Hinton - The Fourth Dimension.pdf

THE EVIDENCES FOR A FOURTH DIMENSION 77
are accustomed to, suffices to explain it. In our space a
symmetrical object must be built up by equal additions
on each side of a central plane. Such additions about
such a plane are as little likely as any other increments.
The probability against the existence of symmetrical
form in inorganic nature is overwhelming in our space,
and in organic forms they would be as difficult of production
as any other variety of configuration. To illustrate
this point we may take the child’s amusement of making
from dots of ink on a piece of paper a life-like representation
of an insect by simply folding the paper
over. The dots spread out on a symmetrical line, and
give the impression of a segmented form with antennæ
and legs.
Now seeing a number of such figures we should
naturally infer a folding over. Can, then, a folding over
in four-dimensional space account for the symmetry of
organic forms? The folding cannot of course be of the
bodies we see, but it may be of those minute constituents,
the ultimate elements of living matter which, turned in one
way or the other, become right- or left-handed, and so
produce a corresponding structure.
There is something in life not included in our conceptions
of mechanical movement. Is this something a fourdimensional
movement?
If we look at it from the broadest point of view, there is
something striking in the fact that where life comes in
there arises an entirely different set of phenomena to
those of the inorganic world.
The interest and values of life as we know it in ourselves,
as we know it existing around us in subordinate
forms, is entirely and completely different to anything
which inorganic nature shows. And in living beings we
have a kind of form, a disposition of matter which is
entirely different from that shown in inorganic matter.