Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott: Part 2, Sections 18 - 20

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two, sections eighteen to twenty of flat Land. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Ruth Golding.
Flat Land A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbot Abbot,
Part two, section eighteen. How I came to Spaceland and

(00:21):
what I saw there? An unspeakable horror seized me. There
was a darkness, then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight
that was not like seeing. I saw a line that
was no line, space that was not space. I was
myself and not myself. When I could find voice, I

(00:45):
shrieked aloud in agony. Either this is madness or it
is hell. It is neither, calmly replied the voice of
the sphere. It is knowledge. It is three dimensions. Open
your eye once again, and try to look steadily. I looked,

(01:06):
and behold a new world. There stood before me visibly
incorporate all that I had before inferred, conjectured, dreamed of
perfect circular beauty. What seemed the center of the Stranger's

(01:27):
form lay open to my view. Yet I could see
no heart, nor lungs, nor arteries, only a beautiful, harmonious
something for which I had no words. But you, my
readers in Spaceland would call it the surface of the sphere.

(01:48):
Prostrating myself mentally before my guide, I cried, how is
it o divine ideal of consumate loveliness and wisdom, that
I see thy inside and yet cannot discern thy heart,
thy lungs, thy arteries, thy liver. What you think you see,

(02:09):
you see not, he replied, It is not given to you,
nor to any other being, to behold my internal parts.
I am of a different order of beings from those
in Flatland. Were I a circle, you could discern my intestines.
But I am a being composed, as I told you before,

(02:30):
of many circles, the many in the one called in
this country a sphere. And just as the outside of
a cube is a square, so the outside of a
sphere presents the appearance of a circle. Bewildered though I
was by my teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed

(02:53):
against it, but worshiped him in silent adoration. He continued,
with more mildness in his voice. Distress not yourself. If
you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland.
By degrees, they will dawn upon you. Let us begin
by casting back a glance at the region whence you came.

(03:16):
Return with me a while to the plains of flatland,
and I will show you that which you have so
often reasoned and thought about, but never seen with the
sense of sight. A visible angle impossible, I cried, But
the sphere leading the way, I followed, as if in

(03:37):
a dream, till once more his voice arrested me. Look yonder,
and behold your own pentagonal house and all its inmates.
Reader's note. The following paragraph refers to a detailed diagram.
The diagram shows the points of the compass, with north
at the top. Next to this there is a large,

(03:59):
equal sided pentagon sitting on a horizontal base. Centrally placed
on the lower left edge of the pentagon, there is
an opening labeled men's door, the size of the opening
being about a quarter of the length of that edge.
This door leads into a large central space labeled the hall,

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which is otherwise surrounded by rooms. The position of these
rooms will now be described clockwise from the northern point.
The upper right edge is divided equally between two rooms
labeled in order, my study and my Bedroom. The left
hand wall of the study runs vertically down from the

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northern point, and the right hand wall is parallel to
the lower right edge of the pentagon. The study has
a door into the hall, and there is an Isosceles
triangle inside labelled the page. Sharing a wall with the
study is my rhomboid shaped bedroom, the right hand wall

(05:05):
of which is the top quarter of the lower right
hand edge of the pentagon. It shares a wall and
communicating door with the room to the south labeled My
Wife's Apartment. About three tenths down the lower right edge,
there is a narrow opening labeled Women's door. This leads

(05:27):
into a long, narrow room labeled my wife's apartment. This
room has doorways into my bedroom above, into the hall
to the left, and into the room to the south,
also long and narrow, where a straight line is marked
my daughter. The only door from my daughter's room is

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into my wife's apartment. Continuing clockwise down the lower right
edge of the pentagon, the next room is a long
and wide room with two opening into the hall. Inside
are three Isosceles triangles of varying acuteness. The uppermost and
most acute is labeled the Scullion. The next and middle

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sized is labeled the footmen, and the lowest and least
acute is labeled the Butler. At the bottom right point
of the pentagon, a large corner room is labeled the
cellar and has a door into the hall. Along the
left half of the bottom or southern edge, there are

