CHAPTER X.

HIGHER SPACE AND HIGHER BEING. PERCEPTION AND INSPIRATION.

In the instinctive and sense perception of man and nature there is all hidden, which reflection afterwards brings into consciousness.

We are conscious of somewhat higher than each individual man when we look at men. In some, this consciousness reaches an extreme pitch, and becomes a religious apprehension. But in none is it otherwise than instinctive. The apprehension is sufficiently definite to be certain. But it is not expressible to us in terms of the reason.

Now, I have shown that by using the conception of higher space it is easy enough to make a supposition which shall show all mankind as physical parts of one whole. Our apparent isolation as bodies from each other is by no means so necessary to assume as it would appear. But, of course, a supposition of that kind is of no value, except as showing a possibility. If we came to examine into the matter closely, we should find a natural relationship which accounted for our consciousness being limited as at present it is.

The first thing to be done, is to organize our higher-space perception, and then look. We cannot tell what external objects will blend together into the unity of a higher being. But just as the riddle of the two hands becomes clear to us from our first inspection of higher space, so will there grow before our eyes greater unities and greater surprises.

We have been subject to a limitation of the most absurd character. Let us open our eyes and see the facts.

Now, it requires some training to open the eyes. For many years I worked at the subject without the slightest success. All was mere formalism. But by adopting the simplest means, and by a more thorough knowledge of space, the whole flashed clear.

Space shapes can only be symbolical of four-dimensional shapes; and if we do not deal with space shapes directly, but only treat them by symbols on the plane--as in analytical geometry--we are trying to get a perception of higher space through symbols of symbols, and the task is hopeless. But a direct study of space leads us to the knowledge of higher space. And with the knowledge of higher space there come into our ken boundless possibilities. All those things may be real, whereof saints and philosophers have dreamed.

Looking on the fact of life, it has become clear to the human mind, that justice, truth, purity, are to be sought--that they are principles which it is well to serve. And men have invented an abstract devotion to these, and all comes together in the grand but vague conception of Duty.

But all these thoughts are to those which spring up before us as the shadow on a bank of clouds of a great mountain is to the mountain itself. On the piled-up clouds falls the shadow--vast, imposing, but dark, colourless. If the beholder but turns, he beholds the mountain itself, towering grandly with verdant pines, the snowline, and the awful peaks.

So all these conceptions are the way in which now, with vision confined, we apprehend the great existences of the universe. Instead of an abstraction, what we have to serve is a reality, to which even our real things are but shadows. We are parts of a great being, in whose service, and with whose love, the utmost demands of duty are satisfied.

How can it not be a struggle, when the claims of righteousness mean diminished life,--even death,--to the individual who strives? And yet to a clear and more rational view it will be seen that in his extinction and loss, that which he loves,--that real being which is to him shadowed forth in the present existence of wife and child,--that being lives more truly, and in its life those he loves are his for ever.

But, of course, there are mistakes in what we consider to be our duty, as in everything else; and this is an additional reason for pursuing the quest of this reality. For by the rational observance of other material bodies than our own, we come to the conclusion that there are other beings around us like ourselves, whom we apprehend in virtue of two processes--the one simply a sense one of observation and reflection--the other a process of direct apprehension.

Now, if we did not go through the sense process of observation, we might, it is true, know that there were other human beings around us in some subtle way--in some mesmeric feeling; but we should not have that organized human life which, dealing with the things of the world, grows into such complicated forms. We should for ever be good-humoured babies--a sensuous, affectionate kind of jelly-fish.

And just so now with reference to the high intelligences by whom we are surrounded. We feel them, but we do not realize them.

To realize them, it will be necessary to develop our power of perception.

The power of seeing with our bodily eye is limited to the three-dimensional section.

But I have shown that the inner eye is not thus limited; that we can organize our power of seeing in higher space, and that we can form conceptions of realities in this higher space, just as we can in our ordinary space.

And this affords the groundwork for the perception and study of these other beings than man. Just as some mechanical means are necessary for the apprehension of our fellows in space, so a certain amount of mechanical education is necessary for the perception of higher beings in higher space.

Let us turn the current of our thought right round; instead of seeking after abstractions, and connecting our observations by ideas, let us train our sense of higher space and build up conceptions of greater realities, more absolute existences.

It is really a waste of time to write or read more generalities. Here is the grammar of the knowledge of higher being--let us learn it, not spend time in speculating as to whither it will lead us.

