The sense of sight, even with a single eye, together with the muscular sensations relative to the movements of the eyeball, would suffice to teach us space of three dimensions.
The images of external objects are painted on the retina, which is a two-dimensional canvas; they are perspectives.
But, as eye and objects are movable, we see in succession various perspectives of the same body, taken from different points of view.
At the same time, we find that the transition from one perspective to another is often accompanied by muscular sensations.
If the transition from the perspective A to the perspective B, and that from the perspective A´ to the perspective B´ are accompanied by the same muscular sensations, we liken them one to the other as operations of the same nature.
Studying then the laws according to which these operations combine, we recognize that they form a group, which has the same structure as that of the movements of rigid solids.
Now, we have seen that it is from the properties of this group we have derived the notion of geometric space and that of three dimensions.
We understand thus how the idea of a space of three dimensions could take birth from the pageant of these perspectives, though each of them is of only two dimensions, since they follow one another according to certain laws.
Well, just as the perspective of a three-dimensional figure can be made on a plane, we can make that of a four-dimensional figure on a picture of three (or of two) dimensions. To a geometer this is only child's play.
We can even take of the same figure several perspectives from several different points of view.
We can easily represent to ourselves these perspectives, since they are of only three dimensions.
Imagine that the various perspectives of the same object succeed one another, and that the transition from one to the other is accompanied by muscular sensations.
We shall of course consider two of these transitions as two operations of the same nature when they are associated with the same muscular sensations.
Nothing then prevents us from imagining that these operations combine according to any law we choose, for example, so as to form a group with the same structure as that of the movements of a rigid solid of four dimensions.
Here there is nothing unpicturable, and yet these sensations are precisely those which would be felt by a being possessed of a two-dimensional retina who could move in space of four dimensions. In this sense we may say the fourth dimension is imaginable.
Conclusions.—We see that experience plays an indispensable rôle in the genesis of geometry; but it would be an error thence to conclude that geometry is, even in part, an experimental science.
If it were experimental, it would be only approximative and provisional. And what rough approximation!
Geometry would be only the study of the movements of solids; but in reality it is not occupied with natural solids, it has for object certain ideal solids, absolutely rigid, which are only a simplified and very remote image of natural solids.
The notion of these ideal solids is drawn from all parts of our mind, and experience is only an occasion which induces us to bring it forth from them.
The object of geometry is the study of a particular 'group'; but the general group concept pre-exists, at least potentially, in our minds. It is imposed on us, not as form of our sense, but as form of our understanding.
Only, from among all the possible groups, that must be chosen which will be, so to speak, the standard to which we shall refer natural phenomena.
Experience guides us in this choice without forcing it upon us; it tells us not which is the truest geometry, but which is the most convenient.
Notice that I have been able to describe the fantastic worlds above imagined without ceasing to employ the language of ordinary geometry.
And, in fact, we should not have to change it if transported thither.
Beings educated there would doubtless find it more convenient to create a geometry different from ours, and better adapted to their impressions. As for us, in face of the same impressions, it is certain we should find it more convenient not to change our habits.
CHAPTER V
Experience and Geometry
1. Already in the preceding pages I have several times tried to show that the principles of geometry are not experimental facts and that in particular Euclid's postulate can not be proven experimentally.
However decisive appear to me the reasons already given, I believe I should emphasize this point because here a false idea is profoundly rooted in many minds.
2. If we construct a material circle, measure its radius and circumference, and see if the ratio of these two lengths is equal to π, what shall we have done? We shall have made an experiment on the properties of the matter with which we constructed this round thing, and of that of which the measure used was made.
3. Geometry and Astronomy.—The question has also been put in another way. If Lobachevski's geometry is true, the parallax of a very distant star will be finite; if Riemann's is true, it will be negative. These are results which seem within the reach of experiment, and there have been hopes that astronomical observations might enable us to decide between the three geometries.
But in astronomy 'straight line' means simply 'path of a ray of light.'
If therefore negative parallaxes were found, or if it were demonstrated that all parallaxes are superior to a certain limit, two courses would be open to us; we might either renounce Euclidean geometry, or else modify the laws of optics and suppose that light does not travel rigorously in a straight line.
It is needless to add that all the world would regard the latter solution as the more advantageous.
The Euclidean geometry has, therefore, nothing to fear from fresh experiments.
4. Is the position tenable, that certain phenomena, possible in Euclidean space, would be impossible in non-Euclidean space, so that experience, in establishing these phenomena, would directly contradict the non-Euclidean hypothesis? For my part I think no such question can be put. To my mind it is precisely equivalent to the following, whose absurdity is patent to all eyes: are there lengths expressible in meters and centimeters, but which can not be measured in fathoms, feet and inches, so that experience, in ascertaining the existence of these lengths, would directly contradict the hypothesis that there are fathoms divided into six feet?
Examine the question more closely. I suppose that the straight line possesses in Euclidean space any two properties which I shall call A and B; that in non-Euclidean space it still possesses the property A, but no longer has the property B; finally I suppose that in both Euclidean and non-Euclidean space the straight line is the only line having the property A.
If this were so, experience would be capable of deciding between the hypothesis of Euclid and that of Lobachevski. It would be ascertained that a definite concrete object, accessible to experiment, for example, a pencil of rays of light, possesses the property A; we should conclude that it is rectilinear, and then investigate whether or not it has the property B.
But this is not so; no property exists which, like this property A, can be an absolute criterion