Imagine ourselves to be translated suddenly to another part of the universe, and to find there intelligent beings, and to hold conversation with them. If we told them that we came from a world, and were to describe the sun to them, saying that it was a bright, hot body which moved round us, they would reply: You have told us something about the sun, but you have also told us something about yourselves. Thus in the apprehension of the sun as a body moving round us there is more than in the apprehension of it as not moving round, for we really in this case apprehend two things--the sun and our own conditions. But for the purpose of further knowledge it is most important that the more abstract knowledge should be acquired. The self element introduced by the motion of the earth must be got rid of before the true relations of the solar system can be made out. And in our block of cubes, it will be found that feelings about arrangement, and knowledge of space, which are quite unattainable with our ordinary view of position, become simple and clear when this discipline has been gone through. And there can be no possible mental harm in going through this bit of training, for all that it comes to is looking at a real thing as it actually is--turning it round and over and learning it from every point of view. CHAPTER VI. FUNCTION OF MIND. SPACE AGAINST METAPHYSICS. SELF-LIMITATION AND ITS TEST. A PLANE WORLD. We now pass on to the question: Are there any other self elements present in our knowledge of the block of cubes? When we have learnt to free it from up and down, is there anything else to be got rid of? It seems as if, when the cubes were thus learnt, we had got as abstract and impersonal a bit of knowledge as possible. But, in reality, in the relations of the cubes as we thus apprehend them there is present a self element to which the up and down is a mere trifle. If we think we have got absolute knowledge we are indeed walking on a thin crust in unconsciousness of the depths below. We are so certain of that which we are habituated to, we are so sure that the world is made up of the mechanical forces and principles which we familiarly deal with, that it is more of a shock than a welcome surprise to us to find how mistaken we were. And after all, do we suppose that the facts of distance and size and shape are the ultimate facts of the world--is it in truth made up like a machine out of mechanical parts? If so, where is there room for that other which we know--more certainly, because inwardly--that reverence and love which make life worth having? No; these mechanical relations are our means of knowing about the world; they are not reality itself, and their primary place in our imaginations is due to the familiarity which we have with them, and to the peculiar limitations under which we are.