Latest / Classic Science Fiction Books / 08 - Flatland- A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott Abbott

Transcript

08 - Flatland- A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott Abbott · Classic Science Fiction Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part two, Section eighteen. How I came to Spaceland and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: what I saw there? An unspeakable horror seized me. There
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: was a darkness, then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that was not like seeing. I saw a line that
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: was no line, space that was not space. I was
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: myself and not myself. When I could find voice, I
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: shrieked aloud in agony. Either this is madness or it
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is hell. It is neither, calmly replied the voice of
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the sphere. It is knowledge. It is three dimensions. Open
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: your eye once again and try to look steadily. I looked,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and behold a new world. There stood before me, visibly
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: incorporate all that I had before inferred, conjectured, dreamed of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: perfect circular beauty. What seemed the center of the Stranger's
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: form lay open to my view. Yet I could see
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: no heart, nor lungs, nor arteries, only a beautiful, harmonious
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: something for which I had no words. But you, my
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: readers in Spaceland, would call it the surface of the sphere.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Prostrating myself mentally before my guide, I cried, how is
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it o divine ideal of consumate loveliness and wisdom that
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I see thy inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: thy lungs, thy arteries, thy liver. What you think you see,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you see not, he replied. It is not given to you,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: nor to any other being, to behold my internal parts.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I am of a different order of beings from those
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in Flatland. Were I a circle, you could discern my intestines.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: But I am a being composed, as I told you before,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of many circles, the many in the one called in
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: this country a sphere. And just as the outside of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a cube is a square, so the outside of a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: sphere presents the appearance of a circle. Bewildered though I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: was by my teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: against it, but worshiped him in silent adoration. He continued,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: with more mildness in his voice. Distress not yourself. If
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of spaceland,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: by degrees, they will dawn upon you. Let us begin
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: by casting back a glance at the region whence you came.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Return with me awhile to the plains of flat Land,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and I will show you that which you have so
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: often reasoned and thought about, but never seen with the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: sense of sight. A visible angle impossible, I cried, But
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the sphere leading the way, I followed, as if in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a dream, till once more his voice arrested me. Look yonder,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and behold your own pentagonal house and all its inmates.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Reader's note. The following paragraph refers to a detailed diagram.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The diagram shows the points of the compass, with north
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: at the top. Next to this, there is a large
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: equal sided pentagon sitting on a horizontal base. Centrally placed
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: on the lower left edge of the pentagon, there is
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: an opening labeled men's door, the size of the opening
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: being about a quarter of the length of that edge.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: This door leads into a large central space labeled the hall,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: which is otherwise surrounded by rooms. The position of these
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: rooms will now be described clockwise from the northern point.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: The upper right edge is divided equally between two rooms
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: labeled in order, my study and my Bedroom. The left
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: hand wall of the study runs vertically down from the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: northern point, and the right hand wall is parallel to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the lower right edge of the pentagon. The study has
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a door into the hall, and there is Isosceles triangle
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: inside labeled the page. Sharing a wall with the study
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: is my rhomboid shaped bedroom, the right hand wall of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: which is the top quarter of the lower right hand
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: edge of the pentagon. It shares a wall and communicating
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: door with the room to the south labeled my my
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Wife's Apartment. About three tenths down the lower right edge,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: there is a narrow opening labeled Women's door. This leads
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: into a long, narrow room labeled my Wife's apartment. This
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: room has doorways into my bedroom above, into the hall
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to the left, and into the room to the south,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: also long and narrow, where a straight line is marked
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: my daughter. The only door from my Daughter's room is
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: into my wife's apartment. Continuing clockwise down the lower right
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: edge of the pentagon, the next room is a long
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and wide room with two openings into the hall. Inside
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: are three isosceles triangles of varying acuteness. The uppermost and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: most acute is labeled the scullion, the next and middle
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: sized is labeled the Footman, and the lowerest and least
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: acute is labeled the Butler. At the bottom right point
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of the pentagon, a large corner room is labeled the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: cellar and has a door into the hall. Along the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: left half of the bottom or southern edge, there are
