CHAPTER XI.

SPACE THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ALTRUISM AND RELIGION.

The reader will doubtless ask for some definite result corresponding to these words--something not of the nature of an hypothesis or a might-be. And in that I can only satisfy him after my own powers. My only strength is in detail and patience; and if he will go through the practical part of the book, it will assuredly dawn upon him that here is the beginning of an answer to his request. I only study the blocks and stones of the higher life. But here they are definite enough. And the more eager he is for personal and spiritual truth, the more eagerly do I urge him to take up the practical work, for the true good comes to us through those who, aspiring greatly, still submit their aspirations to fact, and who, desiring to apprehend spirit, still are willing to manipulate matter.

The particular problem at which I have worked for more than ten years, has been completely solved. It is possible for the mind to acquire a conception of higher space as adequate as that of our three-dimensional space, and to use it in the same manner.

There are two distinct ways of studying space--our familiar space at present in use. One is that of the analyst, who treats space relations by his algebra, and discovers marvellous relations. The other is that of the observer or mechanician, who studies the shapes of things in space directly.

A practical designer of machines would not find the knowledge of geometrical analysis of immediate help to him; and an artist or draughtsman still less so.

Now, my inquiry was, whether it was possible to get the same power of conception of four-dimensional space, as the designer and draughtsman have of three-dimensional space. It is possible.

And with this power it is possible for us to design machines in higher space, and to conceive objects in this space, just as a draughtsman or artist does.

Analytical skill is not of much use in designing a statue or inventing a machine, or in appreciating the detail of either a work of art or a mechanical contrivance.

And hitherto the study of four-dimensional space has been conducted by analysis. Here, for the first time, the fact of the power of conception of four-dimensional space is demonstrated, and the means of educating it are given.

And I propose a complete system of work, of which the volume on four space[2] is the first instalment.

[2] “Science Romance,” No. I., by C. H. Hinton. Published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

I shall bring forward a complete system of four-dimensional thought--mechanics, science, and art. The necessary condition is, that the mind acquire the power of using four-dimensional space as it now does three-dimensional.

And there is another condition which is no less important. We can never see, for instance, four-dimensional pictures with our bodily eyes, but we can with our mental and inner eye. The condition is, that we should acquire the power of mentally carrying a great number of details.

If, for instance, we could think of the human body right down to every minute part in its right position, and conceive its aspect, we should have a four-dimensional picture which is a solid structure. Now, to do this, we must form the habit of mental painting, that is, of putting definite colours in definite positions, not with our hands on paper, but with our minds in thought, so that we can recall, alter, and view complicated arrangements of colour existing in thought with the same ease with which we can paint on canvas. This is simply an affair of industry; and the mental power latent in us in this direction is simply marvellous.

In any picture, a stroke of the brush put on without thought is valueless. The artist is not conscious of the thought process he goes through. For our purpose it is necessary that the manipulation of colour and form which the artist goes through unconsciously, should become a conscious power, and that, at whatever sacrifice of immediate beauty, the art of mental painting should exist beside our more unconscious art. All that I mean is this--that in the course of our campaign it is necessary to take up the task of learning pictures by heart, so that, just as an artist thinks over the outlines of a figure he wants to draw, so we think over each stroke in our pictures. The means by which this can be done will be given in a future volume.

We throw ourselves on an enterprise in which we have to leave altogether the direct presentation to the senses. We must acquire a sense-perception and memory of so keen and accurate a kind that we can build up mental pictures of greater complexity than any which we can see. We have a vast work of organization, but it is merely organization. The power really exists and shows itself when it is looked for.

Much fault may be found with the system of organization which I have adopted, but it is the survivor of many attempts; and although I could better it in parts, still I think it is best to use it until, the full importance of the subject being realized, it will be the lifework of men of science to reorganize the methods.

