19078-.] SPACE AND ITs DIMENSIONS. Bis 
SPACE AND ITS DIMENSIONS 
A CRITICAL STUDY. 
By PROFESSOR AUGUST KIRSCHMANN, M.A., PH.D. 
[Read rrth January, 1908) 
® 
CHAPTER I. 
THE NATURE OF SPACE. 
I. SPACE IS SUBJECTIVE. 
For the naive consciousness space presents apart from its infinite 
extension and divisibility scarcely a problem at all. For him who from 
lack of time or inclination avoids philosophical analysis, space is that 
in which we are and in which everything is, and with that the naive 
mind stops. But the philosopher, i.e., the man who thinks and who does 
not stop thinking at the conventional stopping places*) sees a great num- 
ber of problems which puzzle him and which have puzzled thinkers of all 
times. ‘The more general of these problems may according to the branches 
of human study which are involved in them be classified under three 
headings: 
1. There is first a chiefly metaphysical and theory of knowledge problem 
about the very essence of space. It is concerned with the question of 
the subjective or objective, relative or absolute, qualitative or quantitative 
nature of space. 
2. There is secondly a problem belonging to theory of knowledge and 
psychology alike: whether the space of experience is simple or complex. 
Whether we have to take it as an ultimate fact which can qualitatively 
be no further analyzed or whether it can be derived from something 
simpler. 
3. There is finally a third problem with which psychology and 
physiology are concerned. It has to do with the conditions and the 
* According to this definition one man may be a “ philosopher ”’ even if he is not 
able to spell the word philosophy and another may be a~ “non’’-philosopher 
though he has ‘studied philosophy ” for many years. 
