The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition | Page 3

confronted with the fourth dimension as a thought-form, but with the duty as well of furthering its creation. And in that light we have to regard what of worth and meaning the Exposition has for us.
Although the scientist has found it useful on occasion to postulate the fourth dimension, he has not thought necessary as yet to put it in the category of reality; much less has the layman. Consequently the mathematician holds the sole title to its knowledge unless we recognize the claims of the medium to a fourth-dimensional insight.
There is much, however, today which points to our coming to such perception as the natural result of our evolution and quite apart from geometrical abstractions or occultism. It is as though some great tidal wave had swept over space and we have, quite unbeknown to ourselves, been lifted by it to new heights. And when we have once obtained our spiritual balance we shall doubtless find that our space world has taken to itself another direction, inconceivable as that now seems.
Space is more than room wherein to move about; it is, first of all, the room in which we think, and upon how we do so depends the number of its dimensions. If the attention has become 'riveted to the object of its practical interest' to the extent that this is the only good the creature knows, then is its thought-form one-dimensional even though its bodily movements are three-spaced. The great Peacock Moth wings a sure course mateward to the mystification of the scientist; the dog finds the direct road home - his master cannot tell how; Mary Antin climbs to an education over difficulties apparently insurmountable; Rockefeller knows his goal and attains it, regardless of other moral worths. For these the way is certain. They can suffer no deflection since there are no relative values, no possible choices. Their purpose makes the road one-dimensional. That the majority of persons are still feeling their way over the surface of things is attested by the general mental ineptitude for the study of solid geometry. Depth and height play little part in our physical perception. For most of us the third dimension is practically unknown beyond the reach of a few feet. A Beachey soaring aloft - why all the bravado of curve and loop? Sooner or later he will fall to his death. Ay, verily! but his is a joyous martyrdom making for the evolution of consciousness. Not always shall we crawl like flies the surface of our globe!
While a man's space-world is limited by his thought, it is, on the other hand, as boundless as his thought. That the world evolves with our consciousness, is at once the philosophy of 'Creative Evolution' and of the higher space theory. Our present spatial milieu has settled down to a seemingly three dimensional finality because our thought-form has become so habitual as to give rise to certain geometric axioms. All we need in order to come to a fourth-dimensional consciousness, said Henri Poincare, 'the greatest of moderns,' is a new table of distribution; that is, a breaking up of old associations of ideas and the forming of new relations - a simple matter were it not for our mental inertia. Lester Ward speculates that life remained aquatic for the vast periods that paleontology would indicate; Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous - a duration greater than all subsequent time - for the reason that the creature had not progressed beyond the stage when it could move otherwise than in a straight line when actuated by desire for food or mate. Life was not able to maintain itself on land until it had overcome this one-dimensional limitation. A venturesome Pterodactyl was he who first essayed to make his way among the many obstructions to be found ashore! By what intuition was he impelled?
It is a matter of common observation that the growth of the higher perceptive faculty is strangely concomitant with adversity. The intuitive person is a person who has suffered. When conditions press sufficiently hard, a new table of distribution may be the only means for survival. Thus we proceed to make a virtue of necessity and so come to the recognition of other values which we denominate spiritual because we have not as yet spatialized them. The caterpillar has to mount the twig to find the tender green that is his food, but, he solaces himself for the journey by thinking himself a creature of the light. Mr. Carpenter, in an interesting study of what he calls Intermediate Types, shows that the seers and spiritually-minded come to be such because they found themselves differing in some wise from their fellows, and dwelling on that difference had their minds turned inward. Progress in thought and imagination naturally followed, with the result that these were