We take time for granted these days. This has not always been the case. Jotting this down for the record:

"The same period [The High Middle Ages] saw the advent of the mechanical weight-driven clock, which altered people's conception of time by dividing day and night into twenty-four equal hours, making possible standardized measurements of time and modern science itself. (Previously there had been twelve hours from sunrise to sunset, and every day the length of the hour and minute varied.)"

Morris Bishop, The Middle Ages, (New York: American Heritage, 1996), p.44

We take time for granted these days. This has not always been the case. Jotting this down for the record:

"The same period [The High Middle Ages] saw the advent of the mechanical weight-driven clock, which altered people's conception of time by dividing day and night into twenty-four equal hours, making possible standardized measurements of time and modern science itself. (Previously there had been twelve hours from sunrise to sunset, and every day the length of the hour and minute varied.)"

Morris Bishop, The Middle Ages, (New York: American Heritage, 1996), p.44

The linear progressive concept of Time is not an autochthonous concept of Europe, but an import from Judaism through the Christianity that divided the time in Past - Present and Future and it created a strong separation among them, that it said that the history has a beginning (with Adam and Eve expulsion from the paradise and their fall) and a End (with the Messiah's return), that the history has a reason or purpose, etc. On the contrary, the autochthonous conception the Time in Europe was a circular one.

Saw an amusingly intersting item on Tv ( very much by chance , which touches on "time").
The clock at Bristol railway ststion ( built in 19th century) was built with two minute hands , to show "London time" and "Bristol time" there being an eleven minute difference.

The linear progressive concept of Time is not an autochthonous concept of Europe, but an import from Judaism through the Christianity that divided the time in Past - Present and Future and it created a strong separation among them, that it said that the history has a beginning (with Adam and Eve expulsion from the paradise and their fall) and a End (with the Messiah's return), that the history has a reason or purpose, etc. On the contrary, the autochthonous conception the Time in Europe was a circular one.

I agree. The Western sense of history probably arises from this as well, as Christianity testifies to some event that happened in the datable past. The Ancient Greeks, if I recall, did not conceive of existence as having a beginning or an end. Their sense of time and space was radically different from our own. The past was not of so much importance for them as it is today in our own culture, which is so highly aware of its own historical specificity like no other culture to ever precede it. And yes, the progress feeling, the notion that history is moving towards some point in the future from some point in the past comes from precisely the same source.