FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
_thought-forms_, our normal consciousness, limited to a world of three dimensions, can apprehend only their three-dimensional aspects, and these not simultaneously, but successively--that is, in _time_. According to this view, any unified series of _actions_--for example, the life of an individual, or of a group--would represent the straining, so to speak, of a thought-form through our _time_, as the bodies subject to these actions would represent its straining through our space. EVOLUTION AS SPACE-CONQUEST Evolution is a struggle for, and a conquest of, space; for evolution, as the word implies, is a _drawing out_ of what is inherent from latency into objective reality, or in other words into spatial--and temporal--extension. This struggle for space, by means of which the birth and growth of organisms is achieved, is the very texture of life, the plot of every drama. Cells subdivide; micro-organisms war on one another; plants contend for soil, light, moisture; flowers cunningly suborn the bee to bring about their nuptials; animals wage deadly warfare in their rivalry to bring more hungry animals into a space-hungry world. Man is not exempt from this law of the jungle. Nations intrigue and fight for land--of which wealth is only the symbol--and a nation's puissance is measured by its power to push forward into the territory of its neighbor. The self-same impulse drives the individual. One measure of the difference between men in the matter of efficiency is the amount of space each can command: one has a house and grounds in some locality where every square inch has an appreciable value; another some fractional part of a lodging house in the slums. When this bloodless, but none the less deadly, contest for space becomes acute, as in the congested quarters of great cities, man's ingenuity is taxed to devise effective ways of augmenting his _space-potency_, and he expands in a vertical direction. This third-dimensional extension, typified in the tunnel and in the skyscraper, is but the latest phase of a conquest of space which began with the line of the pioneer's trail through an untracked wilderness. DIMENSIONAL SEQUENCES Not only does nature everywhere geometrize, but she does so in a particular way, in which we discover dimensional sequences. Consider the transformation of solid, liquid, gas, from one to another, under the influence of heat. A solid, set in free motion, can follow only a _line_--as is
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

dimensional

 
straining
 

struggle

 

hungry

 

organisms

 

animals

 

represent

 

extension

 
conquest
 

deadly


actions

 

thought

 

individual

 

contest

 

bloodless

 
congested
 

quarters

 

cities

 
ingenuity
 

devise


effective

 

appreciable

 

efficiency

 

amount

 
command
 

matter

 

measure

 

difference

 

limited

 

grounds


augmenting

 

fractional

 
square
 
consciousness
 

locality

 

lodging

 

expands

 

discover

 

sequences

 

Consider


nature

 
geometrize
 

transformation

 

liquid

 

motion

 

follow

 

influence

 

typified

 
tunnel
 
skyscraper