Yet one thing more. We are, with reference to the higher things of life, like blind and puzzled children. We know that we are members of one body, limbs of one vine; but we cannot discern, except by instinct and feeling, what that body is, what the vine is. If to know it would take away our feeling, then it were well never to know it. But fuller knowledge of other human beings does not take away our love for them; what reason is there then to suppose that a knowledge of the higher existences would deaden our feelings?

And then, again, we each of us have a feeling that we ourselves have a right to exist. We demand our own perpetuation. No man, I believe, is capable of sacrificing his life to any abstract idea; in all cases it is the consciousness of contact with some being that enables him to make the last human sacrifice. And what we can do by this study of higher space, is to make this consciousness, which has been reserved for a few, the property of all. Do we not all feel that there is a limit to our devotion to abstractions, none to beings whom we love. And to love them, we must know them.

Then, just as our own individual life is empty and meaningless without those we love, so the life of the human race is empty and meaningless without a knowledge of those that surround it. And although to some an inner knowledge of the oneness of all men is vouchsafed, it remains to be demonstrated to the many.

The perpetual struggle between individual interests and the common good can only be solved by merging both impulses in a love towards one being whose life lies in the fulfilment of each.

And this search, it seems to me, affords the needful supplement to the inquiries of one with whose thought I have been very familiar, and to which I return again, after having abandoned it for the purely materialistic views which seem forced upon us by the facts of science.

All that he said seemed to me unsupported by fact, unrelated to what we know.

But when I found that my knowledge was merely an empty pretence, that it was the vanity of being able to predict and foretell that stood to me in the place of an absolute apprehension of fact--when all my intellectual possessions turned to nothingness, then I was forced into that simple quest for fact, which, when persisted in and lived in, opens out to the thoughts like a flower to the life-giving sun.

It is indeed a far safer course, to believe that which appeals to us as noble, than simply to ask what is true; to take that which great minds have given, than to demand that our puny ones should be satisfied. But I suppose there is some good to some one in the scepticism and struggle of those who cannot follow in the safer course.

The thoughts of the inquirer to whom I allude may roughly be stated thus:--

He saw in human life the working out of a great process, in the toil and strain of our human history he saw the becoming of man. There is a defect whereby we fall short of the true measure of our being, and that defect is made good in the course of history.

It is owing to that defect that we perceive evil; and in the perception of evil and suffering lies our healing, for we shall be forced into that path at last, after trying every other, which is the true one.

And this, the history of the redemption of man, is what he saw in all the scenes of life; each most trivial occurrence was great and significant in relation to this.

And, further, he put forward a definite statement with regard to this defect, this lack of true being, for it lay, he said, in the self-centredness of our emotions, in the limitation of them to our bodily selves. He looked for a time when, driven from all thoughts of our own pain or pleasure, good or evil, we should say, in view of the miseries of our fellow-creatures, Let me be anyhow, use my body and my mind in any way, so that I serve.

And this, it seems to me, is the true aspiration; for, just as a note of music flings itself into the march of the melody, and, losing itself in it, is used for it and lost as a separate being, so we should throw these lives of ours as freely into the service of--whom?

Here comes the difficulty. Let it be granted that we should have no self-rights, limit our service in no way, still the question comes, What shall we serve?

It is far happier to have some concrete object to which we are devoted, or to be bound up in the ceaseless round of active life, wherein each day presents so many necessities that we have no room for choice.

But besides and apart from all these, there comes to some the question, “What does it all mean?” To others, an unlovable and gloomy aspect is presented, wherein their life seems to be but used as a material worthless in itself and ungifted with any dignity or honour; while to others again, with the love of those they love, comes a cessation of all personal interest in life, and a disappointment and feeling of valuelessness.

And in all these cases some answer is needed. And here human duty ceases. We cannot make objects to love. We can make machines and works of art, but nothing which directly excites our love. To give us that which rouses our love, is the duty of one higher than ourselves.

And yet in one respect we have a duty--we must look.

What good would it be, to surround us with objects of loving interest, if we bury our regards in ourselves and will not see?

And does it not seem as if with lowered eyelids, till only the thinnest slit was open, we gazed persistently, not on what is, but on the thinnest conceivable section of it?

Let it be granted that our right attitude is, so to devote ourselves that there is no question as to what we will do or what we will not do, but we are perfectly obedient servants. The question is, Whom are we to serve?

It cannot be each individual, for their claims are conflicting, and as often as not there is more need of a master than of a servant. Moreover, the aspect of our fellows does not always excite love, which is the only possible inducer of the right attitude of service. If we do not love, we can only serve for a self motive, because it is in some way good for ourselves.

Thus it seems to me that we are reduced to this: our only duty is to look for that which it is given us to love.

But this looking is not mere gazing. To know, we must act.

