Читать книгу A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications онлайн

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We have seen that such a surface constitutes space of two dimensions, because through any point in it we can only draw two lines at right angles to one another. In order to draw a third such line we must get out of the surface altogether and draw the line perpendicular to it.

Next we must try to imagine that this surface is populated by a race of beings of an extraordinary thinness.

In order to grasp the analogy properly we must imagine them to be so constituted that they are incapable of realising any direction in space which does not lie in the aforementioned flat surface on which they live.

We can imagine this by supposing that their thickness, i.e.:—their extension in the third dimension perpendicular to their surface,—is so small as to be invisible to them and also that their "nerve endings" all lie on their periphery. This last is equivalent to saying that they have no "sense organs" facing the third dimension and that therefore they cannot receive impressions, or respond to any stimuli that come to them from that direction.