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: two small rooms, each with a door into the hall,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and each with a hexagon inside labeled my grandson's. Continuing
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: clockwise up the left side of the pentagon, between the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: men's door and the northern point, there are four small rooms.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Each of these rooms, labeled my sons, has a pentagon
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: inside it and a door into the hall. In the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: middle of the central hall is a straight line labeled
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: my wife. Outside the pentagon one At each end of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the bottom or southern edge, are two very acute Isosceles triangles,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: each labeled Policeman. End of reader's note. I looked below
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and saw with my physical eye all that domestic individuality
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: which I had hitherto merely inferred with the understanding, And
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: how poor and shadowy was the inferred conjecture in comparison
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: with the reality which I now beheld. My four sons
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: calmly asleep in the northwestern rooms, my two orphan grandsons
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to the south, the servants, the butler, my daughter, all
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: in their several apartments. Only my affectionate wife, alarmed by
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: my continued absence, had quitted her room, and was roving
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: up and down in the hall, anxiously awaiting my return. Also,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the page, aroused by my cries, had left his room,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and under pretext of ascertaining whether I had fallen somewhere
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in a faint, was prying into the cabinet in my study.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: All this I could now see not merely infer and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: as we came nearer and nearer, I could discern even
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the contents of my cabinet, and the two chests of gold,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and the tablets of which the Sphere had made mention.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Touched by my wife's distress, I would have sprung downward
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to reassure her, but I found myself incapable of motion.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Trouble not yourself about your wife, said my guide. She
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: will not be long left in anxiety. Meantime, let us
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: take a survey of flat land. Once more, I felt
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: myself rising through space. It was even as the Sphere
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: had said. The further we receded from the object we beheld,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the larger became the field of vision. My native city,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: with the interior of every house and every creature therein
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: lay open to my view. In miniature, we mounted higher
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and lo the secrets of the earth, the depths of mines,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and inmost caverns of the hills were bared before me.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: AWE struck at the sight of the mysteries of the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: earth thus unveiled before my unworthy eye. I said to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: my companion, Behold, I am become as a god. For
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the wise men in our country say that to see
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: all things, or as they express it, omnividence is the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: attribute of God alone. There was something of scorn in
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the voice of my teacher as he made answer, Is
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: it so? Indeed? Then the very pick pockets and cut
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: throats of my country are to be worshiped by your
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: wise men as being gods. For there is not one
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of them that does not see as much as you
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: see now. But trust me, your wise men are wrong.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I is omnividence the attribute of others beside God's sphere?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I do not know. But if a pickpocket or a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: cutthroat of our country can see everything that is in
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: your country, surely that is no reason whether pickpocket or
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: cutthroat should be accepted by you as a god. This omnividence,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: as you call it, it is not a common word
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: in spaceland. Does it make you more just? More merciful,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: less selfish, more loving. Not in the least, then, how
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: does it make you more divine? I more merciful, more loving.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But these are the qualities of women. And we know
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that a circle is a higher being than a straight line,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: in so far as knowledge and wisdom are more to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: be esteemed than mere affection. Sphere, it is not for
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: me to classify human faculties. According to merit, many of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the best and wisest in spaceland think more of the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: affections than of the understanding, more of your despised straight
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: lines than of your belauded circles. But enough of this,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Look yonder? Do you know that building? I looked, and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: afar off I saw an immense polygonal structure, in which
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I recognized the General Assembly Hall of the States of Flatland,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: surrounded by dense lines of pentagonal buildings at right angles
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to each other, which I knew to be streets. And
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I perceived that I was approaching the great metropolis. Here
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: we descend, said my guide. It was now morning, the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: first hour of the first day of the two thousandth
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: year of our era. Acting as was there wont in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: strict accordance with precedent, the highest circles of the Realm
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: were meeting in solemn conclave, as they had met on
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the first hour of the first day of the year
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: one thousand, and also on the first hour of the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: first day of the year nought. The minutes of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: previous meetings were now read by one whom I at
