But we can suppose the cube to be presented to him otherwise than by
passing through his plane. It can be turned round the Orange line, in
which case the Blue line goes out, and, after a time, the Brown line
comes in. It must be noticed that the Brown line comes into a direction
opposite to that in which the Blue line ran. These two lines are at
right angles to each other, and, if one be moved upwards till it is at
right angles to the surface of the table, the other comes on to the
surface, but runs in a direction opposite to that in which the first
ran. Thus, by turning the cube about the Orange line and the Blue line,
different sides of it can be shown to a plane-being. By combining the
two processes of turning and pushing through the plane, all the sides
can be shown to the plane-being. For instance, if the cube be turned so
that the Dark-blue square be on the plane, and it be then passed
through, the Light-yellow square will come in.
Now, if the plane-being made a set of models of these different
appearances and studied them, he could form some rational idea of the
Higher Solid which produced them. He would become able to give some
consistent account of the properties of this new kind of existence; he
could say what came into his plane space, if the other space penetrated
the plane edge-wise or corner-wise, and could describe all that would
come in as it turned about in any way.
He would have six models. Let us consider two of them--the Black and the
White squares. We can observe them on the cube. Every colour on the one
is different from every colour on the other. If we now ask what lies
between the Orange line and the Reddish line, we know it is a square,
for the Orange line moving in any direction gives a square. And, if the
six models were before the plane-being, he could easily select that
which showed what he wanted. For that which lies between Orange line and
Reddish line must be bounded by Orange and Reddish lines. He would
search among the six models lying beside each other on his plane, till
he found the Dark-blue square. It is evident that only one other square
differs in all its colours from the Black square, viz., the White
square. For it is entirely separate. The others meet it in one of their
lines. This total difference exists in all the pairs of opposite
surfaces on the cube.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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