Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

The Press

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]

DEAR SIR,-What is the Matter with the Press? in your April number has just come to my attention, and I write to express appreciation of this good-natured, frank, logical analysis. The author at the same time complimented and challenged THE FORUM in submitting the article. But I am sure he makes the same discrimination as an increasing army of readers do between the kept daily press and the free, honest weekly and monthly press that is growing up-The Masses, The New Review, The Public, THE FORUM, and others. And he must recognize the pamphlets and books that are not mercenary or economically determined-really I think these are the remedy, and what he calls the remedy really the new estate of intellect which will be brought about by this remedy and his "remedy."

I hope you will be able to get Dr. Talcott Williams to take up the gauntlet of your anonymous author. I think it is "up to him" as Dean. WALTER E. KRUESI

SCHENECTADY, N. Y.

The Fourth Dimension

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]

DEAR SIR, À propos of the articles referred to in the published correspondence of THE FORUM for May, 1914, may the present writer at this late date suggest that the author of the article on The Fourth Dimension (April, 1914) change the wording of his text, that it may read somewhat as follows: three perpendicular lines imagined from the opposite faces of a cube intersecting at a common point (0), its centre, will each be at right angles to the other two?

This would be in contradistinction to the very flagrant error in his statement that four diagonal lines imagined from the corners of the cube would each be at right angles to the other three, which is obviously not the case. As altered this definition would be found to be true of all figures of three dimensions.

Thus the cube could be shown to be the geometric centre of a larger imaginary one, which could actually be represented by the aid of building blocks to the number of 27 of the size of the original cube. Likewise, by proceeding inwardly, we can readily imagine a secondary central cube of relative size (the cube within a cube); and so on in infinite series. It should be noted, likewise, that the three intersecting lines can be prolonged

infinitely in the opposite direction, i. e., outwardly, thus making it possible to construct a third imaginary cube with the secondary cubes as a nucleus (this with the aid of 27 times 27) and so on ad infinitum.

It is this power of mind to construct such imaginary figures that is most suggestive of the Fourth Dimension.

In accordance with the definition of the late C. H. Hinton, this four dimensional direction would run "at right angles to any of the three space dimensions as the third space dimension runs at right angles to the two dimensions of a plane, and thus gives us the opportunity of generating a new kind of volume."

Our imaginary figures could be generated in the mind's eye at will along lines extending outwardly or inwardly along our imaginary perpendiculars to the centre (o).

It must be clearly borne in mind, however, that figures so constructed by the power of the imagination cannot be other than three dimensional, whereas imaginary four dimensional figures would follow the direction indicated by Hinton's definition, and would therefore transcend the geometry and mechanics of our known world of three dimensions.

If we can, with Mr. Shuddemagen, imagine a point in space where four intersecting lines meet, each forming an angle of 90 degrees, we shall have conceived of the locus of the fourth dimension.

In order to construct the figure of the fourth dimension, we shall have to advance beyond the limits of known three dimensional boundaries and imagine ourselves in a region where, instead of having points moving in one direction to produce lines, lines moving at right angles to produce plane surfaces, surfaces moving at right angles to produce cubical figures (solids), we have a realm where cubes themselves move at right angles to themselves to generate "a new kind of volume."

Would not this unknown direction be the Fourth Dimension, in accordance with the following definition: "a dimension of like character added to length, breadth, and thickness; in math., an (assumed) unknown direction extending in two senses ('apo' and 'eiso'), from every particle of a cube, and such that the slightest infinitesimal motion of the cube in this direction would take it completely out of itself"?

May it not from this standpoint be easier to understand with Mr. Rudd how "Any solid can therefore be considered a cross section of its greater self"?

Or, as Mr. Shuddemagen states, may we not be better able "to see objects of the four-dimensional universe, the objects of which our familiar three-dimensional objects are mere cross-sections"?

PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

STUDENT

The Truth about Canada

[TO THE EDITOR of the forum]

DEAR SIR,-May I call your attention to the enclosed editorial, which appeared in the Montreal Journal of Commerce? I am sure you will be glad to give publicity to both sides in any controversy-but especially to the correct side.

TORONTO.

CANADIAN

[We reprint the editorial in full, with pleasure.-EDITOR]

THE FRONTIER IN CANADIAN HISTORY

In a recent issue of THE FORUM of New York, there appeared an article on Canada's future, written by an American, a Mr. Smith. This gentleman spent some months in Western Canada, and found there evidences of hostility to England, of antipathy to Eastern Canada, and of a feeling of warm friendship and regard for the American people.

