Tertium Organum E-Book

P.D. OUSPENSKY

• Herausgeber: E-BOOKARAMA
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Ouspensky's believed "Tertium Organum" was the third major philosophical synthesis, the previous being those of Aristotle and Bacon. With the publication of "Tertium Organum" in Russian, in 1912, Ouspensky became a widely respected author and lecturer on metaphysical questions. The American translation of Tertium Organum in 1922, won him widespread recognition in England, where he lived from 1921, and in America.

Ouspensky’s experimental efforts to enter higher states of consciousness proved to him that an entirely new mode of thought was needed by modern man, qualitatively different from the two modes (classical and positivistic) that have dominated Western civilisation for 2000 years. "Tertium Organum" is a clarion call for such thought, ranging brilliantly over the teachings of Eastern and Western mysticism, sacred art and the theories of modern science.

Leseprobe

P. D. Ouspensky

Tertium Organum

Table of contents

TERTIUM ORGANUM

Author's Preface To The Second Edition

Introduction To The English Translation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Conclusion

Table Of The Four Forms Of The Manifestation Of Consciousness

TERTIUM ORGANUM

P. D. Ouspensky

Author's Preface To The Second Edition

IN revising Tertium Organum for the second edition in English my chief concern has been to coördinate its terminology with the more developed terminology of those of my books written after the publication of the second Russian edition of Tertium Organum, from which the English translation was made.

Such a unity of terminology is the more necessary because I am obliged to lead the reader into regions of thought and knowledge where boundaries have not been clearly established, and where different authors—and often one and the same author, in different works and during different periods of his activity—have called the same thing by different names, or different things by the same name.

It must be admitted that language is a weak and inadequate vehicle even for the expression of our usual understanding of things, to say nothing of those moments when the understanding unexpectedly expands and becomes deeper, and we see revealed an entire series of facts and relations for the description of which we have neither words nor expressions. But quite aside from this, in ordinary conditions of thinking and feeling, we are frequently at a loss for words, and we use one word at different times to describe different things.

On the other hand, it is no merit in an author to invent new words, or to use old words in new meanings which have nothing in common with the accepted ones—to create, in other words, a special terminology. I have always considered that it is necessary to write in the language which men commonly speak, and I have endeavored to do this, although in some cases it has been necessary to make some additions to and corrections of that language for the sake of exactness and lucidity.

In due time I shall separately consider the subject of language and the methods of its adaptation for the transmission of exact thought. For the present I have reference only to the language of Tertium Organum.

The first word demanding a more careful use is "consciousness."

In conversational language and in every-day psychology, even in psychology purporting to be scientific, the word consciousness is often used as a term for the designation of a complex of all psychic functions in general, or for their separate manifestations. At present I have not access to the necessary books—I abandoned them all in Petrograd, four years ago—but to the best of my recollection Prof. William James defined thought as "a moment of consciousness."

From my standpoint, which I shall elucidate in works now being prepared for the press, it is necessary to regard consciousness as distinct from the commonly understood psychic functions: thought, feeling and sensation. Over and above all this, consciousness has several exactly definable forms or phases, in each one of which thoughts, feelings and sensations can function, giving in each different results. Thus consciousness (be it this or something other) is a background upon which thoughts, feelings and sensations reveal themselves. This background can be more or less bright. But as thoughts, feelings and sensations have their own separate life, and can be regarded independently of this background, so can it be regarded and studied independently of them. For the present I shall not insist too strongly upon the idea of this ground as something separate in its substance from psychic functions. The practical result is the same if we say that thoughts, feelings and sensations may have a different character, and that thoughts, feelings and sensations of this or that character create this or that state of consciousness. It is important only to establish the fact that thoughts, feelings and sensations, i.e., psychic functions, are not consciousness, and that this or that state of consciousness is something pertaining to them, but separate from them, and in some cases capable of being separately observed.

In the early editions of Tertium Organum I have used the word consciousness in its generally accepted meaning, i.e., as a complex of psychic functions, or in the sense of their indication and contents. But as in my future works it will be necessary for me to use the word consciousness in its real and true meaning, I have tried in this revised text of Tertium Organum to substitute for the word consciousness (wherever it is used in the sense of a complex of psychic functions) such other words as psyche, or psychic life, which perfectly express my meaning in such cases.

Furthermore, in my work of revision, I have found numerous instances of illustrations, examples, etc., having no direct connection with the main theme. I have found also that some of these introduced themes vitiate the correctness of the main line of thought, creating associations which lead too far away. Other themes also, accidentally touched upon, demand a considerably more extended treatment than can be given them within the limits of this book, but being inadequately developed they leave a wrong impression.

In such cases I consider it necessary to eliminate this extraneous matter in order to elucidate the principal thought more clearly and directly, particularly as some of the questions touched upon demanding more or different exposition are discussed at length in my forth-coming books.

In conclusion, let me express to Mr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and to Mr. Claude Bragdon my deep appreciation of their labors on the translation of my book into English. This translation, made without my knowledge and participation, at a time when I was cut off by war and revolution from the civilized world, transmits my thought so exactly that after a very attentive review of the book I could find only one word to correct. Such a result could be achieved only because Mr. Bessaraboff and Mr. Bragdon were not translating words merely, but were grasping directly the thoughts back of them. Also, it is especially pleasant for me to remember that a number of years ago Mr. Bragdon's Man the Square reached me in Petrograd, and that I, not knowing Mr. Bragdon's other works at all, selected this little book from a whole series received from abroad, as one which carried the message of a common thought, a common understanding.

P. OUSPENSKY

Constantinople, June 1921

Introduction To The English Translation

IN naming his book Tertium Organum Ouspensky reveals at a stroke that astounding audacity which characterizes his thought throughout—an audacity which we are accustomed to associate with the Russian mind in all its phases. Such a title says, in effect: "Here is a book which will reorganize all knowledge. The Organon of Aristotle formulated the laws under which the subject thinks; the Novum Organum of Bacon, the laws under which the object may be known; but The Third Canon of Thought existed before these two, and ignorance of its laws does not justify their violation. Tertium Organum shall guide and govern human thought henceforth."

