The telephone has vanished
from the wall; the mirror does not reflect what is in front of it.
The portrait of himself over the mantelpiece has a face that is
not his own.
That is something like a vision of the vital change in the whole
trend of natural philosophy in the last twenty or thirty years.
It matters little whether we regard it as the deepening
or the destruction of the scientific universe.
It matters little whether we say that grander abysses have
opened in it, or merely that the bottom has fallen out of it.
It is quite self-evident that scientific men are at war with wilder
and more unfathomable fancies than the facts of the age of Huxley.
I attempt no controversy about any of the particular cases:
it is the cumulative effect of all of them that makes the impression
one of common sense. It is really true that the perspective and
dimensions of the man's bedroom have altered; the disciples of Einstein
will tell him that straight lines are curved and perhaps measure
more one way than the other; if that is not a nightmare, what is?
It is really true that the clock has altered, for time has turned
into the fourth dimension or something entirely different;
and the telephone may fairly be said to have faded from view in favour
of the invisible telepath.
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