CHAPTER VIII.

RELATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER SPACE. THEORY OF THE ÆTHER.

At this point of our inquiries the best plan is to turn to the practical work, and try if the faculty of thinking in higher space can be awakened in the mind.

The general outline of the method is the same as that which has been described for getting rid of the limitation of up and down from a block of cubes. We supposed that the block was fixed; and to get the sense of what it would be when gravity acted in a different way with regard to it, we made a model of it as it would be under the new circumstances. We thought out the relations which would exist; and by practising this new arrangement we gradually formed the direct apprehension.

And so with higher-space arrangements. We cannot put them up actually, but we can say how they would look and be to the touch from various sides. And we can put up the actual appearances of them, not altogether, but as models succeeding one another; and by contemplation and active arrangement of these different views we call upon our inward power to manifest itself.

In preparing our general plan of work, it is necessary to make definite assumptions with regard to our world, our universe, or we may call it our space, in relation to the wider universe of four-dimensional space.

What our relation to it may be, is altogether undetermined. The real relationship will require a great deal of study to apprehend, and when apprehended will seem as natural to us as the position of the earth among the other planets does to us now.

But we have not got to wait for this exploration in order to commence our work of higher-space thought, for we know definitely that whatever our real physical relationship to this wider universe may be, we are practically in exactly the same relationship to it as the creature we have supposed living on the surface of a smooth sheet is to the world of threefold space.

And this relationship of a surface to a solid or of a solid, as we conjecture, to a higher solid, is one which we often find in nature. A surface is nothing more nor less than the relation between two things. Two bodies touch each other. The surface is the relationship of one to the other.

Again, we see the surface of water.

Thus our solid existence may be the contact of two four-dimensional existences with each other; and just as sensation of touch is limited to the surface of the body, so sensation on a larger scale may be limited to this solid surface.

And it is a fact worthy of notice, that in the surface of a fluid different laws obtain from those which hold throughout the mass. There are a whole series of facts which are grouped together under the name of surface tensions, which are of great importance in physics, and by which the behaviour of the surfaces of liquids is governed.

And it may well be that the laws of our universe are the surface tensions of a higher universe.

But these expressions, it is evident, afford us no practical basis for investigation. We must assume something more definite, and because more definite (in the absence of details drawn from experience), more arbitrary.

And we will assume that the conditions under which we human beings are, exactly resemble those under which the plane-beings are placed, which have been described.

This forms the basis of our work; and the practical part of it consists in doing, with regard to higher space, that which a plane-being would do with regard to our space in order to enable himself to realize what it was.

If we imagine one of these limited creatures whose life is cramped and confined studying the facts of space existence, we find that he can do it in two ways. He can assume another direction in addition to those which he knows; and he can, by means of abstract reasoning, say what would take place in an ampler kind of space than his own. All this would be formal work. The conclusions would be abstract possibilities.

The other mode of study is this. He can take some of these facts of his higher space and he can ponder over them in his mind, and can make up in his plane world those different appearances which one and the same solid body would present to him, and then he may try to realize inwardly what his higher existence is.

Now, it is evident that if the creature is absolutely confined to a two-dimensional existence, then anything more than such existence will always be a mere abstract and formal consideration to him.

But if this higher-space thought becomes real to him, if he finds in his mind a possibility of rising to it, then indeed he knows that somehow he is not limited to his apparent world. Everything he sees and comes into contact with may be two-dimensional; but essentially, somehow, himself he is not two-dimensional merely.

And a precisely similar piece of work is before us. Assuming as we must that our outer experience is limited to three-dimensional space, we shall make up the appearances which the very simplest higher bodies would present to us, and we shall gradually arrive at a more than merely formal and abstract appreciation of them. We shall discover in ourselves a faculty of apprehension of higher space similar to that which we have of space. And thus we shall discover, each for himself, that, limited as his senses are, he essentially somehow is not limited.

The mode and method in which this consciousness will be made general, is the same in which the spirit of an army is formed.

The individuals enter into the service from various motives, but each and all have to go through those movements and actions which correspond to the unity of a whole formed out of different members. The inner apprehension which lies in each man of a participation in a life wider than that of his individual body, is awakened and responds; and the active spirit of the army is formed. So with regard to higher space, this faculty of apprehending intuitively four-dimensional relationships will be taken up because of its practical use. Individuals will be practically employed to do it by society because of the larger faculty of thought which it gives. In fact, this higher-space thought means as an affair of mental training simply the power of apprehending the results arising from four independent causes. It means the power of dealing with a greater number of details.

And when this faculty of higher-space thought has been formed, then the faculty of apprehending that higher existence in which men have part, will come into being.

It is necessary to guard here against there being ascribed to this higher-space thought any other than an intellectual value. It has no moral value whatever. Its only connexion with moral or ethical considerations is the possibility it will afford of recognizing more of the facts of the universe than we do now. There is a gradual process going on which may be described as the getting rid of self elements. This process is one of knowledge and feeling, and either may be independent of the other. At present, in respect of feeling, we are much further on than in respect to understanding, and the reason is very much this: When a self element has been got rid of in respect of feeling, the new apprehension is put into practice, and we live it into our organization. But when a self element has been got rid of intellectually, it is allowed to remain a matter of theory, not vitally entering into the mental structure of individuals.

Thus up and down was discovered to be a self element more than a thousand years ago; but, except as a matter of theory, we are perfect barbarians in this respect up to the present day.

We have supposed a being living in a plane world, that is, a being of a very small thickness in a direction perpendicular to the surface on which he is.

