CHAPTER IV.
Let us begin with a little paradox. Beings whose minds were made as ours, and with senses like ours, but without any preliminary education, might receive from a suitably-chosen external world impressions which would lead them to construct a geometry other than that of Euclid, and to localise the phenomena of this external world in a non-Euclidean space, or even in space of four dimensions. As for us, whose education has been made by our actual world, if we were suddenly transported into this new world, we should have no difficulty in referring phenomena to our Euclidean space. Perhaps somebody may appear on the scene some day who will devote his life to it, and be able to represent to himself the fourth dimension.
Geometrical Space and Representative Space.—It is often said that the images we form of external objects are localised in space, and even that they can only be formed on this condition. It is also said that this space, which thus serves as a kind of framework ready prepared for our sensations and representations, is identical with the space of the
