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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.
THREE-SPACE. GENESIS OF A CUBE. APPEARANCES OF A CUBE TO A PLANE-BEING.

The models consist of a set of eight and a set of four cubes. They are marked with different colours, so as to show the properties of the figure in Higher Space, to which they belong.

The simplest figure in one-dimensional space, that is, in a straight line, is a straight line bounded at the two extremities. The figure in this case consists of a length bounded by two points.

Looking at Cube 1, and placing it so that the figure 1 is uppermost, we notice a straight line in contact with the table, which is coloured Orange. It begins in a Gold point and ends in a Fawn point. The Orange extends to some distance on two faces of the Cube; but for our present purpose we suppose it to be simply a thin line.

This line we conceive to be generated in the following way. Let a point move and trace out a line. Let the point be the Gold point, and let it, moving, trace out the Orange line and terminate in the Fawn point. Thus the figure consists of the point at which it begins, the point at which it ends, and the portion between. We may suppose the point to start as a Gold point, to change its colour to Orange during the motion, and when it stops to become Fawn. The motion we suppose from left to right, and its direction we call X.

If, now, this Orange line move away from us at right angles, it will trace out a square. Let this be the Black square, which is seen underneath Model 1. The points, which bound the line, will during this motion trace out lines, and to these lines there will be terminal points. Also, the Square will be terminated by a line on the opposite side. Let the Gold point in moving away trace out a Blue line and end in a Buff point; the Fawn point a Crimson line ending in a Terracotta point. The Orange line, having traced a Black square, ends in a Green-grey line. This direction, away from the observer, we call Y.

Now, let the whole Black square traced out by the Orange line move upwards at right angles. It will trace out a new figure, a Cube. And the edges of the square, while moving upwards, will trace out squares. Bounding the cube, and opposite to the Black square, will be another square. Let the Orange line moving upwards trace a Dark Blue square and end in a Reddish line. The Gold point traces a Brown line; the Fawn point traces a French-grey line, and these lines end in a Light-blue and a Dull-purple point. Let the Blue line trace a Vermilion square and end in a Deep-yellow line. Let the Buff point trace a Green line, and end in a Red point. The Green-grey line traces a Light-yellow square and ends in a Leaden line; the Terracotta point traces a Dark-slate line and ends in a Deep-blue point. The Crimson line traces a Blue-green square and ends in a Bright-blue line.

Finally, the Black square traces a Cube, the colour of which is invisible, and ends in a white square. We suppose the colour of the cube to be a Light-buff. The upward direction we call Z. Thus we say: The Gold point moved Z, traces a Brown line, and ends in a Light-blue point.

We can now clearly realize and refer to each region of the cube by a colour.

At the Gold point, lines from three directions meet, the X line Orange, the Y line Blue, the Z line Brown.

Thus we began with a figure of one dimension, a line, we passed on to a figure of two dimensions, a square, and ended with a figure of three dimensions, a cube.

The square represents a figure in two dimensions; but if we want to realize what it is to a being in two dimensions, we must not look down on it. Such a view could not be taken by a plane-being.

Let us suppose a being moving on the surface of the table and unable to rise from it. Let it not know that it is upon anything, but let it believe that the two directions and compounds of those two directions are all possible directions. Moreover, let it not ask the question: “On what am I supported?” Let it see no reason for any such question, but simply call the smooth surface, along which it moves, Space.

Such a being could not tell the colour of the square traced by the Orange line. The square would be bounded by the lines which surround it, and only by breaking through one of those lines could the plane-being discover the colour of the square.

