Charles Howard Hinton

“In the attempt to penetrate into the nature of the higher, to grasp within our ken that which transcends all analogies, because what we know are merely partial views of it, the purely material and physical path affords a means of approach pursuing which we are in less likelihood of error than if we use the more frequently trodden path of framing conceptions which in their elevation and beauty seem to us ideally perfect.”
― Charles Howard Hinton, The Fourth Dimension

“How do you explain the law and order in nature?" we ask the philosophers. All except Kant reply by assuming law and order somewhere, and then showing how we can recognise it.

In explaining our notions, philosophers from other than the Kantian standpoint, assume the notions as existing outside us, and then it is no difficult task to show how they come to us, either by inspiration or by observation.

We ask "Why do we have an idea of law in nature?" "Because natural processes go according to law", we are answered, "and experience inherited or acquired, gives us this notion". But when we speak about the law in nature we are speaking about a notion of our own. So all that these expositors do is to explain our notion by an assumption of it.”
― Charles Howard Hinton, The Fourth Dimension