The one thing on which I must insist is this--that knowledge is of no value, it does not exist unless it comes into the mind. To know that a thing must be is no use at all. It must be clearly realized, and in detail as it _is_, before it can be used.

A whole world swims before us, the apprehension of which simply demands a patient cultivation of our powers; and then, when the faculty is formed, we shall recognize what the universe in which we are is like. We shall learn about ourselves and pass into a new domain.

And I would speak to some minds who, like myself, share to a large extent the feeling of unsettledness and unfixedness of our present knowledge.

Religion has suffered in some respects from the inaccuracy of its statements; and it is not always seen that it consists of two parts--one a set of rules as to the management of our relations to the physical world about us, and to our own bodies; another, a set of rules as to our relationship to beings higher than ourselves.

Now, on the former of these subjects, on physical facts, on the laws of health, science has a fair standing ground of criticism, and can correct the religious doctrines in many important respects.

But on the other part of the subject matter, as to our relationship to beings higher than ourselves, science has not yet the materials for judging. The proposition which underlies this book is, that we should begin to acquire the faculties for judging.

To judge, we must first appreciate; and how far we are from appreciating with science the fundamental religious doctrines I leave to any one to judge.

There is absolutely no scientific basis for morality, using morality in the higher sense of other than a code of rules to promote the greatest physical and mental health and growth of a human being. Science does not give us any information which is not equally acceptable to the most selfish and most generous man; it simply tells him of means by which he may attain his own ends, it does not show him ends.

The prosecution of science is an ennobling pursuit; but it is of scientific knowledge that I am now speaking in itself. We have no scientific knowledge of any existences higher than ourselves--at least, not recognized as higher. But we have abundant knowledge of the actions of beings less developed than ourselves, from the striking unanimity with which all inorganic beings tend to move towards the earth’s centre, to the almost equally uniform modes of response in elementary organized matter to different stimuli.

The question may be put: In what way do we come into contact with these higher beings at present? And evidently the answer is, In those ways in which we tend to form organic unions--unions in which the activities of individuals coalesce in a living way.

The coherence of a military empire or of a subjugated population, presenting no natural nucleus of growth, is not one through which we should hope to grow into direct contact with our higher destinies. But in friendship, in voluntary associations, and above all, in the family, we tend towards our greater life.

And it seems that the instincts of women are much more relative to this, the most fundamental and important side of life, than are those of men. In fact, until we know, the line of advance had better be left to the feeling of women, as they organize the home and the social life spreading out therefrom. It is difficult, perhaps, for a man to be still and perceive; but if he is so, he finds that what, when thwarted, are meaningless caprices and empty emotionalities, are, on the part of woman, when allowed to grow freely and unchecked, the first beginnings of a new life--the shadowy filaments, as it were, by which an organism begins to coagulate together from the medium in which it makes its appearance.

In very many respects men have to make the conditions, and then learn to recognize. How can we see the higher beings about us, when we cannot even conceive the simplest higher shapes? We may talk about space, and use big words, but, after all, the preferable way of putting our efforts is this: let us look first at the simplest facts of higher existence, and then, when we have learnt to realize these, We shall be able to see what the world presents. And then, also, light will be thrown on the constituent organisms of our own bodies, when we see in the thorough development of our social life a relation between ourselves and a larger organism similar to that which exists between us and the minute constituents of our frame.

The problem, as it comes to me, is this: it is clearly demonstrated that self-regard is to be put on one side--and self-regard in every respect--not only should things painful and arduous be done, but things degrading and vile, so that they serve.

I am to sign any list of any number of deeds which the most foul imagination can suggest, as things which I would do did the occasion come when I could benefit another by doing them; and, in fact, there is to be no characteristic in any action which I would shrink from did the occasion come when it presented itself to be done for another’s sake. And I believe that the soul is absolutely unstained by the action, provided the regard is for another.

But this is, in truth, a dangerous doctrine; at one Sweep it puts away all absolute commandments, all absolute verdicts of right about things, and leaves the agent to his own judgment.

