WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTAL PHYSICS? 319 



cile the invariableness of an object with the variableness of its appear- 

 ance at different distances, when, presto, forth from the battery of the 

 "causal principle" streams a third dimension, to smooth away the 

 contradiction, and solve the problem ; although how, meanwhile, the 

 two-dimensional little one contrives to crawl over the house-do<r, or to 

 keep its own body in its own sight when lifted out of the cradle, or to 

 " contemplate its hand," and go through with " repeated groping about 

 and touching," without stumbling on the third dimension, is a puzzle 

 that must tax the resources even of transcendental physics. To them 

 I leave it. 



Professor Zollner's theory, it goes without saying, is important, if 

 true ; for, if one contradiction may determine a new dimension of 

 space, another contradiction, by the same token, may determine another 

 new property, and so on, till everything shall be made plain, and Ave 

 "be as gods." The theory, as will be observed, is propounded in its 

 seminal form ; but its capabilities of explanation are restricted only 

 by the number of possible contradictions inexplicable without it, so 

 that, if capable of solving a single problem insoluble in any other way, 

 it is capable of solving every insoluble problem is a philosophical 

 menstruum, a logical catholicon, a key to all the mysteries that mind 

 is heir to. It is this, or nothing ; but this, alas ! is quackery. Yet 

 Professor Zollner is no quack. He is a trained scientist, enthusiastic 

 without doubt, but equally without doubt sincei'e. What, then, is at 

 fault ? To be sure, he is a man with a theory, and that means a good 

 deal ; but it does not cover the whole ground. He, above all, is a man 

 with an impossible fact. By this he has fallen. Theorizing to explain 

 a fact is hazardous enough, and theorizing to prove a fact more haz- 

 ardous still, but the man who theorizes to prove a fact beyond the, 

 bounds of human knowledge is lost; and this is the predicament of 

 our worthy professor. Through his zealous efforts to prove a fourth 

 dimension he has got psychology at sixes and sevens. In framing his 

 theory of space, he unconsciously has made hash of Kant's theory, as 

 in expounding it he has unconsciously perverted Berkeley's theory of 

 vision ; his theory, accordingly, is itself a hash. In other words, Pro- 

 fessor Zollner, having mutilated Kant, and hacked the fragments, has 

 mixed up with the remains a sprinkling of Berkeley (after vitiating 

 it), and taken the resulting hodge-podge as his theory of space, which, 

 like the honey in Samson's riddle, comes out of the carcass of the lion 

 he has rent, though in his case, unhappily, the bees have swarmed from 

 his own bonnet. It would be superfluous to characterize seriously his 

 account of the origin of our idea of space. It is enough to say that 

 the account has no warrant in the teachings of Kant, or of any other 

 metaphysician, from Zeno to Spencer. It is not Kantian in the least, 

 but purely Zollnerian ; and, as John Wilkes acknowledged that he was 

 never much of a Wilkesite, so Professor Zollner, if he some day be- 

 comes as well versed in psychology as he is in physics, will be tempted 



