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

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty one. How I tried to teach the theory
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  Speaker 1: of three dimensions to my grandson, and with what success.
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  Speaker 1: I awoke rejoicing, and began to reflect on the glorious
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  Speaker 1: career before me. I would go forth methought at once
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  Speaker 1: and evangelize the whole of flatland, even to women and soldiers.
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  Speaker 1: Should the Gospel of three dimensions be proclaimed, I would
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  Speaker 1: begin with my wife, just as I had decided on
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  Speaker 1: the plan of my operations. I heard the sound of
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  Speaker 1: many voices in the street, commanding silence, then followed a
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  Speaker 1: louder voice. It was a herald's proclamation. Listening attentively, I
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  Speaker 1: recognized the words of the resolution of the Council in
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  Speaker 1: joining the arrest, imprisonment, or execution of any one who
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  Speaker 1: should pervert the mind of the people by delusions and
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  Speaker 1: by professing to have received revelations from another world. I
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  Speaker 1: reflected this danger was not to be trifled with. It
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  Speaker 1: would be better to avoid it by omitting all mention
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  Speaker 1: of my revelation, and by proceeding on the path of demonstration,
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  Speaker 1: which after all, seemed so simple and so conclusive, that
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  Speaker 1: nothing would be lost. By discarding the former means upward
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  Speaker 1: not northward was the clue to the whole proof. It
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  Speaker 1: had seemed to me fairly clear before I fell asleep,
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  Speaker 1: and when I first awoke fresh from my dream, it
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  Speaker 1: had appeared as patent as arithmetic. But somehow it did
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  Speaker 1: not seem to me quite so obvious now. Though my
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  Speaker 1: wife entered the room opportunely, just at that moment, I decided,
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  Speaker 1: after we had interchanged a few words of commonplace conversation,
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  Speaker 1: not to begin with her. My pentagonal sons were men
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  Speaker 1: of character and standing, and physicians of no mean reputation,
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  Speaker 1: but not great in mathematics, and in that respect unfit
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  Speaker 1: for my purpose. But it occurred to me that a
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  Speaker 1: young and docile Hexagon with a mathematical turn would be
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  Speaker 1: a most suitable pupil. Why therefore, not make my first
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  Speaker 1: experiment with my little, precocious grandson, whose casual remarks on
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  Speaker 1: the meaning of three cubed had met with the approval
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  Speaker 1: of the sphere. Discussing the matter with him, a mere boy,
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  Speaker 1: I should be in perfect safety, for he would know
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  Speaker 1: nothing of the proclamation of the Council. Whereas I could
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  Speaker 1: not feel sure that my sons so greatly did their
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  Speaker 1: patriotism and reverence for the circles predominate over mere blind affection.
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  Speaker 1: Might not feel compelled to hand me over to the
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  Speaker 1: Prefect if they found me seriously maintaining the seditious heresy
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  Speaker 1: of the third dimension. But the first thing to be
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  Speaker 1: done was to satisfy in some way the curiosity of
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  Speaker 1: my wife, who naturally wished to know something of the
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  Speaker 1: reasons for which the Circle had desired that mysterious interview,
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  Speaker 1: and of the means by which he had entered our house.
