A New Era of Thought

by Charles Howard Hinton

Everything depends on this—Is there a native and spontaneous power of apprehension, which springs into activity when we take the trouble to present to it a view from which the self elements are eliminated? About this every one must judge for himself. But the process whereby this inner vision is called on is a definite one.

And just as a human being placed in natural human relationships finds in himself a spontaneous motive towards the fulfilment of them, discovers in himself a being whose motives transcend the limits of bodily self-regard, so we should expect to find in our minds a power which is ready to apprehend a more absolute order of fact than that which comes through the senses.

I do not mean a theoretical power. A theory is always about it, and about it only. I mean an inner view, a vision whereby the seeing mind as it were identifies itself with the thing seen. Not the tree of knowledge, but of the inner and vital sap which builds up the tree of knowledge.

And if this point is settled, it will be of some use in answering the question: What are we? Are we then bodies only? This question has been answered in the negative by our instincts. Why should we despair of a rational answer? Let us adopt our space thought and develop it.

The supposition which we must make is the following. Let us imagine a smooth surface—like the surface of a table; but let the solid body at which we are looking be very thin, so that our surface is more like the surface of a thin sheet of metal than the top of a table.

And let us imagine small particles, like particles of dust, to lie on this surface, and to be attracted downwards so that they keep on the surface. But let us suppose them to move freely over the surface. Let them never in their movements rise one over the other; let them all singly and collectively be close to the surface. And let us suppose all sorts of attractions and repulsions between these atoms, and let them have all kinds of movements like the atoms of our matter have.

Then there may be conceived a whole world, and various kinds of beings as formed out of this matter. The peculiarity about this world and these beings would be, that neither the inanimate nor the animate members of it would move away from the surface. Their movements would all lie in one plane, a plane parallel to and very near the surface on which they are.

And if we suppose a vast mass to be formed out of these atoms, and to lie like a great round disk on the surface, compact and cohering closely together, then this great disk would afford a support for the smaller shapes, which we may suppose to be animate beings. The smaller shapes would be attracted to the great disk, but would be arrested at its rim. They would tend to the centre of the disk, but be unable to get nearer to the centre than its rim.

Thus, as we are attracted to the centre of the earth, but walk on its surface, the beings on this disk would be attracted to its centre, but walk on its rim. The force of attraction which they would feel would be the attraction of the disk. The other force of attraction, acting perpendicularly to the plane which keeps them and all the matter of their world to the surface, they would know nothing about. For they cannot move either towards this force or away from it; and the surface is quite smooth, so that they feel no friction in their movement over it.

Now let us realize clearly one of these beings as he proceeds along the rim of his world. Let us imagine him in the form of an outline of a human being, with no thickness except that of the atoms of his world. As to the mode in which he walks, we must imagine that he proceeds by springs or hops, because there would be no room for his limbs to pass each other.