How passing strange, in this era of negative thinking, of timid philosophizing, does such a challenge sound! And yet it has the echo in it of something heard before—what but the title of another volume, Hinton's A New Era of Thought?

Ouspensky's Tertium Organum and Hinton's A New Era of Thought present substantially the same philosophy (though Hinton's book only sketchily), arrived at by the same route—mathematics.

Here is food for thought. In the words of Philip Henry Wynne, "Mathematics possesses the most potent and perfect symbolism the intellect knows; and this symbolism has offered for generations certain concepts (of which hyper-dimensionality is only one) whose naming and envisagement by the human intellect is perhaps its loftiest achievement. Mathematics presents the highest certitudes known to the intellect, and is becoming more and more the final arbiter and interpreter in physics, chemistry and astronomy. Like Aaron's rod it threatens to swallow all other knowledges as fast as they assume organized form. Mathematics has already taken possession of great provinces of logic and psychology—will it embrace ethics, religion and philosophy?"

In Tertium Organum mathematics enters and pervades the field of philosophy; but so adroitly, so silently as it were, that one hardly knows that it is there. It dwells more in Ouspensky's method than in his matter, because for the most part the mathematical ideas necessary for an understanding of his thesis are such as any intelligent high school student can comprehend. The author puts to himself and to the reader certain questions, propounds certain problems, which have baffled the human mind for thousands of years—the problems of space, time, motion, causality, of free will and determination—and he deals with them according to the mathematical method: that is all. He has sensed the truth that the problem of mathematics is the problem of the world order, and as such must deal with every aspect of human life.

Mathematics is a terrible word to those whose taste and training have led them into other fields, so lest the non-mathematical reader should be turned back at the very threshold, deciding too hastily that the book is not for him, let me dwell rather on its richly humanistic aspect.

To such as ask no "key to the enigmas of the world," but only some light to live by, some mitigation of the daily grind, some glimpse of some more enlightened polity than that which rules the world today, this book should have an appeal. The author has thrown overboard all the jargon of all the schools; he uses the language of common sense, and of every day; his illustrations and figures of speech are homely, taken from the life of every day. He simply says to the reader, "Come let us reason together," and leads him away from the haunted jungle of philosophical systems and metaphysical theories, out into the light of day, there to contemplate and to endeavor to understand those primal mysteries which puzzle the mind of a child or of a savage no less than that of the sophisticated and super-subtle ponderer on the enigmas of the world. Not that Ouspensky is a trafficker in the obvious—far from it: those who know most, think most, feel most, will get most out of his book—but a great sanity pervades his pages, and he never leads away into labyrinths where guide and follower alike lose their way and fail to come to any end.

______

Leaving the average reader out of account for the moment, there are certain others whom the book should particularly interest—if only in the way of repulsion.

First of all come the mathematicians and the theoretical physicists, for they already, without knowing it, have invaded that "dark backward and abysm of time" which the Ouspenskian philosophy lights up—and are by way of losing themselves there.

That is to say, in certain of their calculations, they are employing four mutually interchangeable coördinates, three of space and one of time. In other words, they use time as though it were a dimension of space. Ouspensky tells them the reason they are able to do this. Time is the fourth dimension of space imperfectly sensed—apprehended by consciousness successively, and thereby creating the temporal illusion.

Moreover, mathematicians are perforce concerning themselves with magnitudes to which the ordinary logic no longer applies. Ouspensky presents a new logic, or rather, he presents anew an ancient logic—the logic of intuition—removing at a stroke all of the nightmare aspects, the preposterous paradoxes of the new mathematics, which by reason of its extraordinary development has shattered the old logic, as a growing oak shatters the containing jar.

It is from the philosophic camp, no doubt, that the book will receive its sharpest criticism, on account of the author's lèse-majesté toward so many of the crowned kings of philosophic thought, and his devastating assault on positivism—that inevitable by-product of our materialistic way of looking at the world. His attempt to prove the Kantian problem—the subjectivity of space and time—doubtless will be acutely challenged, and with some chance of success, because the two chapters devoted to this are perhaps the least convincing of the book. But no one heretofore has even attempted to demonstrate absolutely or successfully to controvert the staggering proposition advanced by Kant regarding space and time as forms of consciousness.

Whatever the verdict of the philosophical pundits of the day and hour, whether favorable or otherwise, Ouspensky is sure of a place in the hierarchy of philosophers, for he has essayed to solve the most profound problems of human existence by the aid of the binocular vision of the mathematician and the mystic. Starting from the irreducible minimum of knowledge, he has carried philosophy into regions not hitherto explored.

To persons of an artistic or devotional bent the book will be as water in the desert. These, always at a disadvantage among the purely practical-minded, by whom they are overwhelmingly out-numbered, will find in Ouspensky a champion whose weapon is mathematical certitude, the very thing by which the practical-minded swear. These he puts to rout, holds up to ridicule, and applauds every effort to escape into the "world of the wondrous."

But most of all Ouspensky will be loved by all true lovers, for his chapter on the subject of love. We have had Schopenhauer on love, and Freud on love, but what dusty answers do they give to the soul of a lover! Edward Carpenter comes much nearer the mark, but Ouspensky penetrates to its very center. It is because our loves are so dampened by our egotisms, our cynicisms and our cowardices that we rot and smoulder instead of bursting into purifying flame. Just as Goethe's Werther, with its sex-sentimentality, is said to have provoked an epidemic of suicides, so may Tertium Organum—which restores love to that high heaven from whence descend every beauty and benison—inaugurate a renascence of love and joy.

From one point of view this is a terrible book: there is a revolution in it—a revolution of the very poles of thought. Some it will rob of their dearest illusions, it will cut the very ground from beneath their feet, it will consign them to the Abyss. It is a great destroyer of complacency. Yes, this is a dangerous book—but then, life is like that.

