Scientific Romances (First Series)Hinton, Charles Howard
Philosophy
Scientific Romances (First Series)
Hinton, Charles Howard
Fourth dimension
And the best plan is to take a typical instance, and to adopt the Arabic
method of description. By the Arabic method of description is meant the
same method which the Arabs used for the description of numerical
quantities. For instance, in the Arabic notation, if we are asked the
number of days in the year, we answer first 300, which is a false
answer, but gives the nearest approximation in hundreds; then we say
sixty, which is a correction; last of all we say five, which makes the
answer a correct one, namely, 365. In this simple case the description
is given so quickly that we are hardly conscious of the nature of the
system employed. But the same method when applied to more difficult
subjects presents the following characteristics. Firstly, a certain
statement is made about the subject to be described, and is impressed
upon the reader as if it were true. Then, when that has been grasped,
another statement is made, generally somewhat contradictory, and the
first notion formed has to be corrected. But these two statements taken
together are given as truth. Then when this idea has been formed in the
mind of the reader, another statement is made which must likewise be
received as a correction, and so on, until by successive statements and
contradictions, or corrections, the idea produced corresponds to the
facts, as the describer knows them.
Thus the activity of the king will be here described by a series of
statements, and the truth will be obtained by the whole of the
statements and the corrections which they successively bring in.
When the king wished to start a being on the train of activity he
divided its apathy into pleasure and pain. The pleasure he connected
with one act which we will call A. The pain he associated with another
act which we will call B.
These two “acts,” A and B, which together form what we call an “action,”
were of such a nature that the doing of A first and then of B was a
process used in the organization of the life in the valley.
Thus the act A may be represented by moving the right foot, B by moving
the left foot, then AB will be the action of taking a step. This however
is but a superficial illustration, for the acts which we represent by A
and B were fundamental acts, of which great numbers were combined
together in any single outward act which could be observed or described.
Suppose for the present that there is only one creature in the valley.
The king separates his apathy with regard to the action AB. Let us say
he separates his apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain. Of the
pleasure he lets the being experience the whole, of the pain he bears an
amount which we will represent by 2. Thus the being has 1000 pleasure
and 998 of pain, and the action is completed. His sensation is measured
by the number 1000 in the first act, and by 998 in the second act.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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