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05 - Flatland- A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott Abbott · Classic Sci Fi Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Part one, Section eleven, concerning our priests. It is high
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  Speaker 1: time that I should pass from these brief and discursive
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  Speaker 1: notes about things in Flatland to the central event of
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  Speaker 1: this book, my initiation into the mysteries of space, that
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  Speaker 1: is my subject. All that has gone before is merely preface.
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  Speaker 1: For this reason I must omit many matters of which
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  Speaker 1: the explanation would not I flatter myself, be without interest
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  Speaker 1: for my readers, as for example, our method of propelling
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  Speaker 1: and stopping ourselves, although destitute of feet, the means by
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  Speaker 1: which we give fixity to structures of wood, stone or brick,
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  Speaker 1: although of course we have no hands, nor can we
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  Speaker 1: lay foundations as you can, nor avail ourselves of the
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  Speaker 1: lateral pressure of the earth. The manner in which the
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  Speaker 1: rain originates in the intervals between our various zones, so
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  Speaker 1: that the northern regions do not intercept the moisture from
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  Speaker 1: falling on the southern. The nature of our hills and mines,
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  Speaker 1: our trees and vegetables, our seasons and harvests, our alphabet
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  Speaker 1: and method of writing adapted to our linear tablets. These
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  Speaker 1: and a hundred other details of our physical existence I
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  Speaker 1: must pass over, Nor do I mention them now except
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  Speaker 1: to indicate to my readers that their omission proceeds not
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  Speaker 1: from forgetfulness on the part of the author, but from
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  Speaker 1: his regard for the time of the reader. Yet, before
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  Speaker 1: I proceed to my legitimate subject, some few final remarks
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  Speaker 1: will no doubt be expected by my readers upon those
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  Speaker 1: pillars and mainstays of the constitution of flatland, the controllers
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  Speaker 1: of our conduct and shapers of our destiny, the objects
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  Speaker 1: of universal homage and almost of adoration. Need I say
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  Speaker 1: that I mean our priests when I call them priests,
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  Speaker 1: Let me not be understood as meaning no more than
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  Speaker 1: the term denotes with you, with us. Our priests are
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  Speaker 1: administrators of all business, art and science, directors of trade, commerce, generalship, architecture, engineering, education, statesmanship, legislature, morality, theology.
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  Speaker 1: Doing nothing themselves, they are the causes of everything worth
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  Speaker 1: doing that is done by others. Although popularly everyone called
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  Speaker 1: a circle is deemed a circle, yet among the better
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  Speaker 1: educated classes it is known that no circle is really
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  Speaker 1: a circle, but only a polygon with a very large
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  Speaker 1: number of very small sides. In proportion to the number
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  Speaker 1: of the sides, the polygon approximates to a circle. And
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  Speaker 1: when the number is very great, say for example, three
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  Speaker 1: or four hundred, it is extremely difficult for the most
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  Speaker 1: delicate touch to feel any polygonal angles. Let me say rather,
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  Speaker 1: it would be difficult, for as I have shown above,
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  Speaker 1: recognition by feeling is unknown among the highest society, and
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  Speaker 1: to feel a circle would be considered a most audacious insult.
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  Speaker 1: This habit of abstention from feeling in the best society
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  Speaker 1: enables a circle the more easily to sustain the veil
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  Speaker 1: of mystery in which from his earliest years he is
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  Speaker 1: wont to enwrap. The exact nature of his perimeter or circumference,
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  Speaker 1: three feet being the average perimeter, it follows that in
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  Speaker 1: a polygon of three hundred sides, each side will be
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  Speaker 1: no more than the hundredth part of a foot in length,
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  Speaker 1: or little more than the tenth part of an inch,
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  Speaker 1: And in a polygon of six or seven hundred sides,
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  Speaker 1: the sides are little larger than the diameter of a
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  Speaker 1: spaceland pin head. It is always assumed, by courtesy that
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  Speaker 1: the chief circle for the time being has ten thousand sides.
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  Speaker 1: The ascent of the posterity of the circles in the
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  Speaker 1: social scale is not restricted, as it is among the
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  Speaker 1: lower regular classes, by the law of nature, which limits
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  Speaker 1: the increase of sides to one in each generation. If
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  Speaker 1: it were so, the number of sides in a circle
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  Speaker 1: would be a mere question of pedigree and arithmetic, and
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  Speaker 1: the four hundred and ninety seventh descendant of an equilateral
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  Speaker 1: triangle would necessarily be a polygon with five hundred sides.
