67. On the Comprehension of Things in Space

I must now approach some details through which the general truths of this subject will come to light. Everything would become much clearer through a little practical exercise.

But I must put the subject in as general a light as possible, so that no obstacle arises for the reader's judgment. And when I use the term “nothing,” I presuppose something other than the possession of a rule by which it can be said how the facts are. By knowing, I mean that the facts of a subject are available in the mind to come actively into consciousness when attention is directed to them. Michel Angelo recognized the human form; he could give every smallest fact about it. If he were to name it in a picture, he would see, mentally, how every muscle and every wrinkle of the hand lay in relation to the surrounding parts. We must achieve a knowledge as good as Michel Angelo's. There is a great difference between Michelangelo and us; but let us express this difference, not in our way of perceiving, but in the difference between the things he perceived and those we perceive. We now take simple lines and know them as absolutely as he perceived the complicated structure of the human body. Let us take a block of cubes; it can be any number, but to achieve consistency, let us put together 27 cubes to form a large cube of 27 parts. Let each cube be labeled so that it can be recognized, and let each be given a name so that it can be referred to. We assume that we have become acquainted with this block of dice in such a way that each of them is known, so that each is individually recognized and its relation to the others is known.

Now that we have acquired this knowledge of the block as it stands before us, we ask ourselves whether there is any self-element in our knowledge of it.

Undoubtedly, there is such a self-element. We have come to know the dice as they stand in accordance with their own convenience in relation to each other. We see the lower ones first; and the others above them, and we see those below as the bearers of the upper ones. Now, however, this relationship does not have to do with the dice themselves; it depends on the conditions under which we stand to grasp the block of dice; it depends on our own position in relation to the earth's surface when gravity is an important factor in our perception. In fact, our vision is so accustomed to taking gravity into account when considering things that when we look at a landscape or an object with our heads upside down, we do not see it in reverse, but we reduce it to this knowledge of gravity and get an impression little different from that in an upright position. If we are not things in space, then comprehending in space is the way in which the unrecognized us exists as spirit.