What Is Truth?

Part 1

What Is Truth?

By Wallace D. Wattles

The Nautilus Holyoke, Massachusetts Vol. XI Nos. 6-11 April-September, 1909

TIME.

A BALLOON GOES UP; A STONE FALLS TO EARTH; WHY? ONE FORCE IN NATURE--G R A V I T Y.

The science of theology and medicine are necessarily very closely allied, both having to do with the saving of men from the consequences of wrong living; and it follows that in religion and medicine we are always seeking for realities; searching the truth; seeking the ultimate, spiritual and physical facts upon which to base our theories, and from which to proceed in making our demonstrations of health and wholeness. And since our demonstrations must and will be complete or incomplete just in proportion to the completeness of our grasp of the realities, the importance of the search for truth becomes apparent; the very first thing we have to do is to penetrate through all the appearances of life, and ascertain the differences between what is really true and what is only apparently true; for there is often a vast difference between the appearance and the reality. The sun appears to rise and set, and to go around the earth; but it does not. A balloon goes up; and a stone falls to the earth; in appearance there are two forces at work, but in reality there is only one--gravity. The reality behind the going up of the balloon and the coming down of the stone is the same. And to seek for the realities behind the appearances of life; behind its goings up and comings down, its goings out and comings in,--that is science, and that is what we are going to try to do.

The first of the realities with which we will deal is Time. It is the fashion with some metaphysical writers to assert that there is no time; but the arguments advanced in support of this claim are superficial. Time is not an entity having substance, but it is an existing reality, nevertheless. Time is not an idea; a fiction by which we measure and record the motions of the heavenly bodies; time would go on just the same and at exactly the same rate if the heavenly bodies were motionless. Do not misunderstand me in my use of the word “time.” Many people suppose that time began when man began, and must end when man ends as a mortal and physical being, and that the periods before and after the earth life of the human race are to be called eternities; in other words that there can be no time except so long as there is a mortal man to measure it; but this is erroneous. Days, weeks, months and years must have gone on before man came on earth, just as they do now; and if man disappeared from the earth, they would still go on. If the earth ceased to revolve around the sun, and to turn on its axis, the succession of the seasons and of day and night would cease; day would be continuous on one side of the earth, and night upon the other, but hours and minutes would go on just the same, and if the sun, moon, planets, stars and all else were to disappear and be succeeded by black, silent, formless chaos, hours and minutes would go on forever. Clocks do not make time; an hour would have the same duration if there were no clocks. In eternity there must still be time; time is duration in eternity. Eternity is endless time.

Time can never end. If you try to think of a point at which time should end, you can only think of it as a point beyond which there must be still more time. Also, then, time can never have had a beginning; for if you try to think of a point at which time began, you can only think of it as a point beyond which there must have been still more time. Do not say that endless time is unthinkable; you can very easily think endless time, if you do not try to think of the end of it. You cannot comprehend endless time, for that means to contain it in your mind, or to go around it; but you can know what it is, and you can know that it is.

Time is; and we must use it, whether we will or no. And the use we make of present time decides the use we shall be able to make of future time; just as the use we made of past time has fixed our place in present time. The use we make of today decides the use we shall be able to make of tomorrow. To be strong and wise is to be able to use time well; and to use time well is to become continually stronger and wiser. Success, growth and development are only attained by the right use of time; and we are failures today in exact proportion as we have erred in our use of time past To know the right use of the present moment is therefore of immense importance; and to have the will to make the right use of it is more important still. If man can--and will--make the right use of every moment of time, he must certainly become a being of marvellous power and wholeness. Oh, the wasted time! The misspent time! The lost time!

We close this chapter, then, by claiming the demonstration of our first fact; that time is a reality.

II.

SPACE.

CAN SPACE HAVE BOUNDARIES?

Bear in mind that in the first chapter we prove that time is an existent reality; in this chapter we shall try to prove that space also exists. Space is the place where a thing is; and it is also the place where no thing is. Space is the place where the earth is; the earth’s diameter being about 7,925 miles, it fills so much space; if the earth were to disappear, the 7,925 miles of space would still exist, but it would then be empty space whereas now it is filled space. The sun, also, fills space, and the distance between the earth and the sun is space; beyond the sun is more space, and beyond the earth still more; and so on. It does not matter whether space is occupied or unoccupied; empty or filled; it is space, all the same. Space is a reality. Distance is a portion of space between two given points. Endless distance would comprise all of space in one direction.

Space has three dimensions: Length, breadth and thickness. It could never have a beginning, and can never have an ending. If all created things, and all substance should disappear, space would still exist; it would be merely blank, empty space, where now is filled space. Also, space can have no boundaries. If you try to think of a boundary to space, what will you think of as lying beyond the boundary? Something solid? Then that something solid must itself occupy space, while if there is nothing there, that nothing must be unfilled space. So, beyond any boundary that you can set for space, there must be still more space. Space is a reality; beginningless, endless, boundless. Time is a reality; and yet, neither time nor space are substantial things. They possess no power. They do not act, neither can they be acted upon. Time can be used, and space can be occupied; and that is what we do with them; we occupy space and make use of time.

Space is the field in which we must operate, and contain the raw materials which we must use. The claim has been made that space is non-existent to mind or spirit, because it does not require appreciable time for the transference of thought; but the validity of this deduction has not been proved. The distances with which we are able to deal are very limited; it might require a measurable time to send thought to the sun, or to the planet Mars, or for a spirit to travel those distances. Again, the argument is advanced that the moon “acts” on the earth; and that, as a thing cannot act where it is not, there is no space between the moon and the earth; but this is puerile. The moon does not, and cannot act on the earth, because it does not touch the earth; if it affects the earth at all, it must act on something which is between them, and which in turn acts on the earth. And this something which is between the earth and the moon occupies space.

I have spoken of filled space and empty space. I do not know whether empty space exists or not, but it is quite thinkable that it should exist. There may be portions of empty space, surrounded by filled space; or there may be endless extensions of empty space, side by side with endless extensions of filled space; I do not know. I know that there is filled space, and that there may be empty space. But, if there is filled space, what fills it? The answer to this must be in one word--Substance. That which is not substance is not anything, and that which is not anything cannot fill space. Space is filled by substance, and cannot be filled by anything else; but what is substance, and how do we know that it exists? That we leave for the next chapter, closing this with the claim that we have demonstrated that we live in space, and that life consists in making use of time.

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