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: once recognized as my brother, a perfectly symmetrical square, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the Chief Clerk of the High Council. It was found
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: recorded on each occasion that whereas the states had been
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: troubled by divers ill intentioned persons, pretending to have received
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: revelations from another world, and professing to produce demonstrations, whereby
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: they had instigated to frenzy both themselves and others, it
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: had been for this cause unanimously resolved by the Grand
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Council that on the first day of each millinery, special
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: injunctions be sent to the prefects in the several districts
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of Flatland to make strict search for such misguided persons,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and without formality of mathematical examination, to destroy all such
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: as were I soosceles of any degree, to scourge and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: imprison any regular triangle, to cause any square or pentagon
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to be sent to the district asylum, and to arrest
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: any one of higher rank, sending him straightway to the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: capital to be examined and judged by the council. You
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: hear your fate, said the sphere to me, while the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: council was passing for the third time, the formal resolution
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: death or imprisonment awaits the apostle of the Gospel of
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: three Dimensions. Not so, replied I. The matter is now
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: so clear to me, the nature of real space so palpable,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: that methinks I could make a child understand it. Permit
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: me but to descend at this moment and enlighten them?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Not yet, said my guide. The time will come for that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Meantime I must perform my mission. Stay thou there in
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: thy place. Saying these words, he leapt with great dexterity
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: into the sea. If I may say, call it a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: flat land. Right in the midst of the ring of councilors,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I come, cried he to proclaim that there is a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: land of three dimensions. I could see many of the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: younger councilors start back in manifest horror as the Sphere's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: circular section widened before them. But on a sign from
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the presiding circle, who showed not the slightest alarm or surprise.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Six Isosceles of a lone type, from six different quarters
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: rushed upon the sphere. We have him, they cried, No, yes,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: we have him. Still he's going. He's gone, my lords,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: said the President to the junior circles of the Council.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: There is not the slightest need for surprise. The secret archives,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to which I alone have access, tell me that a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: similar occurrence happened on the last two millennial commencements. You will,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of course, say nothing of these trifles outside the cabinet.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Raising his voice, he now summoned the guard, arrest the policeman,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: gag them. You know your duty. After he had consigned
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to their fate the wretched policeman, ill fated and unwilling
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: witnesses of a state secret which they were not to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: be permitted to reveal, he again addressed to counselors, my lords,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the business of the Council being concluded, I have only
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to wish you a happy new year. Before departing, he
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: expressed at some lengths to the Clerk, my excellent but
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: most unfortunate brother, his sincere regret that in accordance with precedent,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and for the sake of secrecy, he must condemn him
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to perpetual imprisonment, but added his satisfaction that unless some
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: mention were made by him of that day's incident, his
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: life would be spared Section nineteen. How though the sphere
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: showed me other mysteries of spaceland, I still desired more,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and what came of it? When I saw my poor
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: brother led away to imprisonment. I attempted to leap down
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: into the council chamber, desiring to intercede on his behalf,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: or at least bid him farewell. But I found that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I had no motion of my own. I absolutely depended
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: on the volition of my guide, who said, in gloomy tones,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: heed not thy brother, haply, thou shalt have ample time
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: hereafter to condole with him. Follow me Reader's note. The
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. Diagram one shows
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: a three dimensional cube with visible edges drawn and hidden
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: edges dotted, giving it a three dimensional appearance. Horizontal shading
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: makes it appear that the cube is made up of
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: many layers. Diagram two shows the same figure, but all
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: lines indicating perspective are missing. With the effect that it
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: no longer appears to be solid, but looks like a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: two dimensional irregular hexagonal figure. End of reader's note. Once more,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: we ascended into space. Hitherto, said the sphere. I have
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: shown you nought save plain figures and their interiors. Now
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I must introduce you to solids, and reveal to you
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the plan upon which they are constructed. Behold this multitude
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of moveable square cards. See I put one on another,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: not as you supposed northward of the other, but on
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the other now as second, now a third. See I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: am building up a solid by a multitude of squares