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  Speaker 1: Without entering into the details of the elaborate account, I
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  Speaker 1: gave her an account I fear not quite so consistent
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  Speaker 1: with truth as my readers in Spaceland might desire. I
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  Speaker 1: must be content with saying that I succeeded at last
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  Speaker 1: in persuading her to return quietly to her household duties,
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  Speaker 1: without eliciting from me any reference to the world of
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  Speaker 1: three dimensions. This done, I immediately sent for my grandson,
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  Speaker 1: for to confess the truth. I felt that all I
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  Speaker 1: had seen and heard was, in some strange way slipping
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  Speaker 1: away from me, like the image of a half grasped,
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  Speaker 1: tantalizing dream, and I longed to essay my skill in
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  Speaker 1: making a first disciple. When my grandson entered the room,
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  Speaker 1: I carefully secured the door. Then, sitting down by his side,
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  Speaker 1: and taking our mathematical tablets, or as you would call them, lines,
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  Speaker 1: I told him we would resume the lesson of yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: I taught him once more how a point by motion
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  Speaker 1: in one dimension produces a line, and how a straight
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  Speaker 1: line in two dimensions produces a square. After this, forcing
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  Speaker 1: a laugh, I said, and now, you scamp, you wanted
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  Speaker 1: to make me believe that a square may, in the
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  Speaker 1: same way, by motion upward not northward, produce another figure,
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  Speaker 1: a sort of extra square in three dimensions. Say that again,
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  Speaker 1: you young rascal. At this moment we heard once more
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  Speaker 1: the heralds oh yes, oh yes, outside in the street,
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  Speaker 1: proclaiming the resolution of the council. Young, though he was
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  Speaker 1: my grandson, who was unusually intelligent for his age and
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  Speaker 1: bred up in perfect reverence for the authority of the circles,
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  Speaker 1: took in the situation with an acuteness for which I
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  Speaker 1: was quite unprepared. He remained silent till the last words
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  Speaker 1: of the proclamation had died away, and then bursting into tears,
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  Speaker 1: Dear Grandpapa, he said, that was only my fun, and
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  Speaker 1: of course I meant nothing at all by it. And
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  Speaker 1: we did not know anything then about the new law.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't think I said any thing about the
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  Speaker 1: third dimension. And I am sure I did not say
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  Speaker 1: one word about upward not northward, for that would be
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  Speaker 1: such nonsense. You know, how could a thing move upward
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  Speaker 1: and not northward? Outward and not northward? Even if I
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  Speaker 1: were a baby, I could not be so absurd as that.
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  Speaker 1: How silly it is, ha ha, not at all silly,
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  Speaker 1: said I losing my temper here. For example, I'd take
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  Speaker 1: this square, and at the word, I grasped a moveable
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  Speaker 1: square which was lying at hand, and I move it,
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  Speaker 1: you see, not northward, but yes, I move it upward,
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  Speaker 1: that is to say, not northward, but I move it somewhere,
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  Speaker 1: not exactly like this, but somehow here. I brought my
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  Speaker 1: sentence to an inane conclusion, shaking the square about in
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  Speaker 1: a purposeless manner, much to the amusement of my grandson,
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  Speaker 1: who burst out laughing louder than ever, and declared that
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  Speaker 1: I was not teaching him, but joking with him, And
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  Speaker 1: so saying, he unlocked the door and ran out of
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  Speaker 1: the room. Thus ended my first attempt to convert a
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  Speaker 1: pupil to the Gospel of three Dimensions Section twenty two.
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  Speaker 1: How I then tried to diffuse the theory of three
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  Speaker 1: dimensions by other means, And of the result my failure
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  Speaker 1: with my grandson did not encourage me to communicate my
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  Speaker 1: secret to others of my household. Yet neither was I
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  Speaker 1: led by it to despair of success. Only I saw
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  Speaker 1: that I must not wholly rely on the catchphrase upward,
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  Speaker 1: not northward, but must rather endeavor to seek a demonstration
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  Speaker 1: by setting before the public a clear view of the
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  Speaker 1: whole subject. And for this purpose it seemed necessary to
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  Speaker 1: resort to writing. So I devoted several months in privacy
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  Speaker 1: to the composition of a treatise on the Mysteries of
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  Speaker 1: three Dimensions, only with the view of evading the law
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  Speaker 1: if possible. I spoke not of a physical dimension, but
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  Speaker 1: of a thought land. Whence, in theory a figure could
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  Speaker 1: look down upon flat land and see simultaneously the insides
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  Speaker 1: of all things. And where it was possible that there
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  Speaker 1: might be supposed to exist a figure environed, as it were,
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  Speaker 1: with six squares and containing eight terminal points. But in
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  Speaker 1: writing this book I found myself sadly hampered by the
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  Speaker 1: impossibility of drawing such diagrams as were necessary for my purpose. For,
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  Speaker 1: of course, in our country of flat land, there are
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  Speaker 1: no tablets but lines, and no diagrams but limes, all
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  Speaker 1: in one straight line, and only distinguishable by difference of
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  Speaker 1: size and brightness. So that when I had finished my treaties,
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  Speaker 1: which I entitled through flat Land to Thoughtland, I could
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  Speaker 1: not feel certain that many would understand my meaning. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: my life was under a cloud. All pleasures palled upon me,
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  Speaker 1: all sights tantalized and tempted me to outspoken treason. Because
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  Speaker 1: I could not but compare what I saw in two
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  Speaker 1: dimensions with what it really was if seen in three,
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  Speaker 1: and could hardly refrain from making my comparisons. Allowed I
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  Speaker 1: neglected my clients and my own business to give myself
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  Speaker 1: to the contemplation of the mysteries which I had once beheld,
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  Speaker 1: yet which I could impart to no one, and found
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  Speaker 1: daily more difficult to reproduce even before my own mental vision.