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two small rooms, each with a door into the hall
and each with a hexagon inside, labeled my Grandson's. Continuing
clockwise up the left side of the pentagon, between the
men's door and the northern point, there are four small rooms.
Each of these rooms, labeled my Sons, has a pentagon

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inside it and a door into the hall. In the
middle of the central hall is a straight line labeled
my wife. Outside the pentagon one at each end of
the bottom or southern edge, are two very acute isosceles triangles,
each labeled Policeman. End of reader's note. I looked below

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and saw with my physical eye all that domestic individuality
which I had hitherto merely inferred with the understanding, And
how poor and shadowy was the inferred conjecture in comparison
with the reality which I now beheld. My four sons
calmly asleep in the northwestern rooms, my two orphan grandsons

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to the south, the servants, the butler, my daughter, all
in their several apartments. Only my affectionate wife, alarmed by
my continued absence, had quitted her room and was roving
up and down in the hall, anxiously awaiting my return. Also,
the page, aroused by my cries, had left his room, and,

(08:08):
under pretext of ascertaining whether I had fallen somewhere in
a faint, was prying into the cabinet in my study.
All this I could now see, not merely infer And
as we came nearer and nearer, I could discern even
the contents of my cabinet, and the two chests of gold,

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and the tablets of which the sphere had made mention.
Touched by my wife's distress, I would have sprung downward
to reassure her, but I found myself incapable of motion.
Trouble not yourself about your wife, said my guide. She
will not be long left in anxiety. Meantime, let us

(08:51):
take a survey of flat land. Once more, I felt
myself rising through space. It was even as the sea
had said. The further we receded from the object, we
beheld the larger became the field of vision my native city,
with the interior of every house and every creature therein

(09:13):
lay open to my view. In miniature, we mounted higher
and lo the secrets of the earth. The depths of mines,
and inmost caverns of the hills were bared before me.
AWE struck at the sight of the mysteries of the
earth thus unveiled before my unworthy eye. I said to

(09:35):
my companion, Behold, I am become as a god. For
the wise men in our country say that to see
all things, or as they express it, omnividence is the
attribute of God alone. There was something of scorn in
the voice of my teacher as he made answer, is

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it so? Indeed? Then the very pickpockets and cut throats
of my country are to be worshiped by your wise
men as being gods. For there is not one of
them that does not see as much as you see now.
But trust me, your wise men are wrong. I then,

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is omnividence the attribute of others beside God's sphere? I
do not know. But if a pickpocket or a cutthroat
of our country can see everything that is in your country,
surely that is no reason whether pickpocket or cut throat
should be accepted by you as a god. This omnividence,

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as you call it, it is not a common word
in Spaceland. Does it make you more just, more merciful,
less selfish, more loving? Not in the least, then, how
does it make you more divine? I? More merciful, more loving?
But these are the qualities of women. And we know

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that a circle is a higher being than a straight line,
in so far as knowledge and wisdom are more to
be esteemed than mere affection. Sphere, it is not for
me to classify human faculties according to merit. Yet many
of the best and wisest in Spaceland think more of
the affections than of the understanding, more of your despised

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straight lines than of your belauded circles. But enough of this,
Look yonder? Do you know that building? I looked and
afar off I saw an immense polygonal structure, in which
I recognized the general assembly Hall of the States of Flatland,
surrounded by dense lines of pentagonal buildings at right angles

(11:47):
to each other, which I knew to be streets. And
I perceived that I was approaching the great metropolis. Here
we descend, said my guide. It was now morning the
first hour of the first day of the two thousandth
year of our era. Acting as was their wont, in
strict accordance with precedent, the highest circles of the realm

(12:10):
were meeting in solemn conclave, as they had met on
the first hour of the first day of the year
one thousand, and also on the first hour of the
first day of the year nought. The minutes of the
previous meetings were now read by one whom I at
once recognized as my brother, a perfectly symmetrical square, and

(12:32):
the Chief Clerk of the High Council. It was found
recorded on each occasion that whereas the states had been
troubled by divers ill intentioned persons pretending to have received
revelations from another world, and professing to produce demonstrations, whereby
they had instigated to frenzy both themselves and others, it

(12:54):
had been for this cause unanimously resolved by the Grand
Council that on the first day of each millinery, special
injunctions be sent to the prefects in the several districts
of Flatland to make strict search for such misguided persons.
And without formality of mathematical examination, to destroy all such