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: parallel to one another. Now the solid is complete, being
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: as high as it is long and broad, and we
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: call it a cube. Pardon me, my lord, replied I,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: But to my eye, the appearance is as of an
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: irregular figure whose inside is laid open to the view.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: In other words, methinks I see no solid, but a plain,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: such as we infer in flat land, only of an
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: irregularity which betokens some monstrous criminal, so that the very
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: sight of it is painful to my eyes. True, said
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the sphere. It appears to you a plane because you
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: are not accustomed to light and shade and perspective, just
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: as in flat land a hexagon would appear a straight
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: line to one who has not the art of sight recognition,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but in reality it is a solid. Shall learn by
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the sense of feeling. He then introduced me to the cube,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and I found that this marvelous being was indeed no plane,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but a solid, and that he was endowed with six
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: plain sides and eight terminal points called solid angles. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I remembered the saying of the sphere that just such
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a creature as this would be formed by a square
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: moving in space parallel to himself. And I rejoiced to
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: think that so insignificant a creature as I could, in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: some sense be called the progenitor of so illustrious an offspring.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: But still I could not fully understand the meaning of
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: what my teacher had told me concerning light and shade
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and perspective, and I did not hesitate to put my
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: difficulties before him. Were I to give the spheres explain
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: nation of these matters, succinct and clear though it was,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: it would be tedious to an inhabitant of space who
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: knows these things already. Suffice it that, by his lucid
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: statements and by changing the position of objects and lights,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and by allowing me to feel the several objects and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: even his own sacred person, he at last made all
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: things clear to me, so that I could now readily
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: distinguish between a circle and a sphere, a plain figure
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and a solid This was the climax, the paradise of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: my strange, eventful history. Henceforth I have to relate the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: story of my miserable fall, most miserable, yet surely most undeserved.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: For why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused only
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to be disappointed and punished. My volition shrinks from the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: painful task of recalling my humiliation. Yet, like a second Prometheus,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I will endure this and worse. If by any means
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I may arouse in the interiors of plain and solid
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: humanity a spirit of rebellion against the conceit which would
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: limit our dimensions to two or three, or any number
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: short of infinity away, then with all personal considerations, let
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: me continue to the end as I began, without further
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: digressions or anticipations, pursuing the plain path of dispassionate history.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: The exact facts, the exact words, and they are burnt
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: in upon my brain shall be set down without alteration
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of an iota, and let my readers judge between me
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and destiny. The sphere would willingly have continued his lessons
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: by indoctrinating me in the confirmation of all regular solids, cylinders, cones, pyramids, pentahedrons, hexahedrons, dodecahedrons,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and spheres. But I ventured to interrupt him, not that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I was wearied of knowledge. On the contrary, I thirsted
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: for yet deeper and fuller drafts than he was offering
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to me. Pardon me, said I, O, thou whom I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: must no longer addresses the perfection of all beauty? But
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: let me beg THEE to vouchsafe thy servant a sight
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: of thine interior sphere. My what I thine interior, thy stomach,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: thy intestines sphere? Whence this ill timed, impertinent request? Then
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: what mean you by saying that I am no longer
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the perfection of all beauty? I, my Lord, your own
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: wisdom has taught me to aspire to one even more great,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: more beautiful, and more closely approximate to perfection than yourself.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: As you, yourself superior to all flatland forms, combine many
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: circles in one. So doubtless there is one above you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: who combines many spheres in one supreme existence, surpassing even
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the solids of spaceland. And even as we who are
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: now in space look down on flat land and see
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the insides of all things, so of a certainty there
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: is yet above us, some higher, purer region, whither thou
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: dost surely purpose to lead me. O thou, whom I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: shall always call everywhere and in all dimensions, my priest
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: philosopher and friend, some yet more spacious space, some more
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: dimensionable dimensionality, from the vantage ground of which we shall
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: look down together upon the revealed insides of solid things,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and where thine own intestines and those of thy kindred
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: spheres will lie exposed to the view of the poor
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: wandering exile from flatland, to whom so much has already