Let any one try it. He will find that unless he goes through a series of actions corresponding to his knowledge, he gets merely a theoretic and outside view of any facts. The way to know is this: Get somehow a means of telling what your perceptions would be if you knew, and act in accordance with those perceptions.

Thus, with regard to a fellow-creature, if we knew him we should feel what his feelings are. Let us then learn his feelings, and act as if we had them. It is by the practical work of satisfying his needs that we get to know him.

Then, may-be, we love him; or perchance it is said we may find that through him we have been brought into contact with one greater than him.

This is our duty--to know--to know, not merely theoretically, but practically; and then, when we know, we have done our part; if there is nothing, we cannot supply it. All we have to do is to look for realities.

We must not take this view of education--that we are horribly pressed for time, and must learn, somehow, a knack of saying how things must be, without looking at them.

But rather, we must say that we have a long time--all our lives, in which we will press facts closer and closer to our minds; and we begin by learning the simplest. There is an idea in that home of our inspiration--the fact that there are certain mechanical processes by which men can acquire merit. This is perfectly true. It is by mechanical processes that we become different; and the science of education consists largely in systematizing these processes.

Then, just as space perceptions are necessary for the knowledge of our fellow-men, and enable us to enter into human relationships with them in all the organized variety of civilized life, so it is necessary to develop our perceptions of higher space, so that we can apprehend with our minds the relationship which we have to beings higher than ourselves, and bring our instinctive knowledge into clearer consciousness.

It appears to me self-evident, that in the particular disposition of any portion of matter, that is, in any physical action, there can be neither right nor wrong; the thing done is perfectly indifferent.

At the same time, it is only in things done that we come into relationship with the beings about us and higher than us. Consequently, in the things we do lies the whole importance of our lives.

Now, many of our impulses are directly signs of a relationship in us to a being of which we are not immediately conscious. The feeling of love, for instance, is always directed towards a particular individual; but by love man tends towards the preservation and improvement of his race; thus in the commonest and most universal impulses lie his relations to higher beings than the individuals by whom he is surrounded. Now, along with these impulses are many instincts of a modifying tendency; and, being altogether in the dark as to the nature of the higher beings to whom we are related, it is difficult to say in what the service of the higher beings consists, in what it does not. The only way is, as in every other pre-rational department of life, to take the verdict of those with the most insight and inspiration.

And any striving against such verdicts, and discontent with them, should be turned into energy towards finding out exactly what relation we have towards these higher beings by the study of Space.

Human life at present is an art constructed in its regulations and rules on the inspirations of those who love the undiscerned higher beings, of which we are a part. They love these higher beings, and know their service.

But our perceptions are coarser; and it is only by labour and toil that we shall be brought also to see, and then lose the restraints that now are necessary to us in the fulness of love.

Exactly what relationship there is towards us on the part of these higher beings we cannot say in the least. We cannot even say whether there is more than humanity before the highest; and any conception which we form now must use the human drama as its only possible mode of presentation.

But that there is such a relation seems clear; and the ludicrous manner, in which our perceptions have been limited, is a sufficient explanation of why they have not been scientifically apprehended.

The mode, in which an apprehension of these higher beings or being is at present secured, is as follows; and it bears a striking analogy to the mode by which the self is cut out of a block of cubes.

When we study a block of cubes, we first of all learn it, by starting from a particular cube, and learning how all the others come with regard to that. All the others are right or left, up or down, near or far, with regard to that particular cube. And the line of cubes starting from this first one, which we take as the direction in which we look, is, as it were, an axis about which the rest of the cubes are grouped. We learn the block with regard to this axis, so that we can mentally conceive the disposition of every cube as it comes regarded from one point of view. Next we suppose ourselves to be in another cube at the extremity of another axis; and, looking from this axis, we learn the aspects of all the cubes, and so on.

Thus we impress on the feeling what the block of cubes is like from every axis. In this way we get a knowledge of the block of cubes.

Now, to get a knowledge of humanity, we must feel with many individuals. Each individual is an axis as it were, and we must regard human beings from many different axes. And as, in learning the block of cubes, muscular action, as used in putting up the block of cubes, is the means by which we impress on the feeling the different views of the block; so, with regard to humanity, it is by acting with regard to the view of each individual that a knowledge is obtained. That is to say, that, besides sympathizing with each individual, we must act with regard to his view; and acting so, we shall feel his view, and thus get to know humanity from more than one axis. Thus there springs up a feeling of humanity, and of more.

Those who feel superficially with a great many people, are like those learners who have a slight acquaintance with a block of cubes from many points of view. Those who have some deep attachments, are like those who know them well from one or two points of view.

