But assume time were reversible, like space--that is, we could go
through it in any direction. There would then be no such thing as birth
or origin, and death or extinction, but our life would exist
permanently, as a part or span of time, just as the house exists as a
part or section of space, and the question of immortality, of extinction
or nonextinction by death, would then be meaningless. We should not
exist outside of the span of time covered by our life, just as we do not
exist outside of the part of space covered by our body in space, and to
reach an event, as our life, we should have to go to the part of space
and to the part of time where it occurs; but there would be no more
extinction of the life by going beyond its length in time as there is
extinction of a house by going outside of its door, and everything, like
a human being, would have four extensions or dimensions--three
extensions in space and one in time.[9]
If space and time, and therefore the characteristics of space and time,
are not real things or entities, but conceptions of the human mind, then
those transcendental questions, as that of immortality after death and
existence before birth, are not problems of fact in nature or outside of
nature, but are meaningless, just as the question whether a house exists
for an observer outside of the space covered by it.
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