"The human eye is not the animal eye," said the Martian. "An animal eye sees only meaningless shapes; animals use all their senses to identify objects. But the human eye sees concepts, Jery Delvin. Where an animal merely discerns eyes, feeding apparatus and breathing vents, the human eye sees a face. Actually, there is no such thing as a face."
It was true enough, in a way, that the human eye tended to group otherwise unrelated objects into concepts of non-actual reality.
"So how come I can see you, and she can't?" I reiterated.
"You are gifted to see true," said the Martian. "Your mind apprehends concepts where it has previously expected to find none. You relate what you see, and correctly. As in the case of your deriving so much information from your conversation with Clatclit. Another man would not have succeeded in that."
I shook my head, confused. "But I—I see you!"
"No, Jery Delvin. Your mind sees me. Your eyes alone could not possibly view me since I am never entirely here to be viewed. Your eyes see one part of me, then another, then another and another. But your mind rejects the idea that I am four separate entities, and sees me as I am, a unit."
"You're here, you say, but you're not here, too?" I choked, feeling positively giddy.
"I am not a three-dimensional creature," said the Martian. "We whom you call the Ancients are existing in four dimensions."
"I thought Einsteinian physics says that time is the fourth dimension," I said slowly.
"It is not time," said the Martian. "It is place that is the fourth dimension. What is here, Jery Delvin? Or there? Remember, there is no here or there except in relationship to something else. If only one small globe of rock comprised existing matter, Jery Delvin, where would it be?"