It is a kind of rule of life which requires most absolute openness, and demands that society should frame severe and insuperable regulations; for otherwise, with the motives of the individual thus liberated from absolute law, endless varieties of conduct would spring forth, and the wisdom of individual men is hardly enough to justify their irresponsible action.

Still, it does seem that, as an ideal, the absolute absence of self-regard is to be aimed at.

With a strong religious basis, this would work no harm, for the rules of life, as laid down by religions, would suffice. But there are many who do not accept these rules as any absolute indication of the will of God, but only as the regulations of good men, which have a claim to respect and nothing more.

And thus it seems to me that altruism--thoroughgoing altruism--hands over those who regard it as an ideal, and who are also of a sceptical turn of mind, to the most absolute unfixedness of theory, and, very possibly, to the greatest errors in life.

And here we come to the point where the study of space becomes so important.

For if this rule of altruism is the right one, if it appeals with a great invitation to us, we need not therefore try it with less precaution than we should use in other affairs of infinitely less importance. When we want to know if a plank will bear, we entrust it with a different load from that of a human body.

And if this law of altruism is the true one, let us try it where failure will not mean the ruin of human beings.

Now, in knowledge, pure altruism means so to bury the mind in the thing known that all particular relations of one’s self pass away. The altruistic knowledge of the heavens would be, to feel that the stars were vast bodies, and that I am moving rapidly. It would be, to know this, not as a matter of theory, but as a matter of habitual feeling.

Whether this is possible, I do not know; but a somewhat similar attempt can be made with much simpler means.

In a different place I have described the process of acquiring an altruistic knowledge of a block of cubes; and the results of the laborious processes involved are well worth the trouble. For as a clearly demonstrable fact this comes before one. To acquire an absolute knowledge of a block of cubes, so that all self relations are cast out, means that one has to take the view of a higher being.

It suddenly comes before one, that the particular relations which are so fixed and important, and seem so absolutely sure when one begins the process of learning, are by no means absolute facts, but marks of a singular limitation, almost a degradation, on one’s own part. In the determined attempt to know the most insignificant object perfectly and thoroughly, there flashes before one’s eyes an existence infinitely higher than one’s own. And with that vision there comes,--I do not speak from my own experience only,--a conviction that our existence also is not what we suppose--that this bodily self of ours is but a limit too. And the question of altruism, as against self-regard, seems almost to vanish, for by altruism we come to know what we truly are.

“What we truly are,” I do not mean apart from space and matter, but what we really are as beings having a space existence; for our way of thinking about existence is to conceive it as the relations of bodies in space. To think is to conceive realities in space.

Just as, to explore the distant stars of the heavens, a particular material arrangement is necessary which we call a telescope, so to explore the nature of the beings who are higher than us, a mental arrangement is necessary. We must prepare our power of thinking as we prepare a more extended power of looking. We want a structure developed inside the skull for the one purpose, while an exterior telescope will do for the other.

And thus it seems that the difficulties which we first apprehended fall away.

To us, looking with half-blinded eyes at merely our own little slice of existence, our filmy all, it seemed that altruism meant disorder, vagary, danger.

But when we put it into practice in knowledge, we find that it means the direct revelation of a higher being and a call to us to participate ourselves too in a higher life--nay, a consciousness comes that we are higher than we know.

And so with our moral life as with our intellectual life. Is it not the case that those, who truly accept the rule of altruism, learn life in new dangerous ways?

It is true that we must give up the precepts of religion as being the will of God; but then we shall learn that the will of God shows itself partly in the religious precepts, and comes to be more fully and more plainly known as an inward spirit.

And that difficulty, too, about what we may do and what we may not, vanishes also. For, if it is the same about our fellow-creatures as it is about the block of cubes, when we have thrown out the self-regard from our relationship to them, we shall feel towards them as a higher being than man feels towards them, we shall feel towards them as they are in their true selves, not in their outward forms, but as eternal loving spirits.

