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PARTISAN REVIEW
simplest, a point in space. A point in space is a purely abstract con–
ception, for it is obvious that nothing can exist without dimensions.
But "nothing" is
also
an abstract conception, and yet a very im–
portant one. "Nothing" is the boundless unconscious, where there is
not even an abstract idea.
For our purposes, therefore, a point in space has no dimensions
and no boundaries.
It
does not separate anything from anything else.
It
contains nothing and everything.
But a point in space is not only in space; it exists and moves also
in time. When it moves in time it becomes a continuity, a certain
period of duration; and when it moves in space it becomes a line.
In either case it has a dimension; it ceases to be infinite. This is "the
Fall."
It begins to gather qualities: either it is short or long, slow
or fast, straight or crooked, angular or curved. In space it separates
the things on one side of it from the things on the other side.
If
it
forms a circle, or any other closed figure, it separates what is within
from what
is
without.
If
a straight line moves sideways it becomes a rectangle.
If
a
rectangle moves up or down it becomes a cube. Because our con–
ception of space is three-dimensional, when a cube moves in space or
time it remains a cube.
When men began to be conscious of time they lost eternity. They
ceased to live in the moment, and became aware that things had a
beginning and an end. Death became something that was going to
happen to them, and they began to think about death and time be–
cause they wanted to survive.
When men first began to think about time they perceived the
moment as a point, and time as a series of moments moving always
in one direction. In other words, they perceived time as continuity, as
a straight line moving from event to event over an endless period
of duration, or as a river flowing forever at an even pace, carrying
things from the future into the past.
This view of time was one-dimensional and one way. Men
failed to realize the importance of the fact that they were stretching
back into the past as well as anticipating the future. Hence their
view of time could contain the idea of cause and effect, and even of
progress, but not of evolution.
It
allowed them to conceive the idea
