Few ideas have penetrated the human consciousness as profoundly as that of time. The idea of time and space has occupied human thought for thousands of years. These things at first sight seem simple and easy to grasp, because they are close to everyday experience. Everything exists in time and space, so they appear as familiar conceptions. However, what is familiar is not necessarily understood. On closer examination, time and space are not so easily grasped. In the 5th century, St. Augustine remarked: “What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what time is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.” The dictionary is not much help here. Time is defined as “a period”, and a period is defined as “time”. This does not get us very far! In reality, the nature of time and space is quite a complex philosophical problem.

Men and women clearly distinguish between past and future. A sense of time is, however, not unique to humans or even animals. Organisms often have a kind of “internal clock”, like plants which turn one way during the day and another at night. Time is an objective expression of the changing state of matter. This is revealed even by the way we talk about it. It is common to say that time “flows”. In fact, only material fluids can flow. The very choice of metaphor shows that time is inseparable from matter. It is not only a subjective thing. It is the way we express an actual process that exists in the physical world. Time is thus just an expression of the fact that all matter exists in a state of constant change. It is the destiny and necessity of all material things to change into something other than what they are. “Everything that exists deserves to perish.”

A sense of rhythm underlies everything: the heart-beat of a human, the rhythms of speech, the movement of the stars and planets, the rise and fall of the tides, the alternations of the seasons. These are deeply engraved upon the human consciousness, not as arbitrary imaginings, but as real phenomena expressing a profound truth about the universe. Here human intuition is not in error. Time is a way of expressing change of state and motion, which are inseparable features of matter in all its forms. In language we have tense, future, present and past. This colossal conquest of the mind enabled humankind to free itself from the slavery of the moment, to rise above the concrete situation and be “present”, not just in the here and now, but in the past and the future, at least in the mind.

Time and movement are inseparable concepts. They are essential to all life and all knowledge of the world, including every manifestation of thought and imagination. Measurement, the cornerstone of all science, would be impossible without time and space. Music and dance are based upon time. Art itself attempts to convey a sense of time and movement, which are present not just in representations of physical energy, but in design. The colours, shapes and lines of a painting guide the eye across the surface in a particular rhythm and tempo. This is what gives rise to the particular mood, idea and emotion conveyed by the work of art. Timelessness is a word that is often used to describe works of art, but really expresses the opposite of what is intended. We cannot conceive of the absence of time, since time is present in everything.

There is a difference between time and space. Space can also express change, as change of position. Matter exists and moves through space. But the number of ways that this can occur is infinite: forward, backward, up or down, to any degree. Movement in space is reversible. Movement in time is irreversible. They are two different (and indeed contradictory) ways of expressing the same fundamental property of matter – change. This is the only Absolute that exists.

Space is the “otherness” of matter, to use Hegel’s terminology, whereas time is the process whereby matter (and energy, which is the same thing) constantly changes into something other than what it is. Time –”the fire in which we are all consumed” – is commonly seen as a destructive agent. But it is equally the expression of a permanent process of self-creation, whereby matter is constantly transformed into an endless number of forms. This process can be seen quite clearly in non-organic matter, above all at the subatomic level.

The notion of change, as expressed in the passing of time, deeply permeates human consciousness. It is the basis of the tragic element in literature, the feeling of sadness at the passing of life, which reaches its most beautiful expression in the sonnets of Shakespeare, like this one which vividly conveys a sense of the restless movement of time:

“Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forward do contend.”
(Sonnet 60)

The irreversibility of time does not only exist for living beings. Not only humans, but stars and galaxies are born and perish. Change affects all, but not only in a negative way. Alongside death there is life, and order arises spontaneously out of chaos. The two sides of the contradiction are inseparable. Without death, life itself would be impossible. Every man and woman is not only aware of themselves, but also the negation of themselves, their limit. We come from nature and will return to nature.

Mortals understand that as finite beings their lives must end in death. As the Book of Job reminds us: “Man that is born of woman is of a few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”[29] Animals do not fear death in the same way because they have no knowledge of it. Human beings have attempted to escape their destiny by establishing a privileged communion with an imaginary supernatural existence after death. The idea of everlasting life is present in almost all religions in one form or another. It is the motive-force behind the egotistical thirsting for an imaginary immortality in a non-existent Heaven, which is supposed to provide a consolation for the “Vale of Tears” on this sinful earth. Thus, for countless centuries men and women have been taught to submit meekly to suffering and privation on earth in expectation of a life of happiness – once they are dead.

That every individual must pass away is well known. In the future, human life will be prolonged far beyond its “natural” span; nevertheless the end must come. But what is true for particular men and women is not true of the species. We live on through our children, through the memories of our friends, and through the contribution we make to the good of humanity. This is the only immortality to which we are entitled to aspire. Generations pass away, but are replaced by new generations, which develop and enrich the scope of human activity and knowledge. Humanity can conquer the earth and reach out its hands to the heavens. The real search for immortality is realised in this endless process of human development and perfection, as men and women make themselves anew on a higher basis than before. The highest goal we can set ourselves is thus not to long for an imaginary paradise in the beyond, but to fight to attain the real social conditions for the building of a paradise in this world.

From our earliest experiences, we come to an understanding of the importance of time. So it is surprising that some have thought time to be an illusion, a mere invention of the mind. This idea has persisted down to the present. In fact, the idea that time and change are mere illusions is not new. It is present in ancient religions like Buddhism, and also in idealist philosophies like that of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus. The aspiration of Buddhism was to reach Nirvana, a state where time ceased to exist. It was Heraclitus, the father of dialectics, who understood correctly the nature of time and change, when he wrote: “everything is and is not because everything is in flux” and “we step and do not step in the same stream, we are and are not”.

The idea of change as cyclical is the product of an agricultural society utterly dependent upon the change of seasons. The static way of life rooted in the mode of production of former societies found its expression in static philosophies. The Catholic Church could not stomach the cosmology of Copernicus and Galileo because it challenged the existing view of the world and society. Only in capitalist society has the development of industry disrupted the old, slow rhythms of peasant life. Not only is the difference between the seasons abolished in production, but even the difference between night and day, as machines run for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, under the glare of artificial lights. Capitalism has revolutionised the means of production, and with it the minds of men and women. However, the progress of the latter has proved to be far slower than the former. The conservatism of the mind is revealed in the constant attempt to cling to outworn ideas, old certainties whose time has long passed, and, ultimately, the age-old hope for a life after death.

The idea that the universe must have a beginning and an end has been revived in recent decades by the cosmological theories of the big bang. This inevitably involves a supernatural being who creates the world according to some unfathomable plan from nothing, and keeps it going for as long as He considers it necessary. The old religious cosmology of Moses, Isaiah, Tertullian and Plato’s Timaeus, incredibly resurfaces in the writings of some modern cosmologists and theoretical physicists. There is nothing new in this. Every social system that enters into a phase of irreversible decline always presents its own demise as the end of the world, or, better still, the universe. Yet the universe still carries on, indifferent to the destiny of this or that temporary social formation on earth. Humankind continues to live, to fight and, despite all reverses, to develop and progress. So that every period sets out on a higher level than before. And there is, in principle, no limit to this process.

  1. Job 14: 1