Then, why should it be deemed necessary to discover some more mysterious realm of four dimensional proportions in which the spirits of the dead may find a habitation? Are the spiritualists, too, reduced to the necessity of further mystifying their already adequately mysterious phenomena? If there were not quite enough of physicality upon the basis of which all the antics of these entities can be explained, and that satisfactorily, one would, as a matter of course, be inclined to lend some credence to these claims; but as it is clear that all organized beings have some power, if no more than that which maintains their organization, and as it ought also be an acceptable fact that such a being is directed by mind; and further, that owing to the nature of a spirit body it can penetrate solid matter or matter of any other degree of density below the coefficient of spirit matter, it ought likewise be unnecessary to go without the province of strictly tridimensional mechanics for an explanation of spiritistic phenomena.
Equally unnecessary and uncalled for is the attempt of certain others who lean toward the view of speculative chemists to account for the none too securely established hypothesis that eight different alcohols, each having the formula C5H12O may be produced without variation. This is said to be due to the fact that certain of the component atoms, notably the carbon atoms, take a fourth dimensional position in the compound and thus produce the unusual spectacle of eight alcohols from one formula. Have chemists actually exhausted all purely physical means of reaching an understanding of the carbon compounds and are therefore compelled to resort to questionable means in order to make additional progress in their field? It is incredible. Hence the more facetious appears the mathematical extravaganza in which originates the tendence among the more sanguine advocates to make of the fourth dimension a sort of "jack of all trades," a veritable "Aladdin's lamp" wherewith all kosmic profundities may be illuminated and made plain. Not until the perfection of instruments of precision has been reached, and not until human ingenuity has been exhausted in its efforts to produce more refined methods of research should it be permissible even to venture into untried and more or less debatable fields in search of a relief which after all is unobtainable.
Notwithstanding the fact that all attempts at accounting for physical phenomena on the basis of n-dimensionality (which is itself by all the standards of objective reference a non-existent quantity and therefore irreconcilable with perceptual space requirements) are to be characterized simply as a senseless dalliance with otherwise deeply profound questions, many have fallen into a complete forgetfulness of the logical barriers inhering in and hedging about the query and have committed other and less excusable errors in the premises. Take, for instance, the suggestion that the action of a tartrate upon a beam of polarized light is due to the assumption of a fourth dimensional direction by some component in the acid. This for the reason that experimentation has shown that tartaric acid, in one form, will turn the plane of polarized light to the right while in another form will turn it to the left. It is not believed, however, that there is any warrant for such an assumption. There is also another kind of tartrate which seems to be neutral in that it has no effect whatever upon the beam of light, turning it neither to the right nor to the left nor having other visible or determinable effect upon it. Indeed, it is not clear how it is hoped to prove such a case by constituting as a norm a hypothesis which is essentially indemonstrable. A more logical procedure would be first to establish the objective, discoverable posture of four-space; show the actual movement of matter and entities therein; locate it by empirical methods of research, and then, basing our assertions upon apodeictic evidences, assume a new attitude toward these phenomena because of the support found in established and verifiable facts. Some hope of gaining a respectful hearing might then be entertained; but at least to do so now appears to be quite untimely.
Major Wilmot E. Ellis, Coast Artillery Corps, United States Army, in The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained,[22] remarks:
"... in the ether, if anywhere, we should expect to find some fourth dimensional characteristics. Gravitation, electricity, magnetism and light are known to be due to stresses in, or motions of, the infinitesimal particles of the ether. The real nature of these phenomena has never been fully explained by three dimensional mathematical analysis. Indeed, the unexplained residuum would seem to indicate that so far we have merely been considering the three dimensional aspects of four dimensional processes. As one illustration of many, it has been shown both mathematically and experimentally that no more than five corpuscles may have an independent grouping in an atom."
The weakness of this view may be due to the fact that at that time Major Ellis was emphasizing in his own mind the necessity of simplifying the conception so as to make it of easy comprehension rather than the establishment of any fealty to truth or the spirit of mathesis in his examination of the problem. What therefore of reality the student fails to find in his view may be attributed to the sacrifice which the writer (Major Ellis) felt himself called upon to make for the sake of simplicity. Hence a certain expressed connivance at his position is allowable. But, on the other hand, if such were not the conscious intent of Major Ellis it is not understood how it should appear that "the unexplained residuum would seem to indicate that so far we have merely been considering the three dimensional aspects of four dimensional processes." Contrarily, it has yet to be proved that three dimensional space does not afford ample scope of motility for all observable or recognizable physical processes and that there is no necessity for reference to hyperspace phenomena for an explanation of the "unexplained residuum." It is, of course, understood that many of the possibilities predicated for hyperspace are purely nonsensical so far as their actual realization is concerned. Our concern is, therefore, not with that class of predicates, but with those wherein reside some slight show of probability of their response to the conditions of n-dimensionality either as a system of space-measurement or a so-called space or series of spaces.
Major Ellis concludes his simple study of four-space by proposing the following query:
"May not birth be an unfolding through the ether into the symmetrical life-cell, and death, the reverse process of a folding-up into four dimensional unity?"