And then those instincts which humanity feels with a secret impulse to be sacred and higher than any temporary good will be justified--or fulfilled.

There are two tendencies--one towards the direct cultivation of the religious perceptions, the other to reducing everything to reason. It will be but just for the exponents of the latter tendency to look at the whole universe, not the mere section of it which we know, before they deal authoritatively with the higher parts of religion.

And those who feel the immanence of a higher life in us will be needed in this outlook on the wider field of reality, so that they, being fitted to recognize, may tell us what lies ready for us to know.

The true path of wisdom consists in seeing that our intellect is foolishness--that our conclusions are absurd and mistaken, not in speculating on the world as a form of thought projected from the thinking principle within us--rather to be amazed that our thought has so limited the world and hidden from us its real existences. To think of ourselves as any other than things in space and subject to material conditions, is absurd, it is absurd on either of two hypotheses. If we are really things in space, then of course it is absurd to think of ourselves as if we were not so. On the other hand, if we are not things in space, then conceiving in space is the mode in which that unknown which we are exists as a mind. Its mental action is space-conception, and then to give up the idea of ourselves as in space, is not to get a truer idea, but to lose the only power of apprehension of ourselves which we possess.

And yet there is, it must be confessed, one way in which it may be possible for us to think without thinking of things in space.

That way is, not to abandon the use of space-thought, but to pass through it.

When we think of space, we have to think of it as infinity extended, and we have to think of it as of infinite dimensions. Now, as I have shown in “The Law of the Valley,”[3] when we come upon infinity in any mode of our thought, it is a sign that that mode of thought is dealing with a higher reality than it is adapted for, and in struggling to represent it, can only do so by an infinite number of terms. Now, space has an infinite number of positions and turns, and this may be due to the attempt forced upon us to think of things higher than space as in space. If so, then the way to get rid of space from our thoughts, is, not to go away from it, but to pass through it--to think about larger and larger systems of space, and space of more and more dimensions, till at last we get to such a representation in space of what is higher than space, that we can pass from the space-thought to the more absolute thought without that leap which would be necessary if we were to try to pass beyond space with our present very inadequate representation in it of what really is.

[3] “Science Romances,” No. II.

Again and again has human nature aspired and fallen. The vision has presented itself of a law which was love, a duty which carried away the enthusiasm, and in which the conflict of the higher and lower natures ceased because all was enlisted in one loving service. But again and again have such attempts failed. The common-sense view, that man is subject to law, external law, remains--that there are fates whom he must propitiate and obey. And there is a strong sharp curb, which, if it be not brought to bear by the will, is soon pulled tight by the world, and one more tragedy is enacted, and the over-confident soul is brought low.

And the rock on which such attempts always split, is in the indulgence of some limited passion. Some one object fills the soul with its image, and in devotion to that, other things are sacrificed, until at last all comes to ruin.

But what does this mean? Surely it is simply this, that where there should be knowledge there is ignorance. It is not that there is too much devotion, too much passion, but that we are ignorant and blind, and wander in error. We do not know what it is we care for, and waste our effort on the appearance. There is no such thing as wrong love; there is good love and bad knowledge, and men who err, clasp phantoms to themselves. Religion is but the search for realities; and thought, conscious of its own limitations, is its best aid.

Let a man care for any one object--let his regard for it be as concentrated and exclusive as you will, there will be no danger if he truly apprehends that which he cares for. Its true being is bound up with all the rest of existence, and, if his regard is true to one, then, if that one is really known, his regard is true to all.

There is a question sometimes asked, which shows the mere formalism into which we have fallen.

We ask: What is the end of existence? A mere play on words! For to conceive existence is to feel ends. The knowledge of existence is the caring for objects, the fear of dangers, the anxieties of love. Immersed in these, the triviality of the question, what is the end of existence? becomes obvious. If, however, letting reality fade away, we play with words, some questions of this kind are possible; but they are mere questions of words, and all content and meaning has passed out of them.