Thus there are two definite paths--one by which the instinctive feeling is called out and developed, the other by which we gain the faculty of rationally apprehending and learning the higher beings.

In the one way it is by the exercise of a sympathetic and active life; in the other, by the study of higher space.

Both should be followed; but the latter way is more accessible to those who are not good. For we at any rate have the industry to go through mechanical operations, and know that we need something.

And after all, perhaps, the difference between the good and the rest of us, lies rather in the former being aware. There is something outside them which draws them to it, which they see while we do not.

There is no reason, however, why this knowledge should not become demonstrable fact. Surely, it is only by becoming demonstrable fact that the errors which have been necessarily introduced into it by human weakness will fall away from it.

The rational knowledge will not replace feeling, but will form the vehicle by which the facts will be presented to our consciousness. Just as we learn to know our fellows by watching their deeds,--but it is something beyond the mere power of observing them that makes us regard them,--so the higher existences need to be known; and, when known, then there is a chance that in the depths of our nature they will awaken feelings towards them like the natural response of one human being to another.

And when we reflect on what surrounds us, when we think that the beauty of fruit and flower, the blue depths of the sky, the majesty of rock and ocean,--all these are but the chance and arbitrary view which we have of true being,--then we can imagine somewhat of the glories that await our coming. How set out in exquisite loveliness are all the budding trees and hedgerows on a spring day--from here, where they almost sing to us in their nearness, to where, in the distance, they stand up delicately distant and distinct in the amethyst ocean of the air! And there, quiet and stately, revolve the slow moving sun and the stars of the night. All these are the fragmentary views which we have of great beings to whom we are related, to whom we are linked, did we but realize it, by a bond of love and service in close connexions of mutual helpfulness.

Just as here and there on the face of a woman sits the divine spirit of beauty, so that all cannot but love who look--so, presenting itself to us in all this mingled scene of air and ocean, plain and mountain, is a being of such loveliness that, did we but know with one accord in one stream, all our hearts would be carried in a perfect and willing service. It is not that we need to be made different; we have but to look and gaze, and see that centre whereunto with joyful love all created beings move.

But not with effortless wonder will our days be filled, but in toil and strong exertion; for, just as now we all labour and strive for an object, our service is bound up with things which we do--so then we find no rest from labour, but the sense of solitude and isolation is gone. The bonds of brotherhood with our fellow-men grow strong, for we know one common purpose. And through the exquisite face of nature shines the spiritual light that gives us a great and never-failing comrade.

Our task is a simple one--to lift from our mind that veil which somehow has fallen on us, to take that curious limitation from our perception, which at present is only transcended by inspiration.

And the means to do it is by throwing aside our reason--by giving up the idea that what we think or are has any value. We too often sit as judges of nature, when all we can be are her humble learners. We have but to drink in of the inexhaustible fulness of being, pressing it close into our minds, and letting our pride of being able to foretell vanish into dust.

There is a curious passage in the works of Immanuel Kant,[1] in which he shows that space must be in the mind before we can observe things in space. “For,” he says, “since everything we conceive is conceived as being in space, there is nothing which comes before our minds from which the idea of space can be derived; it is equally present in the most rudimentary perception and the most complete.” Hence he says that space belongs to the perceiving soul itself. Without going into this argument to abstract regions, it has a great amount of practical truth. All our perceptions are of things in space; we cannot think of any detail, however limited or isolated, which is not in space.

[1] The idea of space can “nicht aus den Verhältnissen der äusseren Erscheinung durch Erfahrung erborgt sein, sondern diese äussere Erfahrung ist nur durch gedachte Vorstellung allererst möglich.”

Hence, in order to exercise our perceptive powers, it is well to have prepared beforehand a strong apprehension of space and space relations.

And so, as we pass on, is it not easily conceivable that, with our power of higher space perception so rudimentary and so unorganized, we should find it impossible to perceive higher existences? That mode of perception which it belongs to us to exercise is wanting. What wonder, then, that we cannot see the objects which are ready, were but our own part done?

Think how much has come into human life through exercising the power of the three-dimensional space perception, and we can form some measure, in a faint way, of what is in store for us.

There is a certain reluctance in us in bringing anything, which before has been a matter of feeling, within the domain of conscious reason. We do not like to explain why the grass is green, flowers bright, and, above all, why we have the feelings which we pass through.

But this objection and instinctive reluctance is chiefly derived from the fact that explaining has got to mean explaining away. We so often think that a thing is explained, when it can be shown simply to be another form of something which we know already. And, in fact, the wearied mind often does long to have a phenomenon shown to be merely a deduction from certain known laws.

