The fourth dimension

258 THE FOURTH DIMENSION

just as little as by immersing himself in the steering of his ship over the plane surface of the ocean, a captain can loose the faculty of thinking about what he actually does, so little can the soul loose its own nature. It can be roused to an intuition that is not derived from the experience which the senses give. All that is necessary is to present some few of those appearances which, while inconsistent with three-dimensional matter, are yet consistent with our formal knowledge of fourdimensional matter, in order for the soul to wake up and not begin to learn, but of its own intimate feeling fill up the gaps in the presentiment, grasp the full orb of possi‘pilities from the isolated points presented toit. In relation to this question of our perceptions, let me suggest another illustration, not taking it too seriously, only propounding it to exhibit the possibilities in a broad and general way.

In the heavens, amongst the multitude of stars, there are some which, when the telescope is directed on them, seem not to be single stars, but to be split up into two. Regarding these twin stars through a spectroscope, an astronomer sees in each a spectrum of bands of colour and black lines. Comparing these spectrums with one another, he finds that there is a slight relative shifting of the dark lines, and from that shifting he knows that the stars are rotating round one another, and can tell their relative velocity with regard to the earth. By means of his terrestrial physics he reads this signal of the skies. This shifting of lines, the mere slight variation of a black line in a spectrum, is very unlike that which the astronomer knows it means. But it is probably much more like what it means than the signals which the nerves deliver are like the phenomena of the outer world.

No picture of an object is conveyed through the nerves. No picture of motion, in the sense in which we postulate its existence, is conveyed through the nerves. The actual