The task before us is this: we strive to find out that physical unity, that body which men are parts of, and in the life of which their true unity lies. The existence of this one body we know from the utterances of those whom we cannot but feel to be inspired; we feel certain tendencies in ourselves which cannot be explained except by a supposition of this kind.

And, now, we set to work deliberately to form in our minds the means of investigation, the faculty of higher-space conception. To our ordinary space-thought, men are isolated, distinct, in great measure antagonistic. But with the first use of the weapon of higher thought, it is easily seen that all men may really be members of one body, their isolation may be but an affair of limited consciousness. There is, of course, no value as science in such a supposition. But it suggests to us many possibilities; it reveals to us the confined nature of our present physical views, and stimulates us to undertake the work necessary to enable us to deal adequately with the subject.

The work is entirely practical and detailed; it is the elaboration, beginning from the simplest objects of an experience in thought, of a higher-space world.

To begin it, we take up those details of position and relation which are generally relegated to symbolism or unconscious apprehension, and bring these waste products of thought into the central position of the laboratory of the mind. We turn all our attention on the most simple and obvious details of our every-day experience, and thence we build up a conception of the fundamental facts of position and arrangement in a higher world. We next study more complicated higher shapes, and get our space perception drilled and disciplined. Then we proceed to put a content into our framework.

The means of doing this are twofold--observation and inspiration.

As to observation, it is hardly possible to describe the feelings of that investigator who shall distinctly trace in the physical world, and experimentally demonstrate the existence of the higher-space facts which are so curiously hidden from us. He will lay the first stone for the observation and knowledge of the higher beings to whom we are related.

As to the other means, it is obvious, surely, that if there has ever been inspiration, there is inspiration now. Inspiration is not a unique phenomenon. It has existed in absolutely marvellous degree in some of the teachers of the ancient world; but that, whatever it was, which they possessed, must be present now, and, if we could isolate it, be a demonstrable fact.

And I would propose to define inspiration as the faculty, which, to take a particular instance, does the following:--

If a square penetrates a line cornerwise, it marks out on the line a segment bounded by two points--that is, we suppose a line drawn on a piece of paper, and a square lying on the paper to be pushed so that its corner passes over the line. Then, supposing the paper and the line to be in the same plane, the line is interrupted by the square; and, of the square, all that is observable in the line, is a segment bounded by two points.

Next, suppose a cube to be pushed cornerwise through a plane, and let the plane make a section of the cube. The section will be a plane figure, and it will be a triangle.

Now, first, the section of a square by a line is a segment bounded by two points; second, the section of a cube by a plane is a triangle bounded by three lines.

Hence, we infer that the section of a figure in four dimensions analogous to a cube, by three-dimensional space, will be a tetrahedron--a figure bounded by four planes.

This is found to be true; with a little familiarity with four-dimensional movements this is seen to be obvious. But I would define inspiration as the faculty by which without actual experience this conclusion is formed.

How it is we come to this conclusion I am perfectly unable to say. Somehow, looking at mere formal considerations, there comes into the mind a conclusion about something beyond the range of actual experience.

We may call this reasoning from analogy; but using this phrase does not explain the process. It seems to me just as rational to say that the facts of the line and plane remind us of facts which we know already about four-dimensional figures--that they tend to bring these facts out into consciousness, as Plato shows with the boy’s knowledge of the cube. We must be really four-dimensional creatures, or we could not think about four dimensions.

But whatever name we give to this peculiar and inexplicable faculty, that we do possess it is certain; and in our investigations it will be of service to us. We must carefully investigate existence in a plane world, and then, making sure, and impressing on our inward sense, as we go, every step we take with regard to a higher world, we shall be reminded continually of fresh possibilities of our higher existence.