Now, if we are situated analogously with regard to an ampler space, there must be some element in our experience corresponding to each element in the plane-being’s experience.

And it is interesting to ask, in the case of the plane-being, what his opinion would be with respect to the surface on which he was.

He would not recognize it as a surface with which he was in contact; he would have no idea of a motion away from it or towards it.

But he would discover its existence by the fact that movements were transmitted along it. By its vibrating and quivering, it would impart movement to the particles of matter lying on it.

Hence, he would consider this surface to be a medium lying between bodies, and penetrating them. It would appear to him to have no weight, but to be a powerful means of transmitting vibrations. Moreover, it would be unlike any other substance with which he was acquainted, inasmuch as he could never get rid of it. However perfect a vacuum be made, there would be in this vacuum just as much of this unknown medium as there was before.

Moreover, this surface would not hinder the movement of the particles of matter over it. Being smooth, matter would slide freely over it. And this would seem to him as if matter went freely through the medium.

Then he would also notice the fact that vibrations of this medium would tear asunder portions of matter. The plane surface, being very compact, compared to the masses of matter on it, would, by its vibrations, shake them into their component parts.

Hence he would have a series of observations which tended to show that this medium was unlike any ordinary matter with which he was acquainted. Although matter passed freely through it, still by its shaking it could tear matter in pieces. These would be very difficult properties to reconcile in one and the same substance. Then it is weightless, and it is everywhere.

It might well be that he would regard the supposition of there being a plane surface, on which he was, as a preferable one to the hypothesis of this curious medium; and thus he might obtain a proof of his limitations from his observations.

Now, is there anything in our experience which corresponds to this medium which the plane-being gets to observe?

Do we suppose the existence of any medium through which matter freely moves, which yet by its vibrations destroys the combinations of matter--some medium which is present in every vacuum, however perfect, which penetrates all bodies, and yet can never be laid hold of?

These are precisely observations which have been made.

The substance which possesses all these qualities is called the æther. And the properties of the æther are a perpetual object of investigation in science.

Now, it is not the place here to go into details, as all we want is a basis for work; and however arbitrary it may be, it will serve if it enables us to investigate the properties of higher space.

We will suppose, then, that we are not in, but on the æther, only not on it in any known direction, but that the new direction is that which comes in. The æther is a smooth body, along which we slide, being distant from it at every point about the thickness of an atom; or, if we take our mean distance, being distant from it by half the thickness of an atom measured in this new direction.

Then, just as in space objects, a cube, for instance, can stand on the surface of a table, or on the surface over which the plane-being moves, so on the æther can stand a higher solid.

All that the plane-being sees or touches of a cube, is the square on which it rests.

So all that we could see or touch of a higher solid would be that part by which it stood on the æther; and this part would be to us exactly like any ordinary solid body. The base of a cube would be to the plane-being like a square which is to him an ordinary solid.

Now, the two ways, in which a plane-being would apprehend a solid body, would be by the successive appearances to him of it as it passed through his plane; and also by the different views of one and the same solid body which he got by turning the body over, so that different parts of its surface come into contact with his plane.

And the practical work of learning to think in four-dimensional space, is to go through the appearances which one and the same higher solid has.

Often, in the course of investigation in nature, we come across objects which have a certain similarity, and yet which are in parts entirely different. The work of the mind consists in forming an idea of that whole in which they cohere, and of which they are simple presentations.

The work of forming an idea of a higher solid is the most simple and most definite of all such mental operations.

If we imagine a plane world in which there are objects which correspond to our sun, to the planets, and, in fact, to all our visible universe, we must suppose a surface of enormous extent on which great disks slide, these disks being worlds of various orders of magnitude.

These disks would some of them be central, and hot, like our sun; round them would circulate other disks, like our planets.

And the systems of sun and planets must be conceived as moving with great velocity over the surface which bears them all.

And the movements of the atoms of these worlds will be the course of events in such worlds. As the atoms weave together, and form bodies altering, becoming, and ceasing, so will bodies be formed and disappear.

And the plane which bears them all on its smooth surface will simply be a support to all these movements, and influence them in no way.

Is to be conscious of being conscious of being hot, the same thing as to be conscious of being hot? It is not the same. There is a standing outside, and objectivation of a state of mind which every one would say in the first state was very different from the simple consciousness. But the consciousness must do as much in the first case as in the second. Hence the feeling hot is very different from the consciousness of feeling hot.

A feeling which we always have, we should not be conscious of--a sound always present ceases to be heard. Hence consciousness is a concomitant of change, that is, of the contact between one state and another.

If a being living on such a plane were to investigate the properties, he would have to suppose the solid to pass through his plane in order to see the whole of its surface. Thus we may imagine a cube resting on a table to begin to penetrate through the table. If the cube passes through the surface, making a clean cut all round it, so that the plane-being can come up to it and investigate it, then the different parts of the cube as it passes through the plane will be to him squares, which he apprehends by the boundary lines. The cut which there is in his plane must be supposed not to be noticed, he must be able to go right up to the cube without hindrance, and to touch and see that thin slice of it which is just above the plane.

And so, when we study a higher solid, we must suppose that it passes through the æther, and that we only see that thin three-dimensional section of it which is just about to pass from one side to the other of the æther.

When we look on a solid as a section of a higher solid, we have to suppose the æther broken through, only we must suppose that it runs up to the edge of the body which is penetrating it, so that we are aware of no breach of continuity.

The surface of the æther must then be supposed to have the properties of the surface of a fluid; only, of course, it is a solid three-dimensional surface, not a two-dimensional surface.