happened;⸺and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and space—or how we came by those ideas—or of what stuff they were made⸺or whether they were born with us—or we picked them up afterwards as we went along—or whether we did it in frocks⸺or not till we had got into breeches—with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about infinity , prescience , liberty , necessity , and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine heads have been turned and cracked⸺never did my uncle Toby’s the least injury at all; my father knew it—and was no less surprised than he was disappointed, with my uncle’s fortuitous solution.
Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?—
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby .
Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together⸺there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby ⸺’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll tell thee.⸺
To understand what time is aright, without which we never can comprehend infinity , insomuch as one is a portion of the other⸺we ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of duration , so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it.⸺What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle Toby . For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind , continued my father, and observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and so