Time -- a succession of phenomena in the universe, or a mode of duration marked by certain periods or measures, chiefly by the motion and revolution of the sun.
This is the definition in the 1842 Encyclopaedia Britannica. The important notion, as in the contemporary definition, is that one experiences time as a continuous flow or ' duration' . From a psychological point of view, ' duration' is a term introduced in order to ' describe the aspect of extension of the momentary experience of time as against the single, abstract point defining the moment of physical time' (Meyerhoff, 17.). This phenomenon is usually accompanied by the impression that in space some kind of change has taken place. In order to explore the complexity of this problem The Penny Cyclopædia (also from 1842) devotes a whole article to it under the title "Space and Time". Its style can be described as popular scientific rather than philosophic. Until 1878 the language of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the topic becomes almost mathematical. Page-long formulas accompany the explanation of the ' determination of time' .
Not only popular books became ' scientific' . Throughout the nineteenth century the sciences themselves became time–oriented. In particular, the newly developed uniformitarian geology, nebular astronomy and evolutionary biology were governed by temporal methodologies. The new physics acquired a time-direction with the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. Mathematics itself, the key to most scientific advances, turned to time, as it developed new theories of continuous functions (Buckley, 6.).
Time–oriented sciences and technological development affected Victorian society. Ever since the power of steam had brought about a major social revolution, it appeared as if scientists were deliberately undermining the whole structure of thought and belief which had hitherto been taken for granted. Sir Charles Lyell, whose three-volume Principles of Geology(1830-3) destroyed the Flood theory, had made it rather difficult to believe in the simple Biblical view that the world was created in 4004 BC. In 1857 the first remains of Neanderthal man were found, and the discovery of stone tools and implements demonstrated that long before the time of Adam there were beings on earth who could be named ' man' . In 1859 Darwin gave a trustworthy scientific answer to the problem of the descent of the human species. In The Origin of Species he supported the belief in progress through a scientific record of origins and evolution. The treatise ended with the extremely optimistic conclusion that ' as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporal and mental environments will tend to progress toward perfection' .
The hitherto firmly-set earth shook. The older generation longed for eotechnical England and its order. Preoccupation with the past as a refuge and solace from the harsh realities of the present world became a common symptom of the malaise of industrial man. Buckley (Buckley, 68.) sees in this the reason for the autobiographical impulse which flourished more variously throughout the Victorian period than ever before. The keeping of journals and diaries as memorials to the immediate past became a common pursuit, to some indeed almost a responsibility, an occasion for self-accounting and communication.
This absorption of English society in looking back to England' s better days is depicted in the words of Ruskin, who felt that great architecture, mellowing with the years, served as a vital link to the past. The noble building, he said, ' connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations; it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture' (Ruskin, 234.). The sense of history thus engendered a notion of the meaningful continuity of human existence.
Buckley, Jerome H. The Triumph of Time. A Study of the Victorian Concepts of Time, History, Progress, and Decadence. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1966.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1842), vol. 21.
Meyerhoff, Hans. Time in Literature. Berkeley: California UP, 1960.
Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Works (1849) vol. VIII.
Last modified 2001