Chapter X (part 5)

To the two-dimensional being time is necessary for the understanding of the most simple phenomena—an angle, a hill, a ditch. For us time is not necessary for the understanding of such phenomena, but is necessary for the explanation of the phenomena of motion and physical phenomena. In a space still higher, our phenomena of motion and physical phenomena would probably be regarded independently of time, as properties of immobile solids; and biological phenomena— p. 119 birth, growth, reproduction, death—would be regarded as phenomena of motion. Thus we see how the idea of time recedes with the expansion of consciousness. We see its complete conditionality. We see that by time are designated the characteristics of a space relatively higher than a given space—i.e., the characteristics of the perceptions of a consciousness relatively higher than a given consciousness. For the one-dimensional being all the indices of two-, three-, four-dimensional space and beyond, lie in time—all this is time. For the two-dimensional being time embraces within itself the indices of three-dimensional space, four-dimensional space, and all spaces beyond. For man, i.e., the three-dimensional being, time contains the indices of four-dimensional space and all spaces beyond. Therefore, according to the degree of expansion and elevation of the consciousness and the forms of its receptivity the indices of space are augmented and the indices of time are diminished. In other words, the growth of the space-sense is proceeding at the expense of the time-sense. Or one may say that the time-sense is an imperfect space-sense (i.e., an imperfect power of representation which, being perfected, translates itself into the space-sense, i.e., into the power of representation in forms. If, taking as a foundation the principles elucidated here, we attempt to represent to ourselves the universe very abstractedly, it is clear that this will be quite other than the universe which we are accustomed to imagine to ourselves. Everything will exist in it always . This will be the universe of the Eternal Now of Hindu philosophy—a universe in which will be neither before nor after , in which will be just one present, known or unknown . Hinton feels that with the expansion of the space-sense our vision of the world will change completely, and he tells about this in his book, A New Era of Thought . (p. 66.) The conception which we shall form of the universe will undoubtedly be as different from our present one, as the Copernican view differs from the more pleasant view of a wide, immovable earth beneath a vast vault. Indeed, any conception of our place in the universe will be more agreeable p. 120 than the thought of being on a spinning ball, kicked into space without any means of communication with any other inhabitants of the universe. ______ But what does the world of many dimensions represent in itself—what are these solids of many dimensions the lines and boundaries of which we perceive as motion? A great power of imagination is necessary to transcend the limits of our perceptions and to visualize mentally the world in other categories even for a moment. Let us imagine some object, say a book , outside of time and space. What will this last mean? Were we to take the book out of time and space it would mean that all books which have existed, exist now, and will exist, exist together , i.e., occupy one and the same place and exist simultaneously, forming as it were one book which includes within itself the properties, characteristics and peculiarities of all books possible in the world. When we say simply, a book , we have in mind something possessing the common characteristic of all books—this is a concept . But that book about which we are talking now, possesses not only these common characteristics but the individual characteristics of all separate books. Let us take other things—a table, a house, a tree, a man. Let us imagine them out of time and space.