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It is beyond the province of this Introduction either to outline the Ouspenskian philosophy at any length, or to discuss it critically; but some slight indication of its drift may be of assistance to the reader.

The book might have appropriately been called A Study of Consciousness, for Ouspensky comes early to the conclusion that all other methods of approach to an understanding of the "enigmas of the world" are vain. Chapters I to VII, inclusive, deal with the problem of the world-order by the objective method. The author erects an elaborate scaffolding for his future edifice, and after it has served its purpose, throws it down. Aware of the deficiencies of the objective method and having made the reader conscious of them too, he suddenly alters his system of attack. From chapter VIII onward, he undertakes the study of the world-order from the standpoint of subjectivity—of consciousness.

By a method both ingenious and new he correlates the different grades of consciousness observable in nature—those of vegetable-animal, animal and man—with the space sense, showing that as consciousness changes and develops, the sense of space changes and develops too. That is to say, the dimensionality of the world depends on the development of consciousness. Man, having reached the third stage in that development, has a sense of three-dimensional space—and for no other reason.

Ouspensky concludes that nothing except consciousness unfolds, develops, and as there appears to be no limit to this development, he conceives of space as the multi-dimensional mirror of consciousness and of time and motion as illusion—what appears to be time and motion being in reality only the movement of consciousness upon a higher space.

The problem of superior states of consciousness in which "there shall be time no longer" is thus directly opened up, and in discussing their nature and method of attainment, he quotes freely from the rich literature of mysticism. Instead of attempting to rationalize these higher states of consciousness, as some authors do, he applies to them the logic of intuition—" Tertium Organum"—paradoxical from the standpoint of ordinary reason, but true in relation to the noumenal world.

Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer once wrote a novel called The Inheritors and by this they meant the people of the fourth dimension. Though there is small resemblance between Ouspensky's "superman" and theirs, it is his idea also that those of this world who succeed in developing higher-dimensional, or "cosmic" consciousness will indeed inherit—will control and regulate human affairs by reason of their superior wisdom and power. In this, and in this alone, dwells the "salvation" of the world. His superman is the "just man made perfect" of the Evangelist. The struggle for mastery between the blind and unconscious forces of materialism on the one hand, and the spiritually illumined on the other, is already upon us, and all conflicts between nations, peoples and classes must now be interpreted in terms of this greater warfare between "two races" of men, in which the superior minority will either conquer or disappear.

These people of the fourth dimension are in the world but not of it: their range is far wider than this slum of space. In them dormant faculties are alert. Like birds of the air, their fitting symbol, they are at home in realms which others cannot enter, even though already "there." Nor are these heavenly eagles confined to the narrow prison of the breast. Their bodies are as tools which they may take up or lay aside at will. This phenomenal world, which seems so real, is to them as insubstantial as the image of a landscape in a lake. Such is the Ouspenskian superman.

The entire book is founded upon a new generalization—new, that is, in philosophy, but already familiar to mathematicians and theoretical physicists. This generalization involves startling and revolutionary ideas in regard to space, time and motion far removed from those of Euclidian geometry and classical physics.

Ouspensky handles these new ideas in an absolutely original way, making them the basis of an entire philosophy of life. To the timid and purblind this philosophy will be nothing short of terrifying, but to the clear-eyed and steadfast watcher, shipwrecked on this shoal of time, these vistas, overflowing with beauty, strangeness, doubt, terror and divinity, will be more welcome than anything in life.

Fear not the new generalization.

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Ouspensky's clearness of thought is mirrored in a corresponding clarity of expression. He sometimes repeats the difficult and important passages in an altered form of words, he uses short sentences and short paragraphs, and italicizes significant phrases and significant words. He defines where definition is needed, and suggests collateral trains of thought with a skill which makes the reader who is intuitive a creator on his own account. Schopenhauer has said that it is always a sign of genius to treat difficult matters simply, as it is a sign of dullness to make simple matters appear recondite. Ouspensky exhibits this order of genius, and that other, mentioned by Schopenhauer, which consists in choosing always the apt illustration, the illuminating simile.

The translators have tried to be rigidly true to the Russian original, and they have been at great pains to verify every English quotation so far as has been possible. It is therefore a source of great gratification to them that their efforts should have received the unqualified endorsement of the author himself.

CLAUDE BRAGDON

Rochester, N. Y. January 31, 1922

Chapter 1

What do we know and what do we not know? Our data, and the things for which we seek. The unknown mistaken for the known. Matter and motion. What does the positive philosophy come to? Identity of the unknown: x=y, y=x. What we really know. The existence of consciousness in us, and of the world outside us. Dualism or monism? Subjective and objective knowledge. Where do the causes of the sensations lie? Kant's system. Time and Space. Kant and the "ether." Mach's observation. With what does the physicist really deal?

" Learn to discern the real from the false" THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE H. P. B.

THE most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know.

Therefore, desiring to know anything, we shall before all else determine WHAT we accept as given, and WHAT as demanding definition and proof; that is, determine WHAT we know already, and WHAT we wish to know.

In relation to the knowledge of the world and of ourselves, the conditions would be ideal could we venture to accept nothing as given, and count all as demanding definition and proof. In other words, it would be best to assume that we know nothing, and make this our point of departure.

But unfortunately such conditions are impossible to create. Knowledge must start from some foundation, something must be recognized as known; otherwise we shall be obliged always to de-fine one unknown by means of another.

Looking at the matter from another point of view, we shall hesitate to accept as the known things—as the given ones—those in the main completely unknown, only presupposed, and therefore the things sought for. Should we do this, we are likely to fall into such a dilemma as that in which positive philosophy now finds itself—and by positive philosophy I mean a general trend of thought based on the data of those sciences which are now accepted as experimental and positive. This philosophy is founded on the existence of matter (materialism) or energy: that is, of a force, or motion, (energeticism); though in reality matter and motion were always the unknown x and y, and were defined by means of one another.

