Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Science
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Fourth dimension
_I_. My Lord, your own wisdom has taught me to aspire to One even more
great, more beautiful, and more closely approximate to Perfection than
yourself. As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many
Circles in One, so doubtless there is One above you who combines many
Spheres in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of
Spaceland. And even as we, who are now in Space, look down on Flatland
and see the insides of all things, so of a certainty there is yet above
us some higher, purer region, whither thou dost surely purpose to lead
me—O Thou Whom I shall always call, everywhere and in all Dimensions,
my Priest, Philosopher, and Friend—some yet more spacious Space, some
more dimensionable Dimensionality, from the vantage-ground of which we
shall look down together upon the revealed insides of Solid things, and
where thine own intestines, and those of thy kindred Spheres, will lie
exposed to the view of the poor wandering exile from Flatland, to whom
so much has already been vouchsafed.
_Sphere_. Pooh! Stuff! Enough of this trifling! The time is short, and
much remains to be done before you are fit to proclaim the Gospel of
Three Dimensions to your blind benighted countrymen in Flatland.
_I_. Nay, gracious Teacher, deny me not what I know it is in thy power
to perform. Grant me but one glimpse of thine interior, and I am
satisfied for ever, remaining henceforth thy docile pupil, thy
unemancipable slave, ready to receive all thy teachings and to feed
upon the words that fall from thy lips.
_Sphere_. Well, then, to content and silence you, let me say at once, I
would shew you what you wish if I could; but I cannot. Would you have
me turn my stomach inside out to oblige you?
_I_. But my Lord has shewn me the intestines of all my countrymen in
the Land of Two Dimensions by taking me with him into the Land of
Three. What therefore more easy than now to take his servant on a
second journey into the blessed region of the Fourth Dimension, where I
shall look down with him once more upon this land of Three Dimensions,
and see the inside of every three-dimensioned house, the secrets of the
solid earth, the treasures of the mines of Spaceland, and the
intestines of every solid living creature, even the noble and adorable
Spheres.
_Sphere_. But where is this land of Four Dimensions?
_I_. I know not: but doubtless my Teacher knows.
_Sphere_. Not I. There is no such land. The very idea of it is utterly
inconceivable.
_I_. Not inconceivable, my Lord, to me, and therefore still less
inconceivable to my Master. Nay, I despair not that, even here, in this
region of Three Dimensions, your Lordship’s art may make the Fourth
Dimension visible to me; just as in the Land of Two Dimensions my
Teacher’s skill would fain have opened the eyes of his blind servant to
the invisible presence of a Third Dimension, though I saw it not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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