"Герберт Уэллс. The Time Machine (Машина времени, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Herbert George Wells

The Time Machine
[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?'