Scientific Romances (First Series)

by Charles Howard Hinton

Hence, all complexities and changes of a material system made up of similar atoms in a plane could result from the uniform motion as a whole of a system of threads.

We can imagine these threads as weaving together to form connected shapes, each complete in itself, and these shapes as they pass through the fluid plane give rise to a series of moving points. Yet, inasmuch as the threads are supposed to form consistent shapes, the motion of the points would not be wholly random, but numbers of them would present the semblance of moving figures. Suppose, for instance, a number of threads to be so grouped as to form a cylinder for some distance, but after a while to be pulled apart by other threads with which they interlink. While the cylinder was passing through the plane, we should have in the plane a number of points in a circle. When the part where the threads deviated came to the plane, the circle would break up by the points moving away. These moving figures in the plane are but the traces of the shapes of threads as those shapes pass on. These moving figures may be conceived to have a life and a consciousness of their own.

Or, if it be irrational to suppose them to have a consciousness when the shapes of which they are momentary traces have none, we may well suppose that the shapes of threads have consciousness, and that the moving figures share this consciousness, only that in their case it is limited to those parts of the shapes that simultaneously pass through the plane. In the plane, then, we may conceive bodies with all the properties of a material system, moving and changing, possessing consciousness. After a while it may well be that one of them becomes so disassociated that it appears no longer as a unit, and its consciousness as such may be lost. But the threads of existence of such a figure are not broken, nor is the shape which gave it origin altered in any way. It has simply passed on to a distance from the plane. Thus nothing which existed in the conscious life on the plane would cease. There would in such an existence be no cause and effect, but simply the gradual realisation in a superficies of an already existent whole. There would be no progress, unless we were to suppose the threads as they pass to interweave themselves in more complex shapes.

Can a representation, such as the preceding, be applied to the case of the existence in space with which we have to do? Is it possible to suppose that the movements and changes of material objects are the intersections with a three-dimensional space of a four-dimensional existence? Can our consciousness be supposed to deal with a spatial profile of some higher actuality?

It is needless to say that all the considerations that have been brought forward in regard to the possibility of the production of a system satisfying the conditions of materiality by the passing of threads through a fluid plane, holds good with regard to a four-dimensional existence passing through a three-dimensional space. Each part of the ampler existence which passed through our space would seem perfectly limited to us. We should have no indication of the permanence of its existence. Were such a thought adopted, we should have to imagine some stupendous whole, wherein all that has ever come into being or will come co-exists, which passing slowly on, leaves in this flickering consciousness of ours, limited to a narrow space and a single moment, a tumultuous record of changes and vicissitudes that are but to us. Change and movement seem as if they were all that existed. But the appearance of them would be due merely to the momentary passing through our consciousness of ever existing realities.

In thinking of these matters it is hard to divest ourselves of the habit of visual or tangible illustration. If we think of a man as existing in four dimensions, it is hard to prevent ourselves from conceiving him as prolonged in an already known dimension. The image we form resembles somewhat those solemn Egyptian statues which in front represent well enough some dignified sitting figure, but which are immersed to their ears in a smooth mass of stone which fits their contour exactly.

No material image will serve. Organised beings seem to us so complete that any addition to them would deface their beauty. Yet were we creatures confined to a plane, the outline of a Corinthian column would probably seem to be of a beauty unimprovable in its kind. We should be unable to conceive any addition to it, simply for the reason that any addition we could conceive would be of the nature of affixing an unsightly extension to some part of the contour. Yet, moving as we do in space of three dimensions, we see that the beauty of the stately column far surpasses that of any single outline. So all that we can do is to deny our faculty of judging of the ideal completeness of shapes in four dimensions.

CHAPTER IV.

Let us now leave this supposition of framework and threads. Let us investigate the conception of a four-dimensional existence in a simpler and more natural manner—in the same way that a two-dimensional being should think about us, not as infinite in the third dimension, but limited in three dimensions as he is in two. A being existing in four dimensions must then be thought to be as completely bounded in all four directions as we are in three. All that we can say in regard to the possibility of such beings is, that we have no experience of motion in four directions. The powers of such beings and their experience would be ampler, but there would be no fundamental difference in the laws of force and motion.

Such a being would be able to make but a part of himself visible to us, for a cube would be apprehended by a two-dimensional being as the square in which it stood. Thus a four-dimensional being would suddenly appear as a complete and finite body, and as suddenly disappear, leaving no trace of himself, in space, in the same way that anything lying on a flat surface, would, on being lifted, suddenly vanish out of the cognisance of beings, whose consciousness was confined to the plane. The object would not vanish by moving in any direction, but disappear instantly as a whole. There would be no barrier, no confinement of our devising that would not be perfectly open to him. He would come and go at pleasure; he would be able to perform feats of the most surprising kind. It would be possible by an infinite plane extending in all directions to divide our space into two portions absolutely separated from one another; but a four-dimensional being would slip round this plane with the greatest ease.