is reeled off the great drum of the future and on to the great drum of the past, and that is all spun out of one fibre and is one gauge, and one sort of stuff from the beginning to the end. ”

“ Such subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence. ”

“ The dates at which supreme events occurred in the celestial evolution are immeasurably more remote than any other dates which we are ever called upon to consider in other departments of science. The time of the story on which we are to be engaged is earlier, far earlier, than any date we have ever learned at school, or have ever forgotten since. ”

“ In countries, however, where continued clearness of the sky was not afforded, or where the necessity was urgently felt for a regular determination of future dates, the seers at length desired that they be permitted to calculate, upon the basis of the past determinations of the duration of the regular months, the recurrence of the phases of the moon for a certain time in advance, and therewith the regular succession of the months, and to publicly record the number and the method of counting the days of the single months. ”

“ It always moved straight to the floor; thus triumphantly vindicating universal gravitation!!!
We can think of a time system which would discard months, weeks and days. What is the meaning of the financial almanac in which the days are numbered from 1 to 365 or 366? Simply a step in the right direction, away from the months and weeks, so that the distance between any two dates may be seen at a glance. We would really be better without months and weeks. ”

“ Our only way of knowing it accurately is by counting, or noticing the clock, or through some other symbolic conception. When the times exceed hours or days, the conception is absolutely symbolic. We think of the amount we mean either solely as a name, or by running over a few salient dates therein, with no pretence of imagining the full durations that lie between them. No one has anything like a perception of the greater length of the time between now and the first century than of that between now and the tenth. ”

“ The division of time or their calendar system, is one that was thought to show great advance in astronomical learning, but of late years it has been shown that this also was overrated. This question of how to keep a record of time was a difficult one for primitive man to solve ”

“ What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to. ”

“ Why should the mere presence of a number give us Time- a number measuring or measured; for the same number may be either- if Time is not given us by the fact of Movement itself, the Movement which inevitably contains in itself a succession of stages? To make the number essential to Time is like saying that magnitude has not its full quantity unless we can estimate that quantity. ”

“ In any case, once a thing- whether by point or standard or any other means- measures succession, it must measure according to time: this number appraising movement degree by degree must, therefore, if it is to serve as a measure at all, be something dependent upon time and in contact with it: for, either, degree is spatial, merely- the beginning and end of the Stadium, for example- or in the only alternative, it is a pure matter of Time: the succession of early and late is stage of Time, Time ending upon a certain Now or Time beginning from a Now. ”

“ Time, then, serves towards measurement but is not itself the Measure: the Movement of the All will be measured according to Time, but Time will not, of its own Nature, be a Measure of Movement: primarily a Kind to itself, it will incidentally exhibit the magnitudes of that movement.
And the reiterated observation of Movement- the same extent found to be traversed in such and such a period- will lead to the conception of a definite quantity of Time past. ”

“ In those forms of the recognitive moment in which the time-element plays a part in the determination of the whole there is always present a specific time-localization of the given psychic or moment content. Where the form of recognition is specific the representation or idea is regarded as actual and localized in some definite point in the stream of past time, where the recognition is generic the representation or idea is referred to no definite point in the stream of objective time, and when present in the highest types of moments, is regarded as belonging to what is termed imagination. ”

“ Newton distinguished time according as it was absolute or apparent time, in the following words:—“Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself and from its own nature, flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration; relative, apparent and common time, is some sensible and external measure of duration by the means of motion.”‍213 Though we are perhaps obliged to assume the existence of a uniformly increasing quantity which we call time, yet we cannot feel or know abstract and absolute time. ”

“ If the interpretation of the text be correct, calculation would fix the date between the year 3,007 and 3,010 of the ancient era, or a thousand years after the epoch attributed to the reign of Menkera in Mariette's chronological table. In any case, it is to be hoped that future discoveries will enable us with certainty to trace back the course of ages, and to determine positive dates for the origins of history, with which may be connected the fluctuating chronology of the most remote events of which the human race has preserved the memory. ”

“ CALENDAR REGULATION. 1. THE INTERCALATION. The circumstance that the lunar months are among almost all peoples named from the phases of Nature involves the necessity of an agreement between the two really incommensurable periods given by the sun and the moon. This problem is the central point of the older scientific chronology. We shall now investigate more closely how the problem has arisen, and what has been its development among the primitive peoples.
Where there is only a series of less than twelve months, the problem of calendar regulation does not exist. ”

“ Now we came away from the date-tree as long ago as one o'clock, and came here and slept, till now it is ten, are those dates to wait for us? Every day people sleep under the date-tree, and the bird comes and eats the dates, and goes away. ”

“ The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can never be reckoned according to the calendar of time. We can understand these days, only as we lay aside finite calculations, accept the infinite calculus, and pause, in expressive silence, to muse on the divine wonders. ”

“ He called it the Gregorian Calendar; but there are lots of other calendars besides—there's the Jewish and Mohammedan, and a variety of calendars in the East. All of them can't be right. The result is that none of them are right, and the world is in confusion. Some calendars mark off too many days, others mark off too few. Half the world is ahead of Time, and the other half behind it. ”

“ A CALENDAR AND WIND-DIAL are useful additions to some edifices. The Calendar indicates on special circles of a large dial—by means of three separate hands—the month of the year, the day of the month, and the day of the week. The peculiarity of this invention is that it needs no correction for the long and short months, nor even for the month of February, with its occasional 29 days; [ 178] as by means of a wheel cut for the successive months in a period of four years, and which takes that time for a single revolution, the calendar is rendered a perpetual one. ”

“ For a long time past we had had no night at all, the daylight being continual. The dates throughout are according to nautical time, and the bearings must be understood asper compass. I would also remark in this place, that I cannot, in the first portion of what is here written, pretend to strict accuracy in respect to dates, or latitudes and longitudes, having kept no regular journal until after the period of which this first portion treats. In many instances I have relied altogether upon memory. ”

“ Year—Astronomically, the period of time occupied by the earth in making one complete revolution around the sun. The calendar year is an arbitrarily determined division of time, approximating more or less closely the astronomical year. ”