Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Science
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Fourth dimension
Rarely—in proportion to the vast numbers of Isosceles births—is a
genuine and certifiable Equal-Sided Triangle produced from Isosceles
parents.[1] Such a birth requires, as its antecedents, not only a
series of carefully arranged intermarriages, but also a long-continued
exercise of frugality and self-control on the part of the would-be
ancestors of the coming Equilateral, and a patient, systematic, and
continuous development of the Isosceles intellect through many
generations.
[1] “What need of a certificate?” a Spaceland critic may ask: “Is not
the procreation of a Square Son a certificate from Nature herself,
proving the Equal-sidedness of the Father?” I reply that no Lady of
any position will mary an uncertified Triangle. Square offspring has
sometimes resulted from a slightly Irregular Triangle; but in almost
every such case the Irregularity of the first generation is visited on
the third; which either fails to attain the Pentagonal rank, or
relapses to the Triangular.
The birth of a True Equilateral Triangle from Isosceles parents is the
subject of rejoicing in our country for many furlongs round. After a
strict examination conducted by the Sanitary and Social Board, the
infant, if certified as Regular, is with solemn ceremonial admitted
into the class of Equilaterals. He is then immediately taken from his
proud yet sorrowing parents and adopted by some childless Equilateral,
who is bound by oath never to permit the child henceforth to enter his
former home or so much as to look upon his relations again, for fear
lest the freshly developed organism may, by force of unconscious
imitation, fall back again into his hereditary level.
The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his
serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves,
as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their
existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher
classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little
or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as almost useful
barrier against revolution from below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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