We know of no such turning. But there exist a multitude of forms which
show a certain relation to a plane, a relation of symmetry, which
indicates more than an accidental juxtaposition of parts. In organic
life the universal type is of right- and left-handed symmetry, there
is a plane on each side of which the parts correspond. Now we have
seen that in four dimensions a plane takes the place of a line in
three dimensions. In our space, rotation about an axis is the type of
rotation, and the origin of bodies symmetrical about a line as the
earth is symmetrical about an axis can easily be explained. But where
there is symmetry about a plane no simple physical motion, such as we
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 lifelike
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 four-dimensional 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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