It must be perfectly clear to everyone that it is impossible to accept the thing sought as the given; and impossible to define one unknown by means of another. The result is nothing but the identity of the unknown: x=y, y=x.

This identity of the unknown is the ultimate conclusion to which positive philosophy comes.

Matter is that in which proceed the changes called motion: and motions are those changes which proceed in matter.

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But what do we know?

We know that with the very first awakening of knowledge, man is confronted with two obvious facts:

The existence of the world in which he lives; and the existence of psychic life in himself.

Neither of these can he prove or disprove, but they are facts: they constitute reality for him.

It is possible to meditate upon the mutual correlation of these two facts. It is possible to try to reduce them to one; that is, to regard the psychic or inner world as a part, reflection, or function of the world, or the world as a part, reflection, or function of that inner world. But such a procedure constitutes a departure from facts, and all such considerations of the world and of the self, to the ordinary non-philosophical mind, will not have the character of obviousness. On the contrary the sole obvious fact remains the antithesis of I and Not-I—our inner psychic life and the outer world.,

Further on we shall return to this fundamental thesis. But thus far we have no basis on which to found a contradiction of the obvious fact of the existence of ourselves—i.e., of our inner life—and of the world in which we live. This we shall therefore accept as the given.

This however is the only thing that we have the right to accept as given: all the rest demands proof and definition in terms of these two given data.

Space, with its extension; time, with the idea of before, now, after; quantity, mass, substantiality; number, equality and inequality; identity and difference; cause and effect; the ether, atoms, electrons, energy, life, death—all things that form the foundation of our so-called knowledge: these are the unknown things.

The existence in us of psychic life, i.e., of sensations, perceptions, conceptions, reasoning, feeling, desires etc., and the existence of the world outside of us—from these two fundamental data immediately proceed our common and clearly understood division of everything that we know into subjective and objective.

Everything that we accept as a property of the world, we call objective; and everything that we accept as a property of our psyche, we call subjective.

The subjective world we recognize directly: it is in ourselves—we are one with it.

The objective world we picture to ourselves as existing somewhere outside of us—we and it are different things.

It seems to us that if we should close our eyes, then the objective world would continue to exist, such as we just saw it; and if our inner life were to disappear, so would the subjective world disappear—yet the objective world would exist as before, as it existed at the time when we were not; when our subjective world was not.

Our relation to the objective world is most exactly defined by the fact that we perceive it as existing in time and space; otherwise, out of these conditions, we can neither conceive nor imagine it. In general, we say that the objective world consists of things and phenomena, i.e., things and changes in states of things. The PHENOMENA exist for us in time; the THINGS, in space.

But such a division of the subjective and the objective world does not satisfy us.

By means of reasoning we can establish the fact that in reality we know only our own sensations, perceptions and conceptions, and we cognize the objective world by projecting outside of ourselves the causes of our sensations, presupposing them to contain these causes.

Then we find that our knowledge of the subjective world, and of the objective world also, can be true and false, correct and incorrect.

The criterion for the definition of correctness or incorrectness of our knowledge of the subjective world is the form of the relations of one sensation to others, and the force and character of the sensation itself. In other words, the correctness of one sensation is verified by the comparison of it with another of which we are more sure, or by the intensity and "taste" of a given sensation.

The criterion for the definition of correctness or incorrectness of our knowledge of the objective world is the very same. It seems to us that we define the things and phenomena of the objective world by means of comparing them among themselves; and we think we find the laws of their existence outside of us, and independent of our perception of them. But it is an illusion. We know nothing about things separately from us; and we have no other means of verifying the correctness of our knowledge of the objective world than BY SENSATIONS.

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Since the remotest antiquity the question of our relation to the true causes of our sensations has constituted the main subject of philosophical research. Men have always felt that they should have some solution for this question, some answer for it. And these answers have vacillated between two poles, from the full negation of the causes themselves, and the assertion that the causes of sensations are contained within ourselves and not in anything outside of us—up to the recognition that we know these causes, that they are embodied in the phenomena of the outer world, that these phenomena constitute the cause of sensations; and that the cause of all observed phenomena lies in the movement of "atoms," and the oscillations of the "ether." It is believed that if we cannot observe these motions and oscillations it is only because we have not sufficiently powerful instruments, and that when such instruments are at our disposal we shall be able to see the movements of atoms as well as we see, through powerful telescopes, stars the very existence of which were never guessed.

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In modern philosophy Kant's system occupies a middle position in relation to this problem of the causes of sensations, not sharing either of these extreme views. Kant proved that the causes of our sensations are in the outside world, but that we cannot know these causes through any sensuous approach—that is, by such means as we know phenomena—and that we cannot know these causes, and shall never know them.

Kant established the fact that everything that is known through the senses is known in terms of time and space, and that out of time and space we cannot know anything by way of the senses; that time and space are necessary conditions of sensuous receptivity (i.e., receptivity by means of the five organs of sense). Moreover, what is most important, he established the fact that extension in space and existence in time are not properties appertaining to things, but just the properties of our sensuous receptivity; that in reality, apart from our sensuous knowledge of them, things exist independently of time and space; but we can never perceive them out of time and space, and perceiving things and phenomena thus sensuously, by virtue of it we impose upon them the conditions of time and space, as belonging to our form of perception.

Thus space and time, defining everything that we cognize by sensuous means, are in themselves just forms of our receptivity, categories of our intellect, the prism through which we regard the world—or in other words, space and time do not represent properties of the world, but just properties of our knowledge of the world gained through our sensuous organism. From this it follows that the world, apart from our knowledge of it, has neither extension in space nor existence in time; these are properties which we add to it.

Cognitions of space and time arise in our intellect during its touch with the external world by means of the organs of sense, and do not exist in the external world apart from our contact with it.