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  Speaker 1: One day, about eleven months after my return from Spaceland,
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  Speaker 1: I tried to see a cube with my eye closed,
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  Speaker 1: but failed, and though I succeeded afterwards. I was not
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  Speaker 1: then quite certain, nor have I been ever afterwards, that
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  Speaker 1: I had exactly realized the original. This made me more
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  Speaker 1: melancholy than before, and determined me to take some step.
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  Speaker 1: Yet what I knew not. I felt that I would
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  Speaker 1: have been willing to sacrifice my life for the cause
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  Speaker 1: if thereby I could have produced conviction. But if I
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  Speaker 1: could not convince my grandson, how could I convince the
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  Speaker 1: highest and most developed circles in the land. And yet
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  Speaker 1: at times my spirit was too strong for me, and
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  Speaker 1: I gave vent to dangerous utterances. Already I was considered heterodox,
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  Speaker 1: if not treasonable, and I was keenly alive to the
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  Speaker 1: dangers of my position. Nevertheless, I could not at times
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  Speaker 1: refrain from bursting out into suspicious or half seditious utterances,
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  Speaker 1: even among the highest polygonal and circular society. When, for example,
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  Speaker 1: the question arose about the treatment of those lunatics who
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  Speaker 1: said that they had received the power of seeing the
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  Speaker 1: insides of things, I would quote the saying of an
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  Speaker 1: ancient circle who declared that profits and inspired people are
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  Speaker 1: always considered by the majority to be mad. And I
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  Speaker 1: could not help occasionally dropping such expressions as the eye
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  Speaker 1: that discerns the interiors of things and the all seeing land.
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  Speaker 1: Once or twice, I even let fall the forbidden terms
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  Speaker 1: the third and fourth dimensions, at last, to complete a
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  Speaker 1: series of minor indiscretions. At a meeting of our local
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  Speaker 1: speculative Society held at the palace of the Prefect himself,
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  Speaker 1: some extremely silly person, having read an elaborate paper exhibiting
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  Speaker 1: the precise reasons why Providence has limited the number of
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  Speaker 1: dimensions to two, and why the attribute of omnividence is
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  Speaker 1: assigned to the Supreme alone, I so far forgot myself
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  Speaker 1: as to give an exact account of the whole of
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  Speaker 1: my voyage with the sphere into space and to the
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  Speaker 1: assembly hall in our metropolis, and then to space again,
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  Speaker 1: and of my return home, and of everything that I
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  Speaker 1: had seen and heard in fact or vision. At first, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I pretended that I was describing the imaginary experiences of
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  Speaker 1: a fictitious person. But my enthusiasm soon forced me to
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  Speaker 1: throw off all disguise, and finally, in a fervent peroration,
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  Speaker 1: I exhorted all my hearers to divest themselves of prejudice
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  Speaker 1: and to become believers in the third dimension. Need I
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  Speaker 1: say that I was at once arrested and taken before
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  Speaker 1: the Council next morning, standing in the very place where
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  Speaker 1: but a very few months ago the sphere had stood
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  Speaker 1: in my company. I was allowed to begin and to
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  Speaker 1: continue my narration unquestioned and uninterrupted. But from the first
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  Speaker 1: I foresaw my fate. For the President, noting that a
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  Speaker 1: guard of the better sort of policemen was in attendance
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  Speaker 1: of angularity little if at all, under fifty five degrees,
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  Speaker 1: ordered them to be relieved before I began my defense
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  Speaker 1: by an inferior class of two or three degrees. I
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  Speaker 1: knew only too well what that meant. I was to
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  Speaker 1: be executed or imprisoned, and my story was to be
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  Speaker 1: yet secret from the world by the simultaneous destruction of
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  Speaker 1: the officials who had heard it. And this being the case,
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  Speaker 1: the President desired to substitute the cheaper for the more
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  Speaker 1: expensive victims. After I had concluded my defense, the President,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps perceiving that some of the junior circles had been
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  Speaker 1: moved by my evident earnestness, asked me two questions. One,
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  Speaker 1: whether I could indicate the direction which I meant when
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  Speaker 1: I used the words upward, not northward two, whether I could,
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  Speaker 1: by any diagrams or descriptions other than the enumeration of
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  Speaker 1: imaginary sides and angles indicate the figure I was pleased
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  Speaker 1: to call a cube. I declared that I could say
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  Speaker 1: nothing more, and that I must commit myself to the truth,
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  Speaker 1: whose would surely prevail in the end. The President replied
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  Speaker 1: that he quite concurred in my sentiment, and that I
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  Speaker 1: could not do better. I must be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.
