The mystery of space

by Robert T. Browne

Algebraic quantities, however, represent neither objects in space nor space qualities except in a purely conventional manner. All efforts to justify the objective existence of a fourth dimension based upon such reasoning will, therefore, fail; because the basis of such arguments is itself faulty. In the sentence: "The man loves his bottle," the thing meant is not the bottle, but what the bottle contains. For the purpose of the figure the bottle signifies its contents. There is no more real connection between the bottle and what it contains than between any word and the object for which it stands. Words are said to be symbols of ideas. But they are not natural symbols; they are conventional symbols, made for the purpose of cataloguing, indexing and systematizing our knowledge. Words can be divorced from ideas and objects, or rather have never had any real connection with them. There are two classes of natural symbols, namely; objects and ideas. These, objects and ideas, symbolize realities. Realities are imperceptible and incomprehensible to the intellect which has aptitude only for a slight comprehension of the symbols of realities. For instance, a tree is a natural symbol. It represents an actuality which is imperceptible to the intellect. The intellect can deal only with the sensible symbol. It is a natural symbol; because it is possible directly to trace a living connection between the tree and the tree-reality. That is, it would be possible so to trace out the vital connection between the tree and its reality if the intellect had aptitude for such tracery. But, in reality, since it has no such aptitude, it remains for the work of that higher faculty than the intellect which recognizes both the connection and the intellect's inability to trace it. Further, an object is called a natural symbol because it is the bridge between sensuous representation and reality. It is as if one could begin at the surface of an object and by a subtle process of elimination and excortication arrive at the heart of the universum of reality. No such consummation may be reached by dealing with words which have merely an artificial relationship with the objects which they signify. Again, ideas, that is, ideas that are universal in application and have their roots in the great ocean of reality, are natural symbols; because if it were possible to handle an idea with the physical hands it would be possible to arrive at the heart of that which it symbolized without ever losing our connection with the idea itself. In other words, ideas and objects, unlike words, can never be divorced from that which they symbolize. Both, being of the same class, are the opposite poles of realities. This then is the difference between natural symbols and artificial symbols—that a natural symbol, such as objects and ideas, is copolar with reality whereas an artificial symbol, such as words, geometric constructions and the like not only lacks this copolarity but is itself a symbol of natural symbols.

It is, therefore, inconceivable that because the algebraic quantity A³ has been arbitrarily decreed to be a representation of the volume of a cube, every such quantity in the algebraic series shall actually represent some object or set of objects in the physical world. Even if it be granted that such may be the case, is it not certain that there is a limit to things in the objective universe? Yet there may not be any limit to algebraic or mathematical determinations. The material universe is limited and conditioned; the world of mathesis is unlimited and unconditioned save by its own limitations and conditions. It is irrational to expect that physical phenomena shall justify all mathematical predicates.

There is perhaps no single mathematical desideratum or consideration which may be said to be the natural symbolism of realities; for the whole of mathematical conclusions is a mass of artificial and arbitrary but concordant symbols of the crasser or nether pole of the antipodes of realism. It is exceedingly dangerous, therefore, to predicate upon such a far-fetched symbolism as mathematics furnishes anything purporting to deal with ultimate realities. And those who insist upon doing so are either blind themselves to these limitations or are madly endeavoring to befog the minds of others who are dependent upon them for leadership in questions of mathematical import.

Analogies have been unsparingly used in efforts to popularize the four-space conception and much of the violence which has been done to the notion is due to this vagary. The mathematical publicist, in trying to give a mental picture of the fourth dimension, examines the appearances of three dimensional beings as they might appear to a two dimensional being or duodim. He imagines a race of beings endowed with all the human faculties except that they live in a land of but two dimensions—length and breadth. He thinks of them as shadows of three dimensional beings to whom there are no such conceptions as "up" and "down." They can see nothing nor sense anything in any way that is without their plane. They can move in any direction within the plane in which they live, but can have no idea of any movement that might carry them without that plane. A house for such beings might be simply a series of rectangles. One of them might be as safe behind a line as a tridim or three dimensional being would be behind a stone wall. A bank safe for the unodim would be a mere circle. A duodim in any two dimensional prison might be rescued by a tridim without the opening of doors or the breaking of walls. An action of a tridim performed so as to contact their plane would be to them a miracle, absolutely unaccountable upon the basis of any known fact to the unodim or duodim. A tridim might go into a house where lived a family of duodims, appear and disappear without being detected or its ever being discovered how he accomplished such a marvelous feat. Our miracles, after the same fashion, are said to be the antics of some four dimensional being who has similar access to our three dimensional world and whose actions are similarly inexplicable to us. So the analogies have been multiplied. But the temptation to apply the consequences of such reasoning to actual three-space conditions has been so great that many have yielded to it and have consequently sought actually to explain physical phenomena upon the basis of the fourth dimension.

