WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTAL PHYSICS' 323 



acceptation of lineal diagrams, although sufficiently true for the con- 

 clusions of mathematics, does not cut deep enough for a fourth dimen- 

 sion, which, if diagrams are to facilitate our comprehension of it, 

 needs the exact truth of what they postulate. Less than this will leave 

 us where it finds us "cabined, cribbed, confined ' , in three dimen- 

 sions. Professor Zollner will pardon a little rigor in the interpretation 

 of figures employed to throw light on a theory so occult. For the 

 purpose he has in hand, which lies considerably deeper than the lowest 

 foundation of mathematical reasoning, we are bound to demand that 

 his diagrams shall represent in reality exactly what they purport to 

 represent ; that, in plain words, they shall stand for real surfaces with- 

 out thickness, and real lines without breadth or thickness. But these 

 things do not exist for the human mind. They are incapable of repre- 

 sentation in thought. If they were conceivable, they might then assist 

 us to comprehend a fourth dimension, because, if we once cross the 

 absolute limits of conceivability, there is no telling what we might or 

 might not comprehend : presumably new heavens and a new earth 

 would open on us, and certainly a new mind Avould open in us. But 

 they are not conceivable, and the speculation is idle. For this reason, 

 if no other, Professor Zollner's digrammatic illustrations do not illus- 

 trate. They but offer one inconceivable thing to help us conceive 

 another. They begin and end in nothing. 



It turns out as was foreseen. Professor Zollner understands him- 

 self even less than he understands Kant. It is very sad ; yet the sad- 

 ness has a silver lining. His merit is greater than he has dreamed. 

 Although evidently a modest man, his modesty can not be spared. He 

 is himself the author of his theory. He owes nothing to Kant. Let 

 justice be clone, though the blushes rise. But justice requires another 

 word. Professor Zollner can not imagine the possibility of the truth 

 of his theory. He can not represent to his own mind the theory itself. 

 It is unthinkable. Not to' put too fine a point on it, his theory, in 

 philosophical strictness, is pure nonsense. Let justice be done, though 

 the blushes spread. We are now in a position to answer the question 

 at the head of this paper, and the answer can hardly be put more aptly 

 than in the terms of a definition of metaphysics familiar to every civ- 

 ilized country, and claimed as its own, I believe, by each in turn, if 

 not simultaneously : When Zollner tells the world what the world 

 can't understand, and what Zollner doesn't understand himself, that is 

 transcendental physics. 



