Chapter XXI (part 6)

Of course absurdity , as such, is indeed not an index of the attributes of noumena, but the attributes of noumena will certainly be expressed in what are absurdities to us. To hope to find in the world of causes anything logical from our standpoint is just as useless as to think that the world of things can exist in p. 263 accordance with the laws of a world of shadows or stereometry according to the laws of planimetry. To master the fundamental principles of higher logic means to master the fundamentals of the understanding of a space of higher dimensions , or of the world of the wondrous. In order to approach to a clear understanding of the relations of the multi-dimensional world, we must free ourselves from all the "idols" of our world , as Bacon calls them, i.e., from all obstacles to correct receptivity and reasoning. Then we shall have taken the most important step toward an inner affinity with the world of the wondrous. A two-dimensional being, in order to approach to an understanding of the three-dimensional world, already should have become a three-dimensional being before it can rid itself of its "idols," i.e., of its conventional—converted into axiomatic—ways of feeling and thinking, which create for it the illusion of two-dimensionality. What is it exactly from which the two-dimensional being must liberate itself? First of all—and most important—from the assurance that that which it sees and senses really exists ; from this will come the consciousness of the incorrectness of its perception of the world, and then the idea that the real, new world must exist in quite other forms—new, incomparable, incommensurable with relation to the old ones. Then the two-dimensional being must overcome its sureness of the correctness of its categories . It must understand that things which seem to it different and separate from one another may be parts of some to it incomprehensible whole , or that they have much in common which it does not perceive; and that things which seem to it one and indivisible are in reality infinitely complex and multifarious. The mental growth of the two-dimensional being must proceed along the path of the recognition of those common properties of objects, unknown to it before , which are the result of their similar origin or similar functions, incomprehensible from the point of view of a plane. When once the two-dimensional being has admitted the possibility of the existence of hitherto unknown common properties of objects, which before seemed different, then it has already approached to our own understanding of the world. It has approached to our p. 264 logic, has begun to understand the collective name , i.e., a word used not as a proper noun , but as an appellate noun—a word expressing a concept. The "idols" of the two-dimensional being, hindering the development of its consciousness, are those proper nouns , which it has itself given to all the objects surrounding it. For such a being each object has its own proper noun, corresponding to its perception of the object; common names, corresponding to concepts, it knows not of. Only by getting rid of these idols , by understanding that the names of things can be not only proper, but common ones as well, will it be possible for it to advance farther, to develop mentally, to approach the human understanding of the world. Take the most simple sentence: John and Peter are both men . [paragraph continues] For the two-dimensional being this will be an absurdity, and it will represent the idea to itself after this fashion: John and Peter are both Johns and Peters. In other words, every one of our logical propositions will be an absurdity to it. Why this is so is clear. Such a being has no concepts; the proper nouns which constitute the speech of such a being have no plurals. It is easy to understand that any plural of our speech will seem to it an absurdity.