The fourth dimension

84 THE FOURTH DIMENSION

exactly that which we should expect if it were a four-dimensional vortex. According to Maxwell every current forms a closed circuit, and this, from the four-dimensional point of view, is the same as saying a vortex must have its ends on a boundary of the fluid.

Thus, on the hypothesis of a fourth dimension, the rotation of the fluid ether would give the phenomenon of an electric current. We must suppose the ether to be full of movement, for the more we examine into the conditions which prevail in the obscurity of the minute, the more we find that an unceasing and perpetual motion reigns, Thus we may say that the conception of the fourth dimension means that there must be a phenomenon which presents the characteristics of electricity.

We know now that light is an electro-magnetic action, and that so far from being a special and isolated phenomenon this electric action is universal in the realm of the minute. Hence, may we not conclude that, so far from the fourth dimension being remote and far away, being a thing of symbolic import, a term for the explanation of dubious facts by a more obscure theory, it is really the most important fact within our knowledge. Our threedimensional world is superficial. These processes, which really lie at the basis of all phenomena of matter, escape our observation by their minuteness, but reveal to our intellect an amplitude of motion surpassing any that we can see. In such shapes and motions there is a realm of the utmost intellectual beauty, and one to which our symbolic methods apply with a better grace than they do to those of three dimensions,