The Fourth-Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition: San Francisco, 1915 — John Shaqi
The Fourth-Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition: San Francisco, 1915Williams, Cora Lenore
Philosophy
The Fourth-Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition: San Francisco, 1915
Williams, Cora Lenore
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.)
The human mind has so long followed its early cow-paths through the
wilderness of sense that great hardihood is required even to suggest
that there may be other and better ways of traversing the empirical
common. So it is that the fear of being proclaimed a Brazenhead has
restrained me until this eleventh hour from telling of my discoveries
concerning the fourth-dimensional reaches of our Exposition. That I have
the courage now is due to my desire to help in its preservation; not to
the end of enclosing it in a brass wall, but to lift it out of the realm
of things temporal and give it permanent meaning for our thought and
aspiration. Would we save our Exposition from the ravages of Time we
have to exorcise that monster with the enigmatical utterances of the
aforesaid Brazen Head. The philosophers are telling us that Time is the
fourth dimension in the process of evolving for our consciousness. I
take it that there are three stages in this evolution; the first, that
of immediate experience, is subsumed by the phrase 'Time is'; the second
is a passing from the concrete to the abstract through the fact that
'Time was'; and the glory of the last is visioned only when we can say
'Time is past.'
While many books have been written descriptive of the Exposition, none
has succeeded in accounting completely for the joy we have in yonder
miracle of beauty. And this through no fault of the writers. When all
has been said concerning plan and execution there is still a subtle
something not spatialized for consciousness. Length, breadth, and height
do not suffice to set forth the ways of our delight in it. What of this
perceptual residue? Obviously to give it extension we shall have to
ascribe to reality other dimensions than those of our present sense
realm. Some disciple of Bergson interrupts: 'Ah, this whereof you speak
is a spiritual thing and as such is given by the intuition. Why, then,
do you seek to spatialize it?' And the layman out of his mental
repugnance to things mathematical echoes, 'Why?' We have to answer that
the process of creative evolution makes imperative the transfixion by
the intellect of these so-called spiritual perceptions. Although the
intuition transcends the intelligence in its grasp of beauty and truth,
we may attain to the higher insight it has to offer only if the things
of the spirit become known to the intellect - a point in Bergson's
philosophy which the majority of his readers overlook. 'We have,' he
says, 'to engender the categories of our thought; it is not enough that
we determine what these are.' Bergson is preeminently the prophet of the
higher space concept. We had done better to have held to Kant, for now
we are not only confronted with the fourth dimension as a thought-form,
but with the duty as well of furthering its creation. And in that light
we have to regard what of worth and meaning the Exposition has for us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account