In trying to realize the experience of a plane-being it is best to suppose that its two dimensions are upwards and sideways, i.e., Z and X, because, if there be any matter in the plane-world, it will, like matter in the solid world, exert attractions and repulsions. The matter, like the beings, must be supposed very thin, that is, of so slight thickness that it is quite unnoticed by the being. Now, if there be a very large mass of such matter lying on the table, and a plane-being be free to move about it, he will be attracted to it in every direction. “Towards this huge mass” would be “Down,” and “Away from it” would be “Up,” just as “Towards the earth” is to solid beings “Down,” and “Away from it” is “Up,” at whatever part of the globe they may be. Hence, if we want to realize a plane-being’s feelings, we must keep the sense of up and down. Therefore we must use the Z direction, and it is more convenient to take Z and X than Z and Y.

Any direction lying between these is said to be compounded of the two; for, if we move slantwise for some distance, the point reached might have been also reached by going a certain distance X, and then a certain distance Z, or vice versâ.

Let us suppose the Orange line has moved Z, and traced the Dark-blue square ending in the Reddish line. If we now place a piece of stiff paper against the Dark-blue square, and suppose the plane-beings to move to and fro on that surface of the paper, which touches the square, we shall have means of representing their experience.

To obtain a more consistent view of their existence, let us suppose the piece of paper extended, so that it cuts through our earth and comes out at the antipodes, thus cutting the earth in two. Then suppose all the earth removed away, both hemispheres vanishing, and only a very thin layer of matter left upon the paper on that side which touches the Dark-blue square. This represents what the world would be to a plane-being.

It is of some importance to get the notion of the directions in a plane-world, as great difficulty arises from our notions of up and down. We miss the right analogy if we conceive of a plane-world without the conception of up and down.

A good plan is, to use a slanting surface, a stiff card or book cover, so placed that it slopes upwards to the eye. Then gravity acts as two forces. It acts (1) as a force pressing all particles upon the slanting surface into it, and (2) as a force of gravity along the plane, making particles tend to slip down its incline. We may suppose that in a plane-world there are two such forces, one keeping the beings thereon to the plane, the other acting between bodies in it, and of such a nature that by virtue of it any large mass of plane-matter produces on small particles around it the same effects as the large mass of solid matter called our earth produces on small objects like our bodies situated around it. In both cases the larger draws the smaller to itself, and creates the sensations of up and down.

If we hold the cube so that its Dark-blue side touches a sheet of paper held upwards to the eye, and if we then look straight down along the paper, confining our view to that which is in actual contact with the paper, we see the same view of the cube as a plane-being would get. We see a Light-blue point, a Reddish line, and a Dull-purple point. The plane-being only sees a line, just as we only see a square of the cube.

The line where the paper rests on the table may be taken as representative of the surface of the plane-being’s earth. It would be merely a line to him, but it would have the same property in relation to the plane-world, as a square has in relation to a solid world; in neither case can the notion of what in the latter is termed solidity be quite excluded. If the plane-being broke through the line bounding his earth, he would find more matter beyond it.

Let us now leave out of consideration the question of “up and down” in a plane-world. Let us no longer consider it in the vertical, or ZX, position, but simply take the surface (XY) of the table as that which supports a plane-world. Let us represent its inhabitants by thin pieces of paper, which are free to move over the surface of the table, but cannot rise from it. Also, let the thickness (i.e., height above the surface) of these beings be so small that they cannot discern it. Lastly let us premise there is no attraction in their world, so that they have not any up and down.

Placing Cube 1 in front of us, let us now ask how a plane-being could apprehend such a cube. The Black face he could easily study. He would find it bounded by Gold point, Orange line, Fawn point, Crimson line, and so on. And he would discover it was Black by cutting through any of these lines and entering it. (This operation would be equivalent to the mining of a solid being).

But of what came above the Black square he would be completely ignorant. Let us now suppose a square hole to be made in the table, so that the cube could pass through, and let the cube fit the opening so exactly that no trace of the cutting of the table be visible to the plane-being. If the cube began to pass through, it would seem to him simply to change, for of its motion he could not be aware, as he would not know the direction in which it moved. Let it pass down till the White square be just on a level with the surface of the table. The plane-being would then perceive a Light-blue point, a Reddish line, a Dull-purple point, a Bright-blue line, and so on. These would surround a White square, which belonged to the same body as that to which the Black square belonged. But in this body there would be a dimension, which was not in the square. Our upward direction would not be apprehended by him directly. Motion from above downwards would only be apprehended as a change in the figure before him. He would not say that he had before him different sections of a cube, but only a changing square. If he wanted to look at the upper square, he could only do so when the Black square had gone an inch below his plane. To study the upper square simultaneously with the lower, he would have to make a model of it, and then he could place it beside the lower one.