Space and time are categories of intellect, i.e., properties which are ascribed by us to the external world. They are signal posts, signs put up by ourselves because we cannot picture the external world without their help. They are graphics by which we represent the world to ourselves. Projecting outside of ourselves the causes of our sensations, we are designing those causes in space, and we picture continuous reality to ourselves as a series of moments of time following one another. This is necessary for us because a thing having no definite extension in space, not occupying a certain part of space and not lasting a certain length of time, does not exist for us at all. That is, a thing not in space, divorced from the idea of space, and not included in the category of space, will not differ from some other thing in any particular; it will occupy the very same place, will coincide with it. Also, all phenomena not in time, divorced from the idea of time, not taken in this or that fashion from the standpoint of before, now, after, would co-exist for us simultaneously, and all mixed up with one another, and our weak mind would not be able to distinguish one moment in the infinite variety.

Therefore our consciousness segregates, out of a chaos of impressions, separate groups, and we construct in space and time the perceptions of things according to these groups of impressions.

It is necessary for us to divide things somehow, and we divide them into the categories of space and time.

But we should remember that these divisions exist only in us, in our knowledge of things and not in the things themselves; that we do not know the true relations of things among themselves, and the real things we do not know, but only phantoms, visions of things—we do not know the relation existing among the things in reality. At the same time we quite definitely know that our division of things into the categories of space and time does not at all correspond to the division of things in themselves, independently of our receptivity of them; and we quite definitely know that if there exist any division at all among things in themselves, it will in no case be a division in terms of space and time according to our usual understanding of these words, because such a division is not a property of things, but of our knowledge of things gained through the senses. Moreover, we do not know if it is even possible to distinguish those divisions which we see, i.e., in space and time, if things are looked at not through human eyes, not from the human standpoint. In point of fact we do not know but that our world would present an entirely different aspect for a differently built organism.

We cannot perceive things as images outside of the categories of space and time, but we constantly think of them outside of space and time.

When we say that table, we picture the table to ourselves in space and time; but when we say an object made of wood, not meaning any definite thing, but speaking generally, it will relate to all things made of wood throughout the world, and in all ages. An imaginative person could conceive that we are referring to some great thing made of wood, composed of all objects whenever and wherever wooden things existed, these forming its constituent atoms, as it were.

We do not comprehend all these matters quite clearly, but in general it is plain that we think in space and time by perceptions only; but by concepts we think independently of space and time.

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Kant named his views critical idealism, in contradiction to dogmatic idealism, of which Berkeley was a representative.

According to dogmatic idealism, all the world, all things—i.e., the true causes of our sensations—do not exist except in our consciousness: they exist only so far as we know them. The entire world perceived by us is just a reflection of ourselves.

Kantian idealism recognizes a world of causes outside of us, but asserts that we cannot know the world by means of sensuous perception, and everything that we perceive, generally speaking, is of our own creation— the product of a cognizing being.

So, according to Kant, everything that we find in things is put in them by ourselves. Independently of ourselves we do not know what the world is like. And our cognition of things has nothing in common with the things as they are outside of us—that is, in themselves. Furthermore, and most important, our ignorance of things in themselves does not depend upon our insufficient knowledge, but is due to the fact that by means of sensuous perception we cannot know the world correctly at all. That is to say, we cannot truly declare that although now we perhaps know little, presently we shall know more, and at length shall come to a correct understanding of the world. It is not true because our experimental knowledge is not a confused perception of a real world. It is a very acute perception of an entirely unreal world appearing round about us at the moment of our contact with the world of true causes, to which we cannot find the way because we are lost in an unreal "material" world. For this reason the extension of the objective sciences does not bring us any nearer to the knowledge of things in themselves, or of true causes.

In A Critique of Pure Reason Kant affirms that:

Nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlated thing in itself is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made.

The things which we intuit are not in themselves the same as our representation of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time disappear, but even space and time themselves.

What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our own mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us and which though not of necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human race.

Supposing that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree of clearness we should not thereby advance one step nearer to the constitution of objects as things in themselves.

To say then that our sensibility is nothing but the confused representation of things containing exclusively that which belongs to them as things in themselves, and this under an accumulation of characteristic marks and partial representations which we cannot distinguish in consciousness, is a falsification of the conception of sensibility and phenomenization, which renders our whole doctrine thereof empty and useless. The difference between a confused and a clear representation is merely logical, and has nothing to do with content.

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Up to the present time Kant's propositions have remained in the very form that he left them. Despite the multiplicity of new philosophical systems which appeared during the nineteenth century, and despite the number of philosophers who have particularly studied, commented upon, and interpreted Kant's writings, Kant's principal propositions have remained quite undeveloped, primarily because most people do not know how to read Kant at all, and they therefore dwell upon the unimportant and non-essential, ignoring the substance.

Yet really Kant simply put the question, threw to the world the problem, demanding the solution but not pointing the way toward it.

This fact is usually omitted when speaking of Kant. He propounded the riddle, but did not give the solution of it.

And to the present day we repeat Kant's propositions, we consider them incontrovertible, but in the main we represent them to our understanding very badly, and they are not correlated with other departments of our knowledge. All our positive science—physics (with chemistry) and biology—is built upon hypotheses CONTRADICTORY to Kant's propositions.

Moreover, we do not realize how we ourselves impose upon the world the properties of space, i.e., extension; nor do we realize how the world—earth, sea, trees, men— cannot possess such extension.

We do not understand how we can see and measure that extension if it does not exist—nor what the world represents in itself, if it does not possess extension.

But does the world really exist? Or, as a logical conclusion from Kant's ideas, shall we recognize the validity of Berkeley's idea, and deny the existence of the world itself except in imagination?

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Positive philosophy stands in a very ambiguous relation to Kant's views. It accepts them and it does not accept them: it accepts, and considers them correct in their relation to the direct experience of the organs of sense—what we see, hear, touch. That is, positive philosophy recognizes the subjectivity of our receptivity, and recognizes everything that we perceive in objects as imposed upon them by ourselves—but this in relation to the direct experience of the senses only.