The great American journals have discovered Canada only in recent years and for some time back have been sending their emissaries here to take notes on our country and ourselves. We are, unfortunately, obliged to submit to the same misrepresentation and the same petty pin-pricking policy that the United States underwent at the hands of European, and especially of English, tourists. Outsiders, even with the best intentions, rarely get at the real spirit and aspirations of another people. They skim over the surface of things, touch the high spots, and then proceed to write as though they had the basic facts and figures and had, indeed, touched bottom. The result is an effusion that merits not merely the ridicule of the people maligned, but also their contempt.

Our loyalty to the motherland is beyond question, and above argument. Canadians do not ordinarily show their loyalty by feats of lungpower, much, apparently, to Mr. Smith's regret. But had Mr. Smith been in Canada during the South African war, he would have found that Canadians can shout loudly enough when the opportunity appears. As for waving the flag-well, we are considerable flag-wavers, too, on occasion, providing only that the occasion is big enough.

As for our friendliness to our American cousins, we are glad to know that Mr. Smith has found some signs of civilization here. But we are also friendly to the French, the Germans, the Jews, the Greeks, the Italians and the Slavs. We are learning that contempt for the foreign and the unknown is merely a mark of ignorance in ourselves. We are steadily developing a broader and more generous outlook toward other peoples and

other lands, as the years go by. This is necessary, because we are ourselves a cosmopolitan people.

But all the above is a small matter compared with the charge that there is a lack of sympathy between the East and the West in Canada. This charge is absolutely false and without foundation.

It is not denied that national problems may be studied from different angles in different parts of this vast nation. We may differ, and differ seriously, on important political and economic problems. That must be true in the nature of things. But on innumerable other questions we are in accord; and we never forget we are Canadians.

The frontier, the Far West, has always played a great rôle in Canada's history. It has ever been, as in the United States, the land of hope and promise. And no people has striven more or given more to build up a complete nation than has Canada of the East for Canada of the West.

The simple truth is that the West has dominated all our Canadian life. For, behind institutions, behind constitutional reforms and modifications lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of Canadian institutions is the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes. of an expanding people-to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress, out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier, all the complex forms of modern life. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of Canadian life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating Canadian character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is that of the West. We feel it instinctively and we recognize it practically on innumerable occasions, as in our present sympathetic attitude to the West on the Asiatic immigration problem. We are, indeed, in harmony with the Western spirit; for it is that spirit which has given us the energy and the self-reliance to determine that in Canada shall be established a people with their own ideals and outlook, strong and independent and free.

Evolution

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]

DEAR SIR,-Your very timely and interesting Symposium on Darwinism, in the June FORUM, would lead to the conclusion that, as a whole, Churchmen deny the truth of Evolution, and that the most prominent thinking college men admit it.

This impression is not satisfactory-hardly honest, (in effect, for I am not speaking of intention) unless we know what the writers mean by Evolution-I fancy they mean different things.

It should be made plain whether they are denying or affirming: IST. Such an evolution as will exclude the need of a Creator; or 2ND. Such an evolution as admits a Creator of matter and force, which then evolve by laws of the Creator, bringing life out of no life, and reason out of matter; or

3RD. Such an evolution as requires a special influx of super-material power from the Creator at the crucial points mentioned above.

If it were settled distinctively in what sense the word evolution is used, there would be a great drawing together of the men of Natural Science and those of Theology-and those who really differ would be manifest. JOHN T. DURWARD

LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN

Piety

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]

DEAR SIR,-The following appeal was recently circulated in Central Park, New York, and, no doubt, in hundreds of other places. It was issued by the Bible Truth Dépôt, St. Louis, Missouri, and was distributed, apparently, by well-meaning, sincere, and ignorant men.

It is a very stupid and disgusting production, and the officials responsible for it should be sent to an elementary school to learn the rudiments of reasoning and decency. Such self-constituted censors and misleaders of their fellow-men seem to flourish in every country and in every age. They always credit themselves with a peculiar piety, and they always assume that everyone who is not ignorant enough to agree with them must be condemned here and damned hereafter.

Now that men are beginning to speak the truth and to value the truth, and to despise shams and cowardice, it is time that the impostors who have posed as little tin gods should be told plainly that their so-called piety is not a virtue, but a degrading vice, rooted in ignorance and smug self-satisfaction. "An eternity of weeping and wailing"; "multitudes. will be unprepared, and hence will be dammed (sic) throughout eternity"; "by the fear of hell's eternal torment"; "that abyss at whose foot dash and roar the flaming waves of eternal judgment "—the criminal lunatics who can perpetrate such abominable rubbish, in the name of the God of Love, are not fit to be at large, scattering their poison through the community.

These blind fanatics have been tainting the minds of young and old for far too long. What right have they to preach damnable doctrines that they have taken merely on hearsay; which they have never investigated, and are incapable of investigating? It is this type which goes for its authority always to its Bible, without knowing in the least what its Bible is, or the varying values of different sections, or the pitfalls of mistrans

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »