‘One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin’.”2
On this point the defence of the Square seems to me to be impregnable. I wish I could say that his answer to the second (or moral) objection was equally clear and cogent. It has been objected that he is a woman-hater; and as this objection has been vehemently urged by those whom Nature’s decree has constituted the somewhat larger half of the Spaceland race, I should like to remove it, so far as I can honestly do so. But the Square is so unaccustomed to the use of the moral terminology of Spaceland that I should be doing him an injustice if I were literally to transcribe his defence against this charge. Acting, therefore, as his interpreter and summarizer, I gather that in the course of an imprisonment of seven years he has himself modified his own personal views, both as regards Women and as regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes. Personally, he now inclines to the opinion of the Sphere that the Straight Lines are in many important respects superior to the Circles. But, writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration.
In a still more obscure passage he now desires to disavow the Circular or aristocratic tendencies with which some critics have naturally credited him. While doing justice to the intellectual power with which a few Circles have for many generations maintained their supremacy over immense multitudes of their countrymen, he believes that the facts of Flatland, speaking for themselves without comment on his part, declare that Revolutions cannot always be suppressed by slaughter, and that Nature, in sentencing the Circles to in-fecundity, has condemned them to ultimate failure—”and herein,” he says, “I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing.” For the rest, he begs his readers not to suppose that every minute detail in the daily life of Flatland must needs correspond to some other detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of moderate and modest minds who—speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience— decline to say on the one hand, “This can never be,” and on the other hand, “It must needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it.”
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1 This Preface to the second edition of Flatland, originates from a letter that was sent by the Square to The Athenaeum, after a review of Flatland by A. J. Butler in The Athenaeum.
2 The Author desires me to add, that the misconception of some of his critics on this matter has induced him to insert in his dialogue with the Sphere, certain remarks which have a bearing on the point in question, and which he had previously omitted as being tedious and unnecessary.
CONTENTS
§ 1.—Of the Nature of Flatland
§ 2.—Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland
§ 3.—Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland
§ 5.—Of our Methods of Recognizing one another
§ 6.—Of Recognition by Sight
§ 7.—Concerning Irregular Figures
§ 8.—Of the Ancient Practice of Painting
§ 9.—Of the Universal Colour Bill
§ 10.—Of the Suppression of Chromatic Sedition
§ 11.—Concerning our Priests
§ 12.—Of the Doctrine of our Priests
PART II: Other Worlds
§ 13.—How I had a Vision of Lineland
§ 14.—How in my Vision I endeavoured to explain the nature of Flatland, but could not
§ 15.—Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
§ 16.—How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to me in words the mysteries of Spaceland
§ 17.—How the Sphere, having in vain tried words, resorted to deeds
§ 18.—How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there
§ 19.—How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it
§ 20.—How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision
§ 21.—How I tried to teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to my Grandson, and with what success
§ 22.—How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result
“Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.”
PART 1
THIS WORLD
§ 1.—Of the Nature of Flatland
I CALL OUR WORLD FLATLAND, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.
Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows—only hard and with luminous edges—and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said “my universe”: but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.
In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a “solid” kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.
Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.
But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more