When it concerns itself with "scientific experience" however, in which precise instruments and calculations are used, positive philosophy evidently considers Kant's view in relation to that invalid, assuming that "scientific experience" makes known to us the very substance of things, the true causes of our sensations—or if it does not do so now, it brings us closer to the truth of things, and can inform us later.

Contrary to Kant, the positivists are sure that "more clear knowledge of phenomena makes them acquainted with things in themselves." They think that in looking upon physical phenomena as the motions of the ether, or as electrical or magnetic phenomena, and calculating their motions, they begin to know the very substance of things, i.e., the causes of phenomena; in other words, they believe exactly in the possibility of what Kant denied—the comprehension of the true substance of things by means of the investigation of phenomena. Moreover many physicists do not consider it necessary even to know Kant; and they could not themselves exactly define in what relation they stand toward him. Of course it is possible not to know Kant, but it is impossible to controvert him. Every description of physical phenomena, by its every word, is related to the problems set forth by Kant—remains in this or that relation to them.

In general, the position of "science" in regard to this question of " subjectively imposed" or " objectively cognized" is more than tottering, and in order to form its conclusions "science" is forced to accept many purely hypothetical suppositions as things known—as indubitable data, not demanding proof.

Moreover, physicists forget one very significant fact: in his book, Analysis of Sensations, Mach says:

In the investigation of purely physical processes we generally employ concepts of so abstract a character that as a rule we think only cursorily, or not at all, of the sensations (elements) that lie at their base. . . The foundation of all purely physical operations is based upon an almost unending series of sensations, particularly if we take into consideration the adjustment of the apparatus which must precede the actual experiment. Now it can easily happen to the physicist who does not study the psychology of his operations, that he does not (to reverse a well-known saying) see the trees for the wood, that he overlooks the sensory element at the foundation of his work. . . Psychological analysis has taught us that this is not surprising, since the physicist is always operating with sensations. 1

Mach here calls attention to a very important thing. Physicists de not consider it necessary to know psychology and to deal with it in their conclusions.

But when they are more or less acquainted with psychology, with that part of it which treats of the forms of receptivity, and take it into consideration, then they hold the most fantastic duality of opinion, as in the case of the man of orthodox belief who tries to reconcile the dogmas of faith with the arguments of reason, and who is obliged to believe simultaneously in the creation of the world in seven days, seven thousand years ago, and in geological periods hundreds of thousands of years long, and in the evolutionary theory. He is thus forced to resort to sophisms, and demonstrate that by seven days is meant seven periods. But why seven, exactly, he is unable to explain. For physicists the rôle of the "creation of the world" is played by the atomic theory and the ether, with its wave-like vibrations, and further by the electrons, and the energetic, or electromagnetic theory of the world.

Or sometimes it is even worse, for the physicist in the depth of his soul feels the falsity of all old and new scientific theories but fears to hang in the air, as it were; to take refuge in mere negation. He has no system in place of that whose falsity he already feels; he is afraid to make a plunge into mere emptiness. Lacking sufficient courage to declare that he believes in nothing at all, he accoutres himself in all contradictory theories, as in an official uniform, only because with this uniform are bound up certain rights and privileges, outer as well as inner, consisting of a certain confidence in himself and in his surroundings, to forego which he has no strength and determination. The unbelieving positivist—this is the tragic figure of our times, analogous to the atheist or unbelieving priest of the times of Voltaire.

Out of this abhorrence of a vacuum come all dualistic theories which recognize "spirit" and "matter" existing simultaneously and independently of one another.

In general, to a disinterested observer, the state of our contemporary science should be of great psychological interest. In all branches of scientific knowledge we are absorbing an enormous number of facts destructive of the harmony of existing systems. And these systems can maintain themselves only by reason of the heroic attempts of scientific men who are trying to close their eyes to a long series of new facts which threatens to submerge everything in an irresistible stream. If in reality we were to collect these system-destroying facts they would be so numerous in every department of knowledge as to exceed those upon which existing systems are founded. The systematization of that which we do not know may yield us more for the true understanding of the world and the self than the systematization of that which in the opinion of "exact science" we do know.

Chapter 2

A new view of the Kantian problem. The books of Hinton. The "space-sense" and its evolution. A system for the development of a sense of the fourth dimension by exercises with colored cubes. The geometrical conception of space. Three perpendiculars—why three? Can everything existing be measured by three perpendiculars? The indices of existence. Reality of ideas. Insufficient evidence of the existence of matter and motion. Matter and motion are only logical concepts, like "good" and "evil."

AS already stated, Kant propounded the problem, but gave no solution of it, nor did he point the way to a solution. And not one of the known commentators, interpreters, followers or adversaries of Kant has found a solution, or the way to it.

I find the first flashes of a right understanding of the Kantian problem, and the first suggestions in regard to a possible way toward its solution, in the attempts at a new treatment of the problem of space and time, involving the concept of the "fourth dimension" and higher dimensions in general. An interesting synopsis of many things developed in this direction is that of C. H. Hinton, author of the books, A New Era of Thought, and The Fourth Dimension.

Hinton notes, among other things, that in commenting upon Kantian ideas, only their negative side is usually insisted upon, namely, the fact that we can cognize things in a sensuous way, in terms of space and time only, is regarded as an obstacle, hindering us from seeing what things in themselves really are, preventing the possibility of cognizing them as they are, imposing upon them that which is not inherent in them, shutting them off from us.

But [says Hinton] if we take Kant's statement simply as it is—not seeing in the spatial conception a hindrance to right receptivity—that we apprehend things by means of space—then it is equally allowable to consider our space sense not as a negative condition, hindering our perception of the world, but as a positive means by which the mind grasps its experiences, i.e., by which we cognize the world.

There is, in so many books in which the subject is treated, a certain air of despondency—as if this space apprehension were a kind of veil which shut us off from nature. But there is no need to adopt this feeling. The first postulate of this book is a full recognition of the fact that it is by means of space that we apprehend what is.

Space is the instrument of the mind.

