Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Science
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Fourth dimension
_I._ Your Lordship tempts his servant to see whether he remembers the
revelations imparted to him. Trifle not with me, my Lord; I crave, I
thirst, for more knowledge. Doubtless we cannot _see_ that other higher
Spaceland now, because we have no eye in our stomachs. But, just as there
_was_ the realm of Flatland, though that poor puny Lineland Monarch could
neither turn to left nor right to discern it, and just as there _was_
close at hand, and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions,
though I, blind senseless wretch, had no power to touch it, no eye in my
interior to discern it, so of a surety there is a Fourth Dimension, which
my Lord perceives with the inner eye of thought. And that it must exist
my Lord himself has taught me. Or can he have forgotten what he himself
imparted to his servant?
In One Dimension, did not a moving Point produce a Line with _two_
terminal points?
In Two Dimensions, did not a moving Line produce a Square with _four_
terminal points?
In Three Dimensions, did not a moving Square produce—did not this eye of
mine behold it—that blessed Being, a Cube, with _eight_ terminal points?
And in Four Dimensions shall not a moving Cube—alas, for Analogy, and
alas for the Progress of Truth, if it be not so—shall not, I say, the
motion of a divine Cube result in a still more divine Organization with
_sixteen_ terminal points?
Behold the infallible confirmation of the Series, 2, 4, 8, 16: is not
this a Geometrical Progression? Is not this—if I might quote my Lord’s
own words—“strictly according to Analogy”?
Again, was I not taught by my Lord that as in a Line there are _two_
bounding Points, and in a Square there are _four_ bounding Lines, so in a
Cube there must be _six_ bounding Squares? Behold once more the
confirming Series, 2, 4, 6: is not this an Arithmetical Progression? And
consequently does it not of necessity follow that the more divine
offspring of the divine Cube in the Land of Four Dimensions, must have 8
bounding Cubes: and is not this also, as my Lord has taught me to
believe, “strictly according to Analogy”?
O, my Lord, my Lord, behold, I cast myself in faith upon conjecture, not
knowing the facts; and I appeal to your Lordship to confirm or deny my
logical anticipations. If I am wrong, I yield, and will no longer demand
a Fourth Dimension; but, if I am right, my Lord will listen to reason.
I ask therefore, is it, or is it not, the fact, that ere now your
countrymen also have witnessed the descent of Beings of a higher order
than their own, entering closed rooms, even as your Lordship entered
mine, without the opening of doors or windows, and appearing and
vanishing at will? On the reply to this question I am ready to stake
everything. Deny it, and I am henceforth silent. Only vouchsafe an
answer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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