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  Speaker 1: But this is not the case. Nature's law prescribes two
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  Speaker 1: antagonistic decrees affecting circular propagation. First, that as the race
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  Speaker 1: climbs higher in the scale of development, so developments shall
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  Speaker 1: proceed at an accelerated Second, that in the same proportion,
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  Speaker 1: the race shall become less fertile. Consequently, in the home
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  Speaker 1: of a polygon of four or five hundred sides, it
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  Speaker 1: is rare to find a sun. More than one is
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  Speaker 1: never seen. On the other hand, the sun of a
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  Speaker 1: five hundred sided polygon has been known to possess five hundred,
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  Speaker 1: fifty or even six hundred sides. Art also steps in
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  Speaker 1: to help the process of the higher evolution. Our physicians
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  Speaker 1: have discovered that the small and tender sides of an
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  Speaker 1: infant polygon of the higher class can be fractured and
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  Speaker 1: his whole frame reset with such exactness that a polygon
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  Speaker 1: of two or three hundred sides, sometimes by no means always,
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  Speaker 1: for the process is attended with serious risk, but sometimes
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  Speaker 1: overleaps two or three hundred generations, and, as it were,
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  Speaker 1: doubles at a stroke the number of his progenitors and
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  Speaker 1: the nobility of his descent. Many a promising child is
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  Speaker 1: sacrificed in this way. Scarcely one out of ten survives.
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  Speaker 1: Yet so strong is the parental ambition among those polygons
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  Speaker 1: who are, as it were, on the fringe of the
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  Speaker 1: circular class, that it is very rare to find a
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  Speaker 1: nobleman of that position in society who has neglected to
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  Speaker 1: place his firstborn son in the circular neo therapeutic gymnasium
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  Speaker 1: before he has attained the age of a month. One
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  Speaker 1: year determines success or failure. At the end of that time,
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  Speaker 1: the child has, in all probability added one more to
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  Speaker 1: the tombstones that crowd the neo therapeutic cemetery. But on
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  Speaker 1: rare occasions, a glad procession bears back the little one
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  Speaker 1: to his exultant parents, no longer a polygon but a circle.
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  Speaker 1: At LEAs least by courtesy, and a single instance of
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  Speaker 1: so blessed a result induces multitudes of polygonal parents to
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  Speaker 1: submit to similar domestic sacrifices which have a dissimilar issue
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  Speaker 1: Section twelve of the Doctrine of Our Priests. As to
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  Speaker 1: the doctrine of the Circles, it may briefly be summed
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  Speaker 1: up in a single maxim attend to your configuration, whether political, ecclesiastical,
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  Speaker 1: or moral. All their teaching has for its object the
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  Speaker 1: improvement of individual and collective configuration, with special reference, of course,
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  Speaker 1: to the configuration of the circles, to which all other
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  Speaker 1: objects are subordinated. It is the merit of the circles
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  Speaker 1: that they have effectually suppressed those ancient heresies which led
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  Speaker 1: men to waste energy and sympathy in the vain belief
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  Speaker 1: that conduct depends upon will, effort, training, encouragement, praise, or
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  Speaker 1: anything else but configuration. It was Pantocyclus, the illustrious Circle
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  Speaker 1: mentioned above as the Quella of the colour of Vault,
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  Speaker 1: who first convinced mankind that configuration makes the man. That, if,
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  Speaker 1: for example, you are born an Isosceles with two uneven sides,
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  Speaker 1: you will assuredly go wrong unless you have them made,
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  Speaker 1: even for which purpose you must go to the Isosceles hospital. Similarly,
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  Speaker 1: if you are a triangle or square, or even a
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  Speaker 1: polygon born with any irregularity, you must be taken to
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  Speaker 1: one of the regular hospitals to have your disease cured.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise you will end your days in the state prison
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  Speaker 1: or by the angle of the state executioner. All faults
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  Speaker 1: or defects, from the slightest misconduct to the most flagitious crime.
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  Speaker 1: Pentocyclus attributed to some deviation from perfect regularity in the
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  Speaker 1: bodily figure, caused, perhaps if not congenital, by some collision
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  Speaker 1: in a crowd, by neglect to take exercise, or by
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  Speaker 1: taking too much of it, or even by a sudden
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  Speaker 1: change of temperature resulting in a shrinkage or expansion in
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  Speaker 1: some too susceptible part of the frame. Therefore concluded that
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  Speaker 1: illustrious philosopher, neither good conduct nor bad conduct, is a
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  Speaker 1: fit subject in any sober estimation for either praise or blame.