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: been vouchsafed. Sphere, woof stuff. Enough of this trifling. The
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: time is short, and much remains to be done before
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you are fit to proclaim the Gospel of three dimensions
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to your blind, benighted countrymen in flatland. I nay, gracious teacher,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: deny me not what I know. It is in thy
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: power to perform, grant me but one glimpse of Thine interior,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and I am satisfied forever remaining henceforth, thy docile pupil,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: thy unemancipable slave, ready to receive all thy teachings, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to feed upon the words that fall from thy lips.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Sphere well, then to content and silence. You let me
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: say at once, I would show you what you wish
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: if I could, But I cannot. Would you have me
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: turn my stomach inside out to oblige you? I, but
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: my Lord has shown me the intestines of all my
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: countrymen in the land of two dimensions, by taking me
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: with him into the land of three. What therefore more
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: easy than now to take his servant on a second
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: journey into the blessed region of the fourth dimension, where
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I shall look down with him once more upon this
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: land of three dimensions, and see the inside of every
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: three dimensioned house, the secrets of the solid earth, the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: treasures of the minds in spaceland, and the intestines of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: every solid living creature, even of the noble and adorables sphere.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: But where is this land of four dimensions? I I
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: know not, But doubtless my teacher knows sere not I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: there is no such land. The very idea of it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: is utterly inconceivable. I your lordship tempts his servant to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: see whether he remembers the revelations imparted to him. Trifle
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: not with me, my lord, I crave, I thirst for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: more knowledge. Doubtless we cannot see that other higher spaceland now,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: because we have no eye in our stomachs. But just
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: as there was the realm of flat land, though that poor,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: puny lineland monarch could neither turn to left nor right
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to discern it. And just as there was close at
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: hand and touching my frame, the land of three dimensions,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: though I blind, senseless wretch had no power to touch it,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: no eye in my interior to discern it. So of
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a surety there is a fourth dimension, which my lord
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: perceives with the inner eye of thought. And that it
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: must exist my lord himself has taught me, Or can
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: he have forgotten what he himself imparted to his servant
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: in one dimension? Did not a moving point produce a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: line with two terminal points in two dimensions? Did not
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a moving line produce a square with four terminal points
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: in three dimensions? Did not a moving square produce did
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: not this eye of mine? Behold it that blessed being
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a cube with eight terminal points and in four dimensions,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: shall not a moving cube alas for analogy and alas
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: for the progress of truth. If it be not so,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: shall not I say the motion of a divine cube
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: result in a still more divine organization with sixteen terminal points.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Behold the infallible confirmation of the series two, four, eight, sixteen.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Is not this a geometrical progression? Is not this if
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I might quote my Lord's own words strictly according to analogy? Again,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: was I not taught by my lord that as in
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a line there are two bounding points, and in a
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: square there are four bounding lines, so in a cube
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: there must be six bounding squares. Behold once more, the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: confirming series to two U for six. Is not this an
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: arithmetical progression? And consequently, does it not of necessity follow
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that the more divine offspring of the divine cube in
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the land of four dimensions must have eight bounding cubes?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And is not this also, as my Lord has taught
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: me to believe strictly according to analogy? Oh my Lord,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: my lord, behold I cast myself in faith upon conjecture,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: not knowing the facts, and I appeal to your Lordship
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to confirm or deny my logical anticipations. If I am wrong,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I yield and will no longer demand a fourth dimension.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: But if I am right, my lord will listen to reason.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I ask, therefore, is it or is it not? The
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: fact that ere now your countrymen also have witnessed the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: descent of beings of a higher order than their own,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: entering closed rooms, even as your Lordship entered mine without
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the opening of doors or windows, and appearing and vanishing
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: at will. On the reply to this question, I am
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: ready to stake everything deny it, and I am henceforth
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: silent only that safe an answer sphere after a pause,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it is reported so. But men are divided in opinion
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: as to the facts, and even granting the facts, they
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: explain them in different ways. And in any case, however
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: great may be the number of different explanations, no one
