The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1895-06-26
The "Fourth Dimension"

Fourth Dimension means. he COM
plains that he cannot find anything
about it in either dictionary or encyclo-
pedia. Probably not. The Fourth Di-
mension' is something very Elusive and
uncertain. Perhaps it is only 'shlne
and a voice, as the Irishman said who
hunted the freely and the bullfrog, and
then again the reality may be there aft
er all Zollner, the German scientist,
defended the idea, and now new writ
er has come forward to make it the
subject of a book called "Flatland. "
He is an Englishman, by the way, and
university bred. 1t is based on analogy,
the most provokingly inconclusive yet
fascinating of logical methods. q
To the philosopher as well as the poet
it affords powerful argument, and even
the materiaist is forced to take the ag-
nostic position that, proof to the con-
trary, there are unity and reality IN the
laws themselves, though there may or
may not be substances behind them.
Briefly described, these are the worlds
suggested by geometry: Pointland, the
world of no dimension; falkland, the
world of two dimensions; Spaceland,
the world about US of three dimensions;
the fourth dimensional land, fifth di-
mensional land, and SO on to infinity.
If there is sentence in Pointland it
must be possessed by but one individ-
ual, who is his own infinite universe
mfnity runs in one endless direction to
the Linelander, who, unless he COM
prises his whole universe, sees, if see he
can, from his two ends or boundaries,
his two neighbors as points, If motion
is permitted him it can be but forward
and back The Flatlander has infnity
in two directions. He sees his neighbors
as lines, and can move freely within a
plane Spacelanders, or ourselves, have
infnity in three directions. They see
surfaces, the containers Of all creatures
and things like ourselves.
Now from analogy what will the be-
ing of four dimensions be able to Go?
Naturally everything that the lower
forms can accomplish and far more. He
moves in three directions and also in a
fourth at right angles to the Others
Contained by solids, he perceives his
fellows as solids. If he takes any notice
Of us he sees US in our entirety as he
cannot see himself He can enter into
our being and retire therefrom as easily
and as quickly as we wade through a
shadow Our prisons could not contain
him, for one side, unknown to US, is al
ways open to him, that toward the new
direction Entering into our world he
would appear solid, like ourselves, just
as a knife blade thrust into sheet Of
paper appears in that plane as plane
figure, or a round pencil appears as a
circle, or a six sided one as a hexagon,
and so forth. If the knife or pencil
point could before entering it cry out to
the paper world notice of its approach,
the mysterious voice would, to any SEN
tient habitants of the plane, appear to
come from no direction, nor could they
barricade themselves against the en-
trance of the solid.
Neither can we shut ourselves from
the inhabitants of that world of four
dimensions lying about us and includ-
ing ourselves, if, indeed, such world
has any existence.
There is something in all this highly
suggestive not so much Of the gross ma
teriahzations of the spiritualists or even
the incarnations of the theosophists as
of that old theistic conception Of the
cosmos, the universe Of mind where the
idea reigns supreme and all things ma
terial are but shadows.