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  Speaker 1: For why should you praise, for example, the integrity of
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  Speaker 1: a square who faithfully defends the interests of his client,
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  Speaker 1: when you ought, in reality, rather to admire the exact
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  Speaker 1: precision of his rectangles, Or again, why blame allying thievish
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  Speaker 1: Isosceles when you ought rather to deplore the incurable inequality
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  Speaker 1: of his sides. Theoretically this doctrine is unquestionable, but it
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  Speaker 1: has practical drawbacks in dealing with an Isosceles. If a
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  Speaker 1: rascal pleads that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness,
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  Speaker 1: you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot
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  Speaker 1: help being a nuisance to his neighbors, you the magistrate
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  Speaker 1: cannot help sentencing him to be consumed, And there's an
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  Speaker 1: end of the matter. But in little domestic difficulties, whether
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  Speaker 1: penalty of consumption or death is out of the question.
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  Speaker 1: This theory of configuration sometimes comes in awkwardly, and I
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  Speaker 1: must confess that occasionally when one of my own hexagonal
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  Speaker 1: grandsons pleads, as an excuse for his disobedience, that a
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  Speaker 1: sudden change of the temperature has been too much for
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  Speaker 1: his perimeter, and that I ought to lay the blame
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  Speaker 1: not on him, but on his configuration, which can only
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  Speaker 1: be strengthened by abundance of the choicest sweetmeats. I neither
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  Speaker 1: see my way logically to reject nor practically to accept
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  Speaker 1: his conclusions. For my own part, I find it best
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  Speaker 1: to assume that a good sound scolding or castigation has
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  Speaker 1: some latent and strengthening influence on my grandson's configuration. Though
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  Speaker 1: I own that I have no grounds for thinking so
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  Speaker 1: at all events, I am not alone in my way
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  Speaker 1: of extricating myself from this dilemma, For I find that
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  Speaker 1: many of the highest circles, sitting as judges in law courts,
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  Speaker 1: use praise and blame towards regular and irregular figures, and
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  Speaker 1: in their homes I know by experience that when scolding
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  Speaker 1: their children, they speak about right or wrong as vehemently
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  Speaker 1: and passionately, as if they believed that these names represented
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  Speaker 1: real existences, and that a human figure is really capable
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  Speaker 1: of choosing between them, Distantly carrying out their policy of
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  Speaker 1: making configuration the leading idea in every mind, the circles
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  Speaker 1: reverse the nature of that commandment which in Spaceland regulates
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  Speaker 1: the relations between parents and children. With you, children are
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  Speaker 1: taught to honor their parents with us, next to the circles,
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  Speaker 1: who are the chief object of universal homage. A man
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  Speaker 1: is taught to honor his grandson if he has one,
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  Speaker 1: or if not his son. By honor, however, is by
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  Speaker 1: no means meant indulgence, but a reverent regard for their
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  Speaker 1: highest interests. And the circles teach that the duty of
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  Speaker 1: fathers is to subordinate their own interests to those of posterity,
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  Speaker 1: thereby advancing the welfare of the whole state as well
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  Speaker 1: as that of their own immediate descendants. The weak point
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  Speaker 1: in the system of the circles, if a humah square
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  Speaker 1: may venture to speak of anything circular as containing any
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  Speaker 1: element of weakness, appears to me to be found in
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  Speaker 1: their relations with women. As it is of the utmost
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  Speaker 1: importance for society that irregular births should be discouraged, it
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  Speaker 1: follows that no woman who has any irregularities in her
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  Speaker 1: ancestry is a fit partner for one who desires that
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  Speaker 1: his posterity should rise by regular degrees in the social scale. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the irregularity of a male is a matter of measurement.
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  Speaker 1: But as all women are straight and therefore visibly regular,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak, one has to devise some other means
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  Speaker 1: of ascertaining what I may call their invisible irregularity, that
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  Speaker 1: is to say, their potential irregularities. As regards possible offspring.
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  Speaker 1: This is effected by carefully kept pedigrees, which are preserved
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  Speaker 1: and supervised by the state, and without assertainied pedigree, no
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  Speaker 1: woman is allowed to marry. Now, it might have been
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  Speaker 1: supposed that a circle, proud of his ancestry and regardful
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  Speaker 1: for a posterity which might possibly issue hereafter in a
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  Speaker 1: chief circle, would be more careful than any other to
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  Speaker 1: choose a wife who had no blot on her escutcheon.
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  Speaker 1: But it is not so. The care in choosing a
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  Speaker 1: regular wife appears to diminish as one rises in the
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  Speaker 1: social scale. Nothing would induce an aspiring Isosceles, who had
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  Speaker 1: hopes of generating an equilateral son, to take a wife
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  Speaker 1: who reckoned a single irregularity among her ancestors. A square
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  Speaker 1: or pentagon, who is confident that his family is steadily
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  Speaker 1: on the rise does not inquire above the five hundredth generation.
