Now take a piece of paper and put a dot right in the middle and suppose that it has no means of passing through the paper. We can only conceive the dot getting to the other side of the paper by passing round the edge and coming back again to the position underneath where it was.
But by a four-dimensional movement it can slip round the paper without going to the edge.
A set of words may help. In a plane a body rotates round a point—rotation takes place round a point. In space rotation is always round a line—the axis. In four-dimensional space rotation takes place round a plane.
To take a farther consideration of this point—a plane being can see one side or the opposite of a straight line. He can only see it in one direction or in the reverse direction. But we can look at a straight line from a direction at right angles to that in which a plane being looks at it. We can look at a straight line from points which go all round it.
Similarly, a being in four-dimensional space can look at a plane from a direction at right angles to that in which we look at it. If we try to think of this we shall imagine ourselves looking at the thin edge. But this is not what a four-dimensional being would mean. He would see the plane exactly as we see it, but it would be from a direction at right angles to that in which we look.
In working with four-dimensional models it is a curious sensation until we become used to it—that of looking at a plane at one time, and then looking at it again; and, although it seems just the same—as square in front of us as before—realizing that we are looking at it from a direction at right angles to that of our former view.
And in four dimensions a point which is quite close to a plane can revolve round it without passing through it, thus presenting to us the appearance of vibrating across the plane, but not passing through it.
The appearance is as wonderful to us as it would be for a plane being to see a point which was in front of a line quickly passing behind it without having gone round the end. Such a point would appear to the plane being to vibrate across his line without passing through it.
Now if we stand in front of a mirror we see the image of ourselves. If we were to go round the mirror and take behind it the position which our image seemed to occupy, we should not be able to make ourselves coincide with it. In the mirror opposite to our left hand is the image of our left hand; but if we passed round, our right hand would be in the place in which we imagined we saw the image of our left hand. And thus we cannot make ourselves coincide with our image. But by a rotation in four-dimensional space we could put ourselves so as exactly to coincide with our image. This can be seen by referring to the case of the straight line, Diagram IV.
