THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 



ICQ 



second four-dimensional world, containing ours, there is no reason 

 why worlds of more or less dimensions should not, with the same 

 right, also exist. But if now, as Zollner and his adherents main- 

 tain, four-dimensional spirits exist which can act by the mere efforts 

 of their own wills on our world, there is surely no reason why we 

 three-dimensional beings should not also be able to produce effects 

 on some two-dimensional animated world. Whether we have, gen- 

 erally, any such influence we do not know, but we certainly do know 

 that we do not act purposely and consciously on a two-dimensional 

 world. If, therefore, Zollner were right, the plan of creation would 

 possess the wonderful feature that four-dimensional beings are cap- 

 able of arbitrarily affecting the three-dimensional world, but that 

 three-dimensional beings have no right in their turn consciously to 

 affect a two-dimensional world. 



The supporters of Zollner's hypothesis will perhaps reply to 

 the objection just made, that the plan of creation might, after all, 

 possibly possess this wonderful peculiarity, that we human beings 

 perhaps, in some higher condition of culture, will be able to act con- 

 sciously on two-dimensional worlds, and that at any rate it is simply 

 an inference by analogy to conclude from the non-existence of a rela- 

 tion between three and two dimensions that the same relation is also 

 wanting in the case of four and three dimensions. As a matter of fact, 

 the objection above made is not intended to refute Zollner's hypoth- 

 esis, but only to stamp it as very improbable. But despite this im- 

 probability Zollner would still be right if the phenomena of the ma- 

 terial world actually made his hypothesis necessary. That, however, 

 is by no means the case. Although most of the phenomena to which 

 the spiritualists appeal are probably founded on sense-illusions, 

 humbug, and self-deception, it cannot be denied that there possibly 

 do exist phenomena which cannot be brought into harmony with 

 the natural laws now known. There always have been mysterious 

 phenomena, and there always will be. Yet, as we have often seen 

 that the progress of science has again and again revealed as natura? 

 what former generations held to be supernatural, it is certainly 

 wholly wrong to bring in for the explanation of phenomena whicl- 

 now seem mysterious an hypothesis like that of Zollner, by which 



