Hinton - The Fourth Dimension.pdf

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THE FOURTH DIMENSION
we have presupposed may be regarded as originated by
a process of selection.
Darwin set himself to explain the origin of the fauna
and flora of the world. He denied specific tendencies.
He assumed an indefinite variability—that is, chance—
but a chance confined within narrow limits as regards the
magnitude of any consecutive variations. He showed that
organisms possessing features of permanence, if they
occurred would be preserved. So his account of any
structure or organised being was that it possessed features
of permanence.
Kant, undertaking not the explanation of any particular
phenomena but of that which we call nature as a whole,
had an origin of species of his own, an account of the
flora and fauna of consciousness. He denied any specific
tendency of the elements of consciousness, but taking our
own consciousness, pointed out that in which it resembled
any consciousness which could survive, which could give
an account of itself.
He assumes a chance or random world, and as great
and small were not to him any given notions of which he
could make use, he did not limit the chance, the randomness,
in any way. But any consciousness which is permanent
must possess certain features—those attributes
namely which give it permanence. Any consciousness
like our own is simply a consciousness which possesses
those attributes. The main thing is that which he calls
the unity of apperception, which we have seen above is
simply the statement that a particular set of phases of
consciousness on the basis of complete randomness will be
self-conjugate, and so permanent.
As with Darwin so with Kant, the reason for existence
of any feature comes to this—show that it tends to the
permanence of that which possesses it.
We can thus regard Kant as the creator of the first of