Chapter XI (part 1)

p. 124 CHAPTER XI Science and the problem of the fourth dimension. The address of Prof. N. A. Oumoff before the Mendeleevskian Convention in 1911—"The Characteristic Traits and Problems of Contemporary Scientific Thought." The new physics. The electro-magnetic theory. The principle of relativity. The works of Einstein and Minkowsky. Simultaneous existence of the past and the future. The Eternal Now. Van Manen's book about occult experiences. The drawing of a four-dimensional figure. SPEAKING generally with regard to the problems propounded in the foregoing chapters—those of time, space, and the higher dimensions—it is impossible not to dwell once more upon the relation of science to these problems. To many persons the relation of "exact science" to these questions which undoubtedly constitute the most important problem now engaging human thought appears highly enigmatical. If it is important why does not science deal with it? And why, on the contrary, does science repeat the old, contradictory affirmations, pretending not to know or not to notice an entire series of theories and hypotheses advanced? Science should be the investigation of the unknown . Why, therefore, is it not anxious to investigate this unknown , which has been in process of revelation for a long time—which soon will cease to be the unknown? It is possible to answer this question only by acknowledging that unfortunately official, academic science is doing but a small part of what it should be doing in regard to the investigation of the new and unknown. For the most part, it is only teaching that which has already become the commonplace of the independent thinker; or still worse, has already become antiquated and rejected as valueless. So it is the more pleasant to remark that even in science may sometimes be discerned an aspiration toward the search of new horizons of thought; or, to put it differently, not always and not in p. 125 all the academic routine, with its obligatory repetition of an endless number of commonplaces, has the love of knowledge and the power of independent thinking been crowded out. Although timidly and tentatively, science, through its boldest representatives , in the last few decades has after all been touching upon the problems of higher dimensions, and in such cases has arrived at results almost identical with those propounded in the preceding chapters. In December, 1911, the second Mendeleevskian Convention 1 was opened by the address of Prof. N. A. Oumoff, dedicated to the problems of time and higher dimensions under the title, The Characteristic Traits and Problems of Contemporary Natural-Scientific Thought . The address of Prof. Oumoff, though not altogether outspoken, was nevertheless an event of great importance in the history of the development of exact science, and some time it will doubtless be recognized as an unusually bold and brilliant attempt to come forward and proclaim absolutely new ideas which practically renounce all positivism: and in the very citadel of positivism which the Mendeleevskian Convention represents. But inertia and routine of course did their work. Prof. Oumoff's address was heard along with the other addresses, was printed in the Proceedings of the Convention, and there rested, without producing at all the impression of an exploded bomb that it should have produced had the listeners been more in a position to appreciate its true meaning and significance, and—more important—had they the desire to do so. In this diminution of its significance the reserves and limitations which Prof. Oumoff himself made in his address assisted to a degree, as did the title, in failing to express its substance and general tendency, which was to show that science goes now in a new direction , and one which is not in reality—i.e., that the new direction goes against science . Professor Oumoff died in 1916, and I am unwilling to impose upon him thoughts which he did not share.