The Discovery of Time

Twenty-five years after the publication of H. G. Wells’s first book, The Time Machine, the “new realist” philosopher Samuel Alexander said this:

If I were asked to name the most characteristic feature of the thought of the last twenty-five years I should answer: the discovery of Time. I do not mean that we have waited till to-day to become familiar with Time. I mean that we have only just begun in our speculation to take Time seriously and to realize that in some way or other Time is an essential ingredient in the constitution of things.

(This arises in the context of Time Travel.)