Very often a statement which seems to be most deep and abstruse and hard to grasp, is simply the form into which deep thinkers have thrown a very simple and practical observation. And for the present let us look on Kant's great doctrine of space from a practical point of view, and it comes to this—it is important to develop the space sense, for it is the means by which we think about real things.

Now according to Kant [Hinton goes on to say] the space sense, or the intuition of space, is the most fundamental power of the mind. But I do not find anywhere a systematic and thorough-going education of the space sense. It is left to be organized by accident. Yet the special development of the space sense makes us acquainted with a whole series of new conceptions.

Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, have developed certain tendencies and have written remarkable books, but the true successors of Kant are Gauss and Lobachevsky.

For if our intuition of space is the means whereby we apprehend, then it follows that there may be different kinds of intuitions of space. Who can tell what the absolute space intuition is? This intuition of space must be colored, so to speak, by the conditions (of psychical activity) of the being which uses it.

By a remarkable analysis the great geometers above mentioned have shown that space is not limited as ordinary experience would seem to inform us, but that we are quite capable of conceiving different kinds of space.

( A New Era of Thought.)

Hinton invented a complicated system for the education and development of the space sense by means of exercises with groups the cubes of different colors. The books above mentioned are devoted to the exposition of this system. In my opinion Hinton's exercises are interesting from a theoretical standpoint, but they are practically valuable only for such as have the same turn of mind as Hinton's own.

Exercises of the mind according to his system must first of all lead to the development of the ability to imagine objects, not as the eye sees them, i.e., in perspective, but as they are geometrically—to learn to imagine the cube, for example, simultaneously from all sides. Moreover such a development of the imagination as overcomes the illusions of perspective results in the expansion of the limits of consciousness, thus creating new conceptions and augmenting the faculty for perceiving analogies.

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Kant established the fact that the development of knowledge under the existing conditions of receptivity will not bring us any closer to things in themselves. But there are theories asserting that it is possible, if desired, to change the very conditions of receptivity, and thus to approach the true substance of things. In the books above referred to, Hinton tries to unite the scientific foundations of such theories.

Our space as we ordinarily think of it is conceived as limited—not in extent, but in a certain way which can only be realized when we think of our ways of measuring space objects. It is found that there are only three independent directions in which a body can be measured—it must have height, length and breadth, but it has no more than these dimensions, if any other measurement be taken in it, this new measurement will be found to be compounded of the old measurements.

It is impossible to find a point in the body which could not be arrived at by travelling in combinations of the three directions already taken.

But why should space be limited to three independent directions?

Geometers have found that there is no reason why bodies which we can measure should thus be limited. As a matter of fact all the bodies which we can measure are thus limited. So we come to this conclusion, that the space which we use for conceiving ordinary objects in the world is limited to three dimensions. But it might be possible for there to be beings living in a world such that they would conceive a space of four dimensions. 2

It is possible to say a great deal about space of higher dimensions than our own, and to work out analytically many problems which suggest themselves. But can we conceive four-dimensional space in the same way in which we can conceive our own space? Can we think of a body in four dimensions as a unit having properties in the same way as we think of a body having a definite shape in the space with which we are familiar?

There is really no more difficulty in conceiving four-dimensional shapes, when we go about it in the right way, than in conceiving the idea of solid shapes, nor is there any mystery at all about it.

When the faculty to apprehend in four dimensions is acquired—or rather when it is brought into consciousness—for it exists in every one in imperfect form—a new horizon opens. The mind acquires a development of power, and in this use of ampler space as a mode of thought, a path is opened by using that very truth which, when first stated by Kant, seemed to close the mind within such fast limits. Our perception is subject to the condition of being in space. But space is not limited as we at first think.

The next step after having formed this power of conception in ampler space, is to investigate nature and see what phenomena are to be explained by four-dimensional relations.

The thought of past ages has used the conception of a three-dimensional space, and by that means has classified many phenomena and has obtained rules for dealing with matters of great practical utility. The path which opens immediately before us in the future is that of applying the conception of four-dimensional space to the phenomena of nature, and of investigating what can be found out by this new means of apprehension. . . .

For development of knowledge it is necessary to separate the self-elements, i.e., the personal elements which we put in everything cognized by us, from that which is cognized, in order that our attention may not be distracted (upon ourselves) from the properties which we, in substance, perceive.

Only by getting rid of the self-elements in our receptivity do we put ourselves in a position in which we can propound sensible questions. Only by getting rid of the notion of a circular motion of the sun around the earth (i.e., around us— self-element) do we prepare our way to study the sun as it really is.

But the worst about a self-element is that its presence is never dreamed of till it is got rid of.

In order to understand what the self-element in our receptivity means, imagine ourselves to be translated suddenly to another part of the universe, and to find there intelligent beings and to hold conversation with them. If we told them that we came from this world, and were to describe the sun to them, saying that it was a bright, hot body which moved around us, they would reply: " You have told us something about the sun, but you have also told us something about yourselves.". . .

Therefore, desiring to tell something about the sun, we shall first of all get rid of the self-element which is introduced into our knowledge of the sun by the movement of the earth, upon which we are, round it. . . .

One of our serious pieces of work will be to get rid of the self-elements in the knowledge of the arrangement of objects.

The relations of our universe or our space with regard to the wider universe of four-dimensional space are altogether undetermined. The real relationship will require a great deal of study to apprehend, and when apprehended will seem as natural to us as the position of the earth among the other planets seems to us now. . . .

I would divide studies of arrangement into two classes: those which create the faculty of arrangement, and those which use it and exercise it. Mathematics exercises it, but I do not think it creates it; and unfortunately, in mathematics as it is now often taught, the pupil is launched into a vast system of symbols: the whole use and meaning of symbols (namely, as means to acquire a clear grasp of facts) is lost to him. . . .

Of the possible units which will serve for the study of arrangement, I take the cube; and I have found that whenever I took any other unit I got wrong, puzzled, and lost my way. With the cube one does not get along very fast, but everything is perfectly obvious and simple, and builds up into a whole of which every part is evident. . . .

