All events of nature occur in space and in time. Whatever we perceive,
whatever record we receive through our senses, always is attached to,
and contained in, space and time. But are space and time real existing
things? Have they an absolute reality outside of our mind, as a part or
framework of nature, as entities--that is, things that are? Or are they
merely a conception of the human mind, a form given by the character of
our mind to the events of nature--that is, to the hypothetical cause of
our sense perceptions? Kant, the greatest and most critical of all
philosophers, in his _Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der Reinen
Vernunft)_, concludes that space and time have no absolute existence,
but are categories--that is, forms in which the human mind conceives his
relation to nature. The same idea is expressed by the poet-philosopher
Goethe in his dramatic autobiography _Faust_ (in the second part), when
he refers to the "M?tter," to the marriage of Achilles and Helena
"outside of all time." It is found in ancient time.
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