But explanation proper is not of this kind; it is introducing into the mind the new conception which is indicated by the phenomenon already present. Nature consists of many entities towards the apprehension of which we strive. If for a time we break down the bounds which we have set up, and unify vast fields of observation under one common law, it is that the conceptions we formed at first are inadequate, and must be replaced by greater ones. But it is always the case, that, to understand nature, a conception must be formed in the mind. This process of growth in the mental history is hidden; but it is the really important one. The new conception satisfies more facts than the old ones, is truer phenomenally; and the arguments for it are its simplicity, its power of accounting for many facts. But the conception has to be formed first. And the real history of advance lies in the growth of the new conceptions which every now and then come to light.

When the weather-wise savage looked at the sky at night, he saw many specks of yellow light, like fire-flies, sprinkled amidst whitish fleece; and sometimes the fleece remained, the fire-spots went, and rain came; sometimes the fire-spots remained, and the night was fine. He did not see that the fire-points were ever the same, the clouds different; but by feeling dimly, he knew enough for his purpose.

But when the thinking mind turned itself on these appearances, there sprang up,--not all at once, but gradually,--the knowledge of the sublime existences of the distant heavens, and all the lore of the marvellous forms of water, of air, and the movements of the earth. Surely these realities, in which lies a wealth of embodied poetry, are well worth the delighted sensuous apprehension of the savage as he gazed.

Perhaps something is lost, but in the realities, of which we know, there is compensation. And so, when we learn to understand the meaning of these mysterious changes, this course of natural events, we shall find in the greater realities amongst which we move a fair exchange for the instinctive reverence, which they now awaken in us.

In this book the task is taken up of forming the most simple and elementary of the great conceptions that are about us. In the works of the poets, and still more in the pages of religious thinkers, lies an untold wealth of conception, the organization of which in our every-day intellectual life is the work of the practical educator.

But none is capable of such simple demonstration and absolute presentation as this of higher space, and none so immediately opens our eyes to see the world as a different place. And, indeed, it is very instructive; for when the new conception is formed, it is found to be quite simple and natural. We ask ourselves what we have gained; and we answer: Nothing; we have simply removed an obvious limitation.

And this is universally true; it is not that we must rise to the higher by a long and laborious process. We may have a long and laborious process to go through, but, when we find the higher, it is this: we discover our true selves, our essential being, the fact of our lives. In this case, we pass from the ridiculous limitation, to which our eyes and hands seem to be subject, of acting in a mere section of space, to the fuller knowledge and feeling of space as it is. How do we pass to this truer intellectual life? Simply by observing, by laying aside our intellectual powers, and by looking at what is.

We take that which is easiest to observe, not that which is easiest to define; we take that which is the most definitely limited real thing, and use it as our touchstone whereby to explore nature.

As it seems to me, Kant made the great and fundamental statement in philosophy when he exploded all previous systems, and all physics were reft from off the perceiving soul. But what he did once and for all, was too great to be a practical means of intellectual work. The dynamic form of his absolute insight had to be found; and it is in other works that the practical instances of the Kantian method are to be found. For, instead of looking at the large foundations of knowledge, the ultimate principles of experience, late writers turned to the details of experience, and tested every phenomenon, not with the question, What is this? but with the question, “What makes me perceive thus?”

And surely the question, as so put, is more capable of an answer; for it is only the percipient, as a subject of thought, about which we can speak. The absolute soul, since it is the thinker, can never be the subject of thought; but, as physically conditioned, it can be thought about. Thus we can never, without committing a ludicrous error, think of the mind of man except as a material organ of some kind; and the path of discovery lies in investigating what the devious line of his thought history is due to, which winds between two domains of physics--the unknown conditions which affect the perceiver, the partially known physics which constitute what we call the external world.

It is a pity to spend time over these reflections; if they do not seem tame and poor compared to the practical apprehension which comes of working with the models, then there is nothing in the whole subject. If in the little real objects which the reader has to handle and observe does not lie to him a poetry of a higher kind than any expressed thought, then all these words are not only useless, but false. If, on the other hand, there is true work to be done with them, then these suggestions will be felt to be but mean and insufficient apprehensions.

For, in the simplest apprehension of a higher space lies a knowledge of a reality which is, to the realities we know, as spirit is to matter; and yet to this new vision all our solid facts and material conditions are but as a shadow is to that which casts it. In the awakening light of this new apprehension, the flimsy world quivers and shakes, rigid solids flow and mingle, all our material limitations turn into graciousness, and the new field of possibility waits for us to look and behold.