Looking at the cube, we see that the Reddish line corresponds precisely to the Orange line, and the Deep-yellow to the Blue line. But if the plane-being had a model of the upper square, and placed it on the right-hand side of the Black square, the Deep-yellow line would come next to the Crimson line of the Black square. There would be a discontinuity about it. All that he could do would be to observe which part in the one square corresponded to which part in the other. Obviously too there lies something between the Black square and the White.

The plane-being would notice that when a line moves in a direction not its own, it traces out a square. When the Orange line is moved away, it traces out the Black square. The conception of a new direction thus obtained, he would understand that the Orange line moving so would trace out a square, and the Blue line moving so would do the same. To us these squares are visible as wholes, the Dark-blue, and the Vermilion. To him they would be matters of verbal definition rather than ascertained facts. However, given that he had the experience of a cube being pushed through his plane, he would know there was some figure, whereof his square was part, which was bounded by his square on one side, and by a White square on another side. We have supposed him to make models of these boundaries, a Black square and a White square. The Black square, which is his solid matter, is only one boundary of a figure in Higher Space.

But we can suppose the cube to be presented to him otherwise than by passing through his plane. It can be turned round the Orange line, in which case the Blue line goes out, and, after a time, the Brown line comes in. It must be noticed that the Brown line comes into a direction opposite to that in which the Blue line ran. These two lines are at right angles to each other, and, if one be moved upwards till it is at right angles to the surface of the table, the other comes on to the surface, but runs in a direction opposite to that in which the first ran. Thus, by turning the cube about the Orange line and the Blue line, different sides of it can be shown to a plane-being. By combining the two processes of turning and pushing through the plane, all the sides can be shown to the plane-being. For instance, if the cube be turned so that the Dark-blue square be on the plane, and it be then passed through, the Light-yellow square will come in.

Now, if the plane-being made a set of models of these different appearances and studied them, he could form some rational idea of the Higher Solid which produced them. He would become able to give some consistent account of the properties of this new kind of existence; he could say what came into his plane space, if the other space penetrated the plane edge-wise or corner-wise, and could describe all that would come in as it turned about in any way.

He would have six models. Let us consider two of them—the Black and the White squares. We can observe them on the cube. Every colour on the one is different from every colour on the other. If we now ask what lies between the Orange line and the Reddish line, we know it is a square, for the Orange line moving in any direction gives a square. And, if the six models were before the plane-being, he could easily select that which showed what he wanted. For that which lies between Orange line and Reddish line must be bounded by Orange and Reddish lines. He would search among the six models lying beside each other on his plane, till he found the Dark-blue square. It is evident that only one other square differs in all its colours from the Black square, viz., the White square. For it is entirely separate. The others meet it in one of their lines. This total difference exists in all the pairs of opposite surfaces on the cube.

Now, suppose the plane-being asked himself what would appear if the cube turned round the Blue line. The cube would begin to pass through his space. The Crimson line would disappear beneath the plane and the Blue-green square would cut it, so that opposite to the Blue line in the plane there would be a Blue-green line. The French-grey line and the Dark-slate line would be cut in points, and from the Gold point to the French-grey point would be a Dark-blue line; and opposite to it would be a Light-yellow line, from the Buff point to the Dark-slate point. Thus the figure in the plane world would be an oblong instead of a square, and the interior of it would be of the same Light-buff colour as the interior of the cube. It is assumed that the plane closes up round the passing cube, as the surface of a liquid does round any object immersed.