Tertium Organum

experimentally 
if we were able to 
ascertain that for a being possessing nothing but sensations the world is one­
dimensional; for a being possessing sensations and representations it is two­
dimensional; and for a being possessing, in addition to concepts and ideas, 
also higher forms of perception, the world is four-dimensional. 
To be more exact, Kant's proposition regarding the subjective character of 
the idea of space could be taken as proven, (a) if for a being possessing 
nothing but sensations, our entire world with all its variety of forms appeared 
as 
one line,
if the universe of this being had one dimension, i.e. if this being
were one-dimensional by virtue of the properties of his perception; and (b) if
for a being possessing the capacity of forming representations in addition to 
his ability of experiencing sensations, the world had a two-dimensional 
extension, i.e. if our entire world with its blue skies, clouds, green trees, 
mountains and precipices, appeared to him merely as a plane; if the universe 
of this being had only two dimensions, that is, if this being were 
two­
dimensional
by virtue of the properties of his perception. 
More briefly, Kant's proposition would be proved if we saw that for a given 
subject the number of characteristics of the world changed according to the 
change of his mental apparatus. 
It does not seem possible to carry out such an experiment of 

---

reducing
mental characteristics, for we do not know how to restrict our own 
or someone else's mental apparatus with the ordinary means at our disposal. 
Experiments of 
augmenting 
mental characteristics exist but, for many
different reasons, they are not sufficiently convincing. The main reason is 
that an increase of mental faculties produces in our inner world so much that 
is new, that this 
new
masks any 
changes 
which take place simultaneously in 
our usual perceptions of the world. We feel the new but cannot exactly define 
the difference. 
A whole series of teachings and religious and philosophical doctrines have 
as their professed or hidden aim precisely this 
expansion of consciousness. 
This is the aim of 
mysticism 
of all times and all religions, the aim of 
occultism, 
the aim of the 
Eastern Yoga.
But the question of the expansion of 
consciousness requires special study; 
the last chapters of this book are devoted to it. 
In the meantime, in order to prove the contention stated above about the 
change of the world as a result of a change in the mental apparatus, it is 
sufficient to examine the hypothesis about the possibility of a lesser number 
of mental characteristics. 
If we do not know how to carry out experiments in this direction, perhaps 
observation is possible. 
We must ask ourselves the question: Are there in the world beings whose 
mental life is below ours 
in the required sense? 
Such beings, whose mental life is below ours, undoubtedly exist. They are 
animals. 
We know very little about what constitutes the difference between the mental 
processes of an animal and the mental processes of a man; 
our ordinary 'conversational' psychology is altogether ignorant of it. As a rule 
we entirely deny the existence of reason in animals, or, on the contrary, we 
ascribe to them our own psychology, but 'limited' -though 
how
and 
in what 
respect 
it is limited, we do not know. And then we say that an animal has no 
reason but has instinct. But we have a very hazy idea of what