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  Speaker 1: A hexagon or dodecahedron is even more careless of the
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  Speaker 1: wife's pedigree. But a circle has been known deliberately to
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  Speaker 1: take a wife who has had an irregular great grandfather,
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  Speaker 1: and all because of some slight superiority of luster, or
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  Speaker 1: because of the charms of a low voice which with us,
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  Speaker 1: even more than with you, is thought an excellent thing
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  Speaker 1: in woman. Such ill judged marriages are as might be
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  Speaker 1: expected barren if they do not result in positive irregularity
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  Speaker 1: or in diminution of sides. But none of these evils
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  Speaker 1: have hitherto proved sufficiently deterrent. The loss of a few
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  Speaker 1: sides in a highly developed polygon is not easily noticed,
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  Speaker 1: and is sometimes compensated by a successful operation in the
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  Speaker 1: neo therapeutic gymnasium, as I have described above. And the
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  Speaker 1: circles are too much disposed to acquiesce in inficundity as
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  Speaker 1: a law of the superior development. Yet it is evil
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  Speaker 1: be not arrested. The gradual diminution of the circular class
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  Speaker 1: may soon become more rapid, and the time may not
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  Speaker 1: be far distant when the race, being no longer able
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  Speaker 1: to produce a chief circle, the constitution of flatland must fall.
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  Speaker 1: One other word of warnings suggests itself to me, though
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  Speaker 1: I cannot so easily mention a remedy. And this also
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  Speaker 1: refers to our relations with women. About three hundred years ago,
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  Speaker 1: it was decreed by the chief circle that, since women
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  Speaker 1: are deficient in reason, but abundant in emotion, they ought
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  Speaker 1: no longer to be treated as rational nor receive any
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  Speaker 1: mental education. The consequence was that they were no longer
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  Speaker 1: taught to read, nor even to master arithmetic enough to
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  Speaker 1: enable them to count the angles of their husband or children.
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  Speaker 1: And hence they sensibly declined during each generation in intellectual power.
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  Speaker 1: And this system of female non education or quietism, still prevails.
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  Speaker 1: My fear is that, with the best intentions, this policy
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  Speaker 1: has been carried so far as to react injuriously on
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  Speaker 1: the male sex. For the consequence is that, as things
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  Speaker 1: now are, we males have to lead a kind of
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  Speaker 1: bilingual and I may almost say by mental existence. With
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  Speaker 1: the women we speak of love, duty, right, wrong, pity, hope,
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  Speaker 1: and other irrational and emotional conceptions which have no existence,
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  Speaker 1: and the fiction of which has no object except to
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  Speaker 1: control feminine exuberances. But among ourselves and in our books,
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  Speaker 1: we have an entirely different vocabulary, and I may almost
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  Speaker 1: say idiom love then becomes the anticipation of benefits, duty
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  Speaker 1: becomes necessity or fitness, and other words are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: among women, we use language implying the utmost deference for
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  Speaker 1: their sex, and they fully believe that the Chief circle
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  Speaker 1: himself is not more devoutly adored by us than they are.
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  Speaker 1: But behind their backs they are both regarded and spoken
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  Speaker 1: of by all except the very young, as being little
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  Speaker 1: better than mindless organisms. Our theology, also in the women's chambers,
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  Speaker 1: is entirely different from our theology elsewhere. Now, my humble
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  Speaker 1: fear is that this double training in language as well
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  Speaker 1: as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon
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  Speaker 1: the young, especially when, at the age of three years
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  Speaker 1: old they are taken from the maternal care and taught
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  Speaker 1: to unlearn the old language except for the purpose of
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  Speaker 1: repeating it in the presence of their mothers and nurses,
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  Speaker 1: and to learn the vocabulary and idiom of science. Already,
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  Speaker 1: methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of mathematical
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  Speaker 1: truth at the present time, as compared with the more
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  Speaker 1: robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago. I
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  Speaker 1: say nothing of the possible danger if a woman should
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  Speaker 1: ever surreptitiously learn to read and convey to her sex
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  Speaker 1: the result of her perusal of a single popular volume,
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  Speaker 1: nor of the possibility that the indiscretion or disobedience of
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  Speaker 1: some infant male might reveal to a mother the secrets
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  Speaker 1: of the logical dialect on the simple ground of the
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  Speaker 1: enfeebling of the male intellect. I rest this humble appeal
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  Speaker 1: to the highest authorities to reconsider the regulations of female education.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section twelve and of Post one