But I submit that for the present purpose we can legitimately disregard the whole thing. It may well be that the change in passing from our present state of consciousness to that which I have described as consciousness in four dimensions is subjective rather than objective, that the change would be in our consciousness rather than in spatial conditions. But whatever may be the real nature of our three-dimensional space from the strictly academic point of view we can and habitually do treat it as an objective reality and I think it fair to claim an equal licence in dealing with four-dimensional space.
Pure consciousness is an elusive thing to handle and if we find evidence to the effect, for example, that the state of consciousness in which we exist when separated from the body can be accurately represented by the higher space hypothesis, then surely we had better say that it is existence in four-dimensional space and have done with it, just as we say that our normal existence is existence in three dimensional space.
After all the whole matter is one of "relativity" so to speak. The final effect with which we are concerned is the reaction of reality on our minds and, just as we can in dynamics reduce any one member of a system to rest and treat all motions as relative to that so here it makes no practical difference whether it is our mind or reality which changes provided that the changed relation between them is correctly expressed.
CHAPTER V
VITALITY AND WILL
Another and particularly happy illustration of the way in which the higher space concepts enable one to solve awkward dilemmas is to be found in the problems of Vitality and Will. Readers who are interested in these topics would do well to refer to Mr. Hereward Carrington's "Problems of Psychical Research" or to his "Vitality, Fasting, and Nutrition."
There are in general two main views which may be taken about Vitality. We may either suppose that Life is purely a product of the body, that it is a mere physiological function and nothing more, or one may suppose that so far from the body being the primary cause of Life the exact converse is the case—that Life is the raison d'etre of the body. It may be that everything that we recognize as "vital," every attribute which enables us to distinguish animate from inanimate objects, is no more than a purely physical phenomenon the product of unusually complicated chemical actions: or it may be that the chemico-physical complex which we call the body is only the means whereby the pressing tide of Life manages to manifest itself in the world. This latter is the view held by M. Bergson, by Mr. Carrington and by myself.
"M. Bergson regards matter as the dam which keeps back the rush of life. Organise it a little (as in the protozoa), i.e., slightly raise the sluice,—and a little life will squeeze through. Organise it elaborately (as in man), i.e., raise the sluice a good deal, and much life will squeeze through."