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

categories of our thought; it is not enough that we
determine what these are.' Bergson is preeminently the prophet of the
higher space concept. We had done better to have held to Kant, for now
we are not only 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