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: has adopted or suggested the theory of a fourth dimension. Therefore,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: pray have done with this trifling and let us return
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to business. I I was certain of it. I was
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: certain that my anticipations would be fulfilled, and now have
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: patience with me, and answer me yet one more question,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: best of teachers, Those who have thus appeared, no one
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: knows whence, and have returned. No one knows whither have
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: they also contracted their sections and vanished somehow into that
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: more spacious space whither I now entreat you to conduct
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: me sphere moodily. They have vanished, certainly, if they ever appeared.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: But most people say that these visions arose from the thought.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: You will not understand me from the brain, from the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: perturbed angularity of the seer, I say they so, who
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: believe them not? Or if it indeed be so that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: this other space is really thought land, then take me
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to that blessed region where I, in thought shall see
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the insides of all solid things. There before my ravished eye,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: a cube moving in some altogether new direction, but strictly
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: according to analogy, so as to make every particle of
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: his interior pass through a new kind of space with
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: a wake of its own, shall create a still more
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: perfect perfection than himself, with sixteen terminal extra solid angles
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and eight solid cubes for his perimeter. And once there
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: shall we stay our upward course in that blessed region
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of four dimensions. Shall we linger on the threshold of
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the fifth and not enter therein? Ah? No, Let us
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: rather resolve that our ambition shall soar with our corporal assent. Then,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: yielding to our intellectual onset, the gates of the sixth
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: dimension shall fly open. After that a seventh, and then
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: an eighth. How long I should have continued, I know
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: not in vain did the Sphere, in his voice of thunder,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: reiterate his commands of silence and threaten me with the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: direst penalties. If I persisted, nothing could stem the flood
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: of my ecstatic aspirations. Perhaps I was to blame, but
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: indeed I was intoxicated with the recent drafts of truth
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: to which he himself had introduced me. However, the end
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: was not long in coming. My words were cut short
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: by a crash outside and a simultaneous crash inside me,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: which impelled me through space with a velocity that precluded speech. Down, Down, Down,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I was rapidly descending, and I knew that return to
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: flat land was my doom. One glimpse, one last and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: never to be forgotten glimpse I had of that dull
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: level wilderness which was now to become my universe again
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: spread out before my eye, then a darkness, then a final,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: all consummating thunder peal, And when I came to myself,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I was once more a common creeping square in my
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: study at home, listening to the peace cry of my
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: approaching wife Section twenty. How the sphere encouraged me in
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a vision. Although I had less than a minute for reflection,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I felt, by a kind of instinct that I must
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: conceal my experiences from my wife. Not that I apprehended
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: at the moment any danger from her divulging my secret.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: But I knew that to any woman in flat land,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the narrative of my adventures must needs be unintelligible. So
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I endeavored to reassure her by some story invented for
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the occasion, that I had accidentally fallen through the trap
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: door of the cellar and had there Laan stunned. The
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: southward attraction in our country is so slight that even
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: to a woman my tale necessarily appeared extraordinary and well
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: nigh incredible. But my wife, whose good sense far exceeds
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that of the average of her sex, and who perceived
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: that I was unusually excited, did not argue with me
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: on the subject, but insisted that I was ill and
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: required repose. I was glad of an excuse for retiring
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: to my chamber to think quietly over what had happened.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: When I was at last by myself, a drows sensation
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: fell on me. But before my eyes closed, I endeavored
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: to reproduce the third dimension, and especially the process by
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: which a cube is constructed through the motion of a square.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: It was not so clear as I could have wished,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: but I remembered that it must be upward and yet
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: not northward. And I determined steadfastly to retain these words
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: as the clue, which if firmly grasped, could not fail
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to guide me to the solution. So mechanically repeating like
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a charm, the words upward yet not northward, I fell
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: into a sound, refreshing sleep. During my slumber I had
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a dream. I thought I was once more by the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: side of the sphere, whose lustrous hue betokened that he
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: had exchanged his wrath against me for perfect placability. We
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: were moving together hither towards a bright but infinitesimally small