Our work then will be this: a study, by means of cubes, of the facts of arrangement; and the process of learning will be an active one of actually putting up the cubes. Thus we will bring our minds into contact with nature.

( A New Era of Thought.)

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Taking all these things into consideration, we should try to define clearly our understanding of those sides of our receptivity dealt with by Kant.

What is space?

Taken as object, that is, perceived by our consciousness, space is for us the form of the universe or the form of the matter in the universe.

Space possesses an infinite extension in all directions. But it can be measured in only three directions independent of one another—in length, breadth, and height; these directions we call the dimensions of space, and we say that our space has three dimensions: it is three-dimensional.

By independent direction we mean in this case a line at right angles to another line.

Our geometry (or the science of measurement of the earth, or matter in space) knows only three such lines, which are mutually at right angles to one another and not parallel among themselves.

But why three only, and not ten or fifteen?

This we do not know.

And here is another very significant fact: either because of some mysterious property of the universe, or because of some mental limitation, we cannot even imagine to ourselves more than three independent directions.

But we speak of the universe as infinite, and because the first condition of infinity is infinity in all directions and in all possible relations, so we must presuppose in space an infinite number of dimensions: that is, we must presuppose an infinite number of lines perpendicular and not parallel to each other; and yet out of these lines we know, for some reason, only three.

It is usually in some such guise that the question of higher dimensionality appears to normal human consciousness.

Since we cannot construct more than three mutually independent perpendiculars, and if the three-dimensionality of our space is conditional upon this, we are forced to admit the indubitable fact of the limitedness of our space in relation to geometrical possibilities: though of course if the properties of space are created by some limitation of consciousness, then the limitedness lies in ourselves.

No matter what this limitedness depends on, it is a fact that it exists.

A given point can be the vertex of only eight independent tetrahedrons. Through a given point it is possible to draw only three perpendicular and not parallel straight lines.

Upon this as a basis, we define the dimensionality of space by the number of lines it is possible to draw in it which are mutually at right angles one with another.

The line upon which there cannot be a perpendicular, that is, another line, constitutes linear, or one-dimensional space.

Upon the surface two perpendiculars are possible. This is superficial, or two-dimensional space.

In "space" three perpendiculars are possible. This is solid, or three-dimensional space.

The idea of the fourth dimension arose from the assumption that in addition to the three dimensions known to our geometry there exists still a fourth, for some reason unknown and inaccessible to us, i.e., that in addition to the three known to us, a mysterious fourth perpendicular is possible.

This assumption is practically founded on the consideration that there are things and phenomena in the world undoubtedly really existing, but quite incommensurable in terms of length, breadth and thickness, and lying as it were outside of three-dimensional space.

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By really existing we understand that which produces definite action, which possesses certain functions, which appears to be the cause of something else.

That which does not exist cannot produce any action, has no function, cannot be a cause.

But there are different modes of existence. There is physical existence, recognized by certain sorts of actions and functions, and there is metaphysical existence, recognized by its actions and its functions.

A house exists, and the idea of good and evil exists. But they do not exist in like manner. One and the same method of proof of existence does not suffice for the proof of the existence of a house and for the proof of the existence of an idea. A house is a physical fact, an idea is a metaphysical fact. Physical and metaphysical facts exist, but they exist differently.

In order to prove the idea of a division into good and evil, i.e., a metaphysical fact, I have only to prove its possibility. This is already sufficiently established. But if I should prove that a house, i.e., a physical fact, may exist, it does not at all mean that it exists really. If I prove that a man may own the house it is no proof that he owns it.

Our relation to an idea and to a house are quite different, It is possible by a certain effort to destroy a house—to burn, to wreck it. The house will cease to exist. But suppose you attempt to destroy, by an effort, an idea. The more you try to contest, argue, refute, ridicule, the more the idea is likely to spread, grow, strengthen. And contrariwise, silence, oblivion, non-action, "non-resistance" will exterminate, or in any case will weaken the idea. Silence, oblivion, will not wreck a house, will not hurt a stone. It is clear that the existence of a house and that of an idea are quite different existences.

Of such different existences we know very many. A book exists, and also the contents of a book. Notes exist, and so does the music that the notes combine to make. A coin exists, and so does the purchasing value of a coin. A word exists, and the energy which it contains.

We discern on the one hand, a whole series of physical facts, and on the other hand, a series of metaphysical facts.

As facts of the first kind exist, so also do facts of the second kind exist, but differently.

From the usual positivist point of view it will seem naive in the highest degree to speak of the purchasing value of a coin separately from the coin; of the energy of a word separately from the word; of the contents of a book separately from the book, and so on. We all know that these are only "what people say," that in reality purchasing value, energy of a word, and contents of a book do not exist, that by these conceptions we only denote a series of phenomena in some way linked with coin, word, book, but in substance quite separate from them.

But is it so?

We decided to accept nothing as given, consequently we shall not negate anything as given.

We see in things, in addition to what is external, something internal. We know that this internal element in things constitutes a continuous part of things, usually their principal substance. And quite naturally we ask ourselves, where is this internal element, and what does it represent in and by itself. We see that it is not embraced within our space. We begin to conceive of the idea of a "higher space" possessing more dimensions than ours. Our space then appears to be somehow a part of higher space, i.e., we begin to believe that we know, feel, and measure only part of space, that part which is measurable in terms of length, width and height.

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As was said before, we usually regard space as a form of the universe, or as a form of the matter of the universe. To make this clear it is possible to say that a "cube" is the form of the matter in a cube; a "sphere" is the form of the matter in a sphere; "space"—an infinite sphere—is the form of the entire matter of the universe.

H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, has this to say about space:

The superficial absurdity of assuming that Space itself is measurable in any direction is of little consequence. The familiar phrase (the fourth dimension of space) can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form—the " Fourth dimension of Matter in Space.". . . The progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of matter. . . ." 3