We arrive at the idea of time,—to express it briefly and popularly,—by the connection of that which is… — Ernst Mach
We arrive at the idea of time,—to express it briefly and popularly,—by the connection of that which is contained in... our memory with that which is contained in... our sense-perception. When we say that time flows on in a definite direction or sense, we mean that physical events generally (and therefore also physiological events) take place only in a definite sense. Differences of temperature, electrical differences, differences of level generally, if left to themselves, all grow less and not greater. ...In all this there is... a peculiar and profound connection of things. To demand at... present... a full elucidation of this matter, is to anticipate, in the manner of speculative philosophy, the results of all future special investigation, that is a perfect physical science.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
[I]t is necessary to make a distinction between mechanical experience and mechanical science... If we carefully examine the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, we shall find there pictorial representations of many kinds of implements and mechanical contrivances... long before theory was dreamed of, implements, machines, mechanical experiences, and mechanical knowledge were abundant.
The questions here dealt with have occupied me since my earliest youth, when my interest for them was powerfully stimulated by the beautiful introductions of Lagrange to... his Analytic Mechanics, as well as by the lucid and lively tract of Jolly, Principien der Mechanik (...1852). If Duehring's estimable work, Kritische Geschichte der Principien der Mechanik (...1873), did not particularly influence me, it was that at the time of its appearance, my ideas had been... published. ...[T]he reader will... find many points of agreement between Dühring's criticisms and those here expressed.
An instinctive, irreflective knowledge of the processes of nature will doubtless always precede the scientific, conscious apprehension, or investigation, of phenomena. The former is the outcome of the relation in which the processes of nature stand to the satisfaction of our wants.
