HIGHER SPACE AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
In an earlier chapter I defined a valid hypothesis as one which explained at least some of the observed facts and did not contradict any of them.
Since then I have been trying to show that the Higher Space ideas do throw a certain amount of light on quite a number of difficulties and enable us to clear up certain anomalies and dilemmas which seem to be insoluble without its aid.
We must now consider rather more definitely than we have hitherto done whether there is any thing in the hypothesis to conflict with those established conclusions of scientists which are the nearest approach we have to absolute certainties. I think we shall find not only that there is no such conflict but that there are here and there distinct indications that the higher space ideas may some day find applications in the exegesis of even the most strictly physical sciences.
These indications are admittedly very nebulous at present, it may be that they are all illusory and as will appear later they cannot all lead to anything, for some are mutually exclusive.
I do not propose to express any very definite opinions on their comparative values but shall simply state them and leave it to my readers to decide what they are worth.
It must be remembered throughout that we cannot expect to find any very definite indications of the existence of higher space as a reality for the simple reason that physical science is concerned solely with those phenomena of matter and force which are "ex hypothesi" essentially three-dimensional.
It is worth noting at the outset that physical scientists have evinced no especial hostility to the concept of the fourth dimension, as such, however much they may have opposed to the more definitely Psychic researches which I, personally, believe to be closely associated with it.
Lord Kelvin, for instance, saw in it nothing repugnant to scientific thought and professed himself quite willing to adopt it should such a course seem to be indicated by the evidence. Another distinguished physicist has gone so far as to evolve a theory of "ether squirts" from the direction of the fourth dimension in connection with the ultimate constitution of matter.