and spiritual wealth, animals are not; man is a builder of civilization, animals are not; man makes the _past live in the present and the present in the future_, animals do not; man is thus a _binder of time_, animals are not. In the light of such considerations, if only we will attend to their mighty significance, it is as clear as anything can be or can become, that the life of man—the time-binder—is as radically distinct from that of animals—mere space-binders—as animal life is distinct from that of plants or as the nature of a solid is distinct from that of a surface, or that of a surface from that of a line. It is, therefore, perfectly manifest that, when we regard human beings as animals or as mixtures of animal nature with something mysteriously _super_natural, we are guilty of the same _kind_ of blunder as if we regarded animals as plants or as plants touched by “divinity”—the same _kind_ of blunder as that of regarding a solid as a surface or as a surface miraculously transfigured by some mysterious influence from outside the universe of space. It is thus evident that our guilt in the matter is the guilt of a blunder that is _fundamental_—a confusing of types, a mixing of dimensions. Nothing can be more disastrous. For what are the consequences of that kind of error? Let the reader reflect. He knows that, if our ancestors had committed that kind of error regarding lines and surfaces and solids, there would to-day be no science of geometry; and he knows that, if there were no geometry, there would be no architecture in the world, no surveying, no railroads, no astronomy, no charting of the seas, no steamships, no engineering, nothing whatever of the now familiar world-wide affairs made possible by the scientific conquest of space. I say again, let the reader reflect; for if he does not, he will here miss the gravity of a most momentous truth. He readily sees, in the case supposed, how very appalling the consequences would have been if, throughout the period of humanity’s childhood, there had occurred a certain confusion of types, a certain mixing of dimensions, and he is _enabled_ to see it just because, happily, the blunder was _not_ made or, if made, was not persisted in, for, if it had been made and persisted in, then the great and now familiar things of which it would have deprived the world would not be here; we should not now be able even to imagine them, and so we could not now compute even roughly the tremendous magnitude of the blunder’s disastrous consequences. Let the reader not deviate nor falter nor stagger here; let him shoulder the burden of the mighty argument and bear it to the goal. He easily perceives the truly appalling consequences that _would_ have inevitably followed from the error of confusing types—the error of mixing dimensions—in the matter of lines and surfaces and solids, _if_ that error had been committed and persisted in throughout the centuries; he _can_ perceive those consequences just