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: point to which my master directed my attention. As we approached.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Methought there issued from it a slight humming noise, as
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: from one of your spaceland blue bottles, only less resonant
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: by far. So slight, indeed, that even in the perfect
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: stillness of the vacuum through which we soared, the sound
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: reached not our ears, till we checked our flight at
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a distance from it of something under twenty human diagonals.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Look yonder, said my guide in flat Land. Thou hast
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: lived of line Land. Thou hast received a vision. Thou
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: hast soared with me to the heights of spaceland. Now,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: in order to complete the range of thy experience, I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: conduct thee downward to the lowest depths of existence, even
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to the realm of point Land, the abyss of no dimensions.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Behold yon miserable creature. That point is a being like ourselves,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: but confined to the non dimensional gulf. He is himself,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: his own world, his own universe. Of any other than himself,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: he can form no conception. He knows not length, nor breadth,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: nor height, for he has had no experience of them.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: He has no cognizance even of the number two, nor
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: has he a thought of plurality, For he is himself,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: his one and all being, really nothing yet mark his
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: perfect self contentment, and hence learn this lesson that to
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: be self contented is to be vile and ignorant, and
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: that to aspire is better than to be blindly and
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: impotently happy. Now listen, he ceased, and there arose from
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the little buzzing creature a tiny, low, monotonous but distinct tinkling,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: as from one of your space and phonographs, from which
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I caught these words.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Infinite beatitude of existence. It is, and there is none
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: else beside it?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: What said I? Does the puny creature mean by it?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: He means himself, said the sphere. Have you not noticed
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: before now that babies and babyish people who cannot distinguish
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: themselves from the world speak of themselves in the third person?
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: But hush, it fills all space, continued the little soliloquising creature.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And what it fills it is what it thinks, that
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: it utters, and what it utters that it hears, And
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it itself is thinker utterer, hearer thought, word audition. It
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is the one and yet the all in all ah,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the happiness, ah, the happiness of being. Can you not
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: startle the little thing out of its complacency? Said I?
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Tell it what it really is, as you told me.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Reveal to it the narrow limitations of Pointland, and lead
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it up to something higher. That is no easy task,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: said my master. Try you hereon, raising my voice to
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the uttermost, I addressed the pointer as follows. Silence, silence,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: contemptible creature. You call yourself the all in all, but
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: you are the nothing. Your so called universe is a
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: mere speck in a line, and a line is a
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: mere shadow as compared with hush, harsh. You have said
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: enough interrupted the sphere. Now listen and mark the effect
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of your harangue on the King of Pointland. The luster
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: of the monarch, who beamed more brightly than ever upon
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: hearing my words, showed clearly that he retained his complacency,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and I had hardly ceased when he took up his
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: strain again.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Ah the joy, ah, the joy of thought. What can
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: it not achieve by thinking its own thought, coming to
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: itself suggestive of its disparagement, thereby to enhance its happiness.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph. Ah, the
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: divine creative power of the all in one, Ah, their joy,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: the joy of being. You see, said my teacher, how
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: little your words have done so far. As the monarch
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: understands them at all, he accepts them as his own,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: for he cannot conceive of any other except himself, and
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: plumes himself upon the variety of its thought as an
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: instance of creative power. Let us leave this god of
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Nothing that you or I can do can rescue him
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: from his self satisfaction. After this, as we floated gently
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: back to flatland, I could hear the mild voice of
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: my companion, pointing the moral of my vision and stimulating
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: me to aspire and to teach others to aspire. He
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: had been angered at first he confessed by my ambition
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: to soar to dimensions above the third, But since then
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: he had received fresh insight, and he was not too
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: proud to acknowledge his error to a pupil. Then he
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: proceeded to initiate me into mysteries yet higher than those
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I had witnessed, showing me how to construct extra solids
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: by the motion of solids, and double extra solids by
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the motion of extra solids, and all strictly according to analogy,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: all by methods so simple, so easy as to be
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: patent even to the female sex. End of Section twenty