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  Speaker 1: But if the truth intended that I should emerge from
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  Speaker 1: prison and evangelize the world, the truth might be trusted
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  Speaker 1: to bring that result to pass. Meanwhile, I should be
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  Speaker 1: subjected to no discomfort that was not necessary to preclude escape.
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  Speaker 1: And unless I forfeited the privilege by misconduct, I should
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  Speaker 1: be occasionally permitted to see my brother, who had preceded
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  Speaker 1: me to my prison. Seven years have elapsed and I
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  Speaker 1: am still a prisoner. And if I accept the occasional
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  Speaker 1: visits of my brother, debarred from all companionship save that
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  Speaker 1: of my jailers. My brother is one of the best
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  Speaker 1: of squares, just sensible, cheerful, and not without fraternal affection.
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  Speaker 1: Yet I must confess that my weekly interviews, at least
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  Speaker 1: in one respect, cause me the bitterest pain. He was
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  Speaker 1: present when the sphere manifested himself in the council chamber.
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  Speaker 1: He saw the spheres changing sections, he heard the explanation
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  Speaker 1: of the phenomena then given to the circles. Since that time,
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  Speaker 1: scarcely a week has passed during seven whole years without
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  Speaker 1: his hearing from me a repetition of the part I
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  Speaker 1: played in that manifestation, together with ample descriptions of all
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  Speaker 1: the phenomena in Spaceland, and the arguments for the existence
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  Speaker 1: of solid things derivable from analogy. Yet I take shame
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  Speaker 1: to be forced to confess it. My brother has not
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  Speaker 1: yet grasped the nature of the third dimension, and frankly
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  Speaker 1: avows his disbelief in the existence of a sphere. Hence
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  Speaker 1: I am absolutely destitute of converts, and for aught that
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  Speaker 1: I can see. The millennial revelation has been made to
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  Speaker 1: me for nothing. Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for
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  Speaker 1: bringing down fire for mortals, But I, poor flat Land Prometheus,
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  Speaker 1: lie here in prison for bringing down nothing to my countrymen.
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  Speaker 1: Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs in
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  Speaker 1: some manner, I know not how may find their way
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  Speaker 1: to the minds of humanity in some dimension, and may
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  Speaker 1: stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to
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  Speaker 1: be confined to limited dimensionality. That is the hope of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: my brighter moments, alas it is not always so. Heavily
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: weighs on me at times, the burdensome reflection that I
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  Speaker 1: cannot honest say I am confident as to the exact
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: shape of the once seen oft regretted cube, And in
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  Speaker 1: my nightly visions the mysterious precept upward not northward, haunts
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  Speaker 1: me like a soul devouring sphinx. It is part of
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  Speaker 1: the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the truth.
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  Speaker 1: That there are seasons of mental weakness, when cubes and
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  Speaker 1: spheres flit away into the background of scarce possible existences,
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  Speaker 1: when the land of three dimensions seems almost as visionary
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  Speaker 1: as the land of one or none. Nay, when even
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  Speaker 1: this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these
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  Speaker 1: very tablets on which I am writing, and all the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: substantial realities of flat land itself, appear no better than
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  Speaker 1: the offspring of a diseased imagination or the baseless fabric
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  Speaker 1: of a dream. The end of flat land are amants
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  Speaker 1: of many dimensions. By Edwin Abbot Abbot