The utilitarian side of the question of hyperspace has not been neglected either. And so, early in the development of the hypothesis and its various connotations, the attention of investigators was turned to this aspect of the inquiry. Strange possibilities were revealed as a result. For instance, it was found that an expert fourth dimensional operator is possessed of extraordinary advantages over ordinary tridimensional beings. Operating from his mysterious hiding place in hyperspace, he could easily appear and disappear in so mysterious a manner that even the most strongly sealed chests of treasures would be easily and entirely at his disposal. No city police, Scotland Yard detective nor gendarme could have any terrors for him. Drs. Jekyll and Messrs. Hyde might abound everywhere without fear of detection. Objects as well as persons might be made to pass into or out of closed rooms "without penetrating the walls," thus making escape easy for the imprisoned. No tridimensional state, condition or system of arrangements, accordingly, would be safe from the ravages of evilly inclined four dimensional entities. Objects that now are limited to a point or line rotation could in the fourth dimension rotate about a plane and thus further increase the perplexities of our engineering and mechanical problems; four lines could be erected perpendicular to each other whereas in three space only three such lines can be erected; the right hand could be maneuvered into the fourth dimension and be recovered as a left hand; the mysteries of growth, decay and death would find a satisfactory explanation on the basis of the fourth dimensional hypothesis and many, if not all, of the perplexing problems of physiology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, anthropology and psychology would yield up their mysteries to the skill of the fourth dimensional operator. Marvelous possibilities these and much to be desired! But the most remarkable thing about these so-called possibilities is their impossibility. It is this kind of erratic reasoning that has brought the conception of a fourth dimension into general disrepute with the popular mind. It is to be regretted, too, for the notion is a perfectly legitimate one in the domain of mathesis where it originated and rightly belongs.

It is not to be wondered at that metageometricians and others should at first surmise that, in the four-space, they had found the key to the deep mysteries of nature in all branches of inquiry. For so vast was the domain and so marvelous were the possibilities which the new movement revealed that it was to be expected that those who were privileged to get the first glimpses thereof would not be able to realize fully their significance. But the stound of their minds and the attendant magnification of the elements which they discovered were but incidents in the larger and more comprehensive process of adjustment to the great outstanding facts of psychogenesis which is only faintly foreshadowed in the so-called hyperdimensional. The whole scope of inquiry connected with hyperspace is not an end in itself. It is merely a means to an end. And that is the preparation of the human mind for the inborning of a new faculty and consequently more largely extended powers of cognition. Metageometrical discoveries are therefore the excrescences of a deeper, more significant world process of mental unfoldment. They belong to the matutinal phenomena incident to this new stage of mental evolution. All such investigations are but the preliminary exercises which give birth to new tendencies which are destined to flower forth into additional faculties and capacities. So that it is well that the evolutionary aspect of the question be not overlooked; for there is danger of this on account of the magnitude and kosmic importance of its scope of motility.

A geometric line is said to be a space of one dimension. A plane is a space of two dimensions and a cube, a space of three dimensions. In figure 7 below, the line ab is said to be one dimensional; because only one coördinate is necessary to locate a point-position in it. The plane, abcd, figure 8, is said to be two dimensional because two coördinates, ab and db are required to locate a point, as the point b. The cube abcdefgh, figure 9, is said to be tridimensional, because, in order to locate the point b, for instance, it is necessary to have three coördinates, ab, bc and gb. The tesseract is said to be four dimensional, because, in order to locate the point b, in the tesseract, it is necessary to have four coördinates, ab, bc, bb' and h'b, figure 10.

Fig. 7.