LADDER

LEARNING TO THINK IN TERMS OF SPACES

The Reader who is willing to consider the Higher Space Hypothesis
seriously, who would discover, by its aid, new and profound truths
closely related to life and conduct, should first of all endeavor to
arouse in himself a new power of perception. This he will best
accomplish by learning to discern dimensional sequences, not alone
in geometry, but in the cosmos and in the natural world. By so doing
he may erect for himself a veritable Jacob's ladder,

"Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross."

He should accustom himself to ascend it, step by step, dimension by
dimension. Then he will learn to trust Emerson's dictum, "Nature
geometrizes," even in regions where the senses fail him, and the mind
alone leads on. Much profitable amusement is to be gained by such
exercises as follow. They are in the nature of a running up and down
the scales in order to give strength and flexibility to a new set of
mental fingers. Learning to think in terms of spaces contributes to
our emancipation from the tyranny of space.

FROM THE COSMOS TO THE CORPUSCLE

By way of a beginning, proceed, by successive stages, from the
contemplation of the greatest thing conceivable to the contemplation
of the most minute, and note the space sequences revealed by this
shifting of the point of view.

The greatest thing we can form any conception of is the starry
firmament made familiar to the mind through the study of astronomy.
No limit to this vastitude has ever been assigned. Since the
beginning of recorded time, the earth, together with the other
planets and the sun, has been speeding through interstellar space at
the rate of 300,000,000 miles a year, without meeting or passing a
single star. A ray of light, travelling with a velocity so great as
to be scarcely measurable within the diameter of the earth's orbit,
takes years to reach even the nearest star, centuries to reach those
more distant. Viewed in relation to this universe of suns, our
particular sun and all its satellites--of which the earth is
one--shrinks to a point (a _physical_ point, so to speak--not
geometrical one).

The mind recoils from these immensities: let us forsake them, then,
for more familiar spaces, and consider the earth in its relation to
the sun. Our planet appears as a _moving_ point, tracing out a
_line_--a _one-space_--its path around the sun. Now let us remove
ourselves in imagination only far enough from the