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as were isosceles of any degree, to scourge and imprison
any regular triangle, to cause any square or pentagon to
be sent to the district asylum, and to arrest any
one of higher rank, sending him straightway to the capital
to be examined and judged by the council. You hear

(13:36):
your fate, said the sphere to me, while the council
was passing for the third time. The formal resolution death
or imprisonment awaits the apostle of the Gospel of three dimensions.
Not so, replied I. The matter is now so clear
to me, the nature of real space so palpable, that

(13:56):
methinks I could make a child understand it. Permit me
but to descend at this moment and enlighten them? Not yet,
said my guide. The time will come. For that meantime
I must perform my mission. Stay thou there in thy place.
Saying these words, he leapt with great dexterity into the sea.

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If I may say, call it of flat land. Right
in the midst of the ring of councilors, I come,
cried he to proclaim that there is a land of
three dimensions. I could see many of the younger counselors
start back in manifest horror as the sphere's circular section
widened before them. But on a sign from the presiding circle,

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who showed not the slightest alarm or surprise, six isosceles
of a lone type, from six different quarters, rushed upon
the sphere. We have him, they cried, No, yes, we
have him. Still he he is going. He's gone, My lords,
said the President to the junior circles of the council.

(15:07):
There is not the slightest need for surprise. The secret archives,
to which I alone have access, tell me that a
similar occurrence happened on the last two millennial commencements. You will,
of course, say nothing of these trifles outside the cabinet.
Raising his voice, he now summoned the guard. Arrest the policemen,

(15:30):
gag them. You know your duty. After he had consigned
to their fate the wretched policeman, ill, fated and unwilling
witnesses of a state secret which they were not to
be permitted to reveal, he again addressed the councilors, My lords,
the business of the Council being concluded, I have only

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to wish you a happy new year. Before departing, he
expressed at some lengths to the clerk my excellent but
most unfortunate brother, his sincere regret that, in accordance with precedent,
and for the sake of secrecy, he must condemn him
to perpetual imprisonment, but added his satisfaction that unless some

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mention were made by him of that day's incident, his
life would be spared Section nineteen. How though this sphere
showed me other mysteries of spaceland, I still desired more,
and what came of it? When I saw my poor

(16:35):
brother led away to imprisonment. I attempted to leap down
into the council chamber, desiring to intercede on his behalf,
or at least bid him farewell. But I found that
I had no motion of my own. I absolutely depended
on the volition of my guide, who said, in gloomy tones,
heed not thy brother, haply, thou shalt have ample time

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hereafter to condole with him. Follow me reader's note. The
following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. Diagram one shows
a three dimensional cube with visible edges drawn and hidden
edges dotted, giving it a three dimensional appearance. Horizontal shading

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makes it appear that the cube is made up of
many layers. Diagram two shows the same figure, but all
lines indicating perspective are missing, with the effect that it
no longer appears to be solid, but looks like a
two dimensional irregular hexagonal figure. End of reader's note. Once more,

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we ascended into space. Hitherto said the sphere. I have
shown you nought save plain figures and their interiors. Now
I must introduce you to solids, and reveal to you
the plan upon which they are constructed. Behold this multitude
of moveable square cards. See I put one on another,

(18:07):
not as you supposed, northward of the other, but on
the other. Now a second, now a third. See I
am building up a solid by a multitude of squares
parallel to one another. Now the solid is complete, being
as high as it is long and broad, and we
call it a cube. Pardon me, my lord, replied I,

(18:33):
But to my eye the appearance is as of an
irregular figure whose inside is laid open to the view.
In other words, methinks I see no solid but a plain,
such as we infer in flat land, only of an
irregularity which betokens some monstrous criminal, so that the very
sight of it is painful to my eyes. True, said

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the Sphere. It appears to you a plane because you
are not accustomed to light and shade and perspective, just
as in flat land a hexagon would appear a straight
line to one who has not the art of sight recognition.
But in reality it is as solid, as you shall
learn by the sense of feeling. He then introduced me

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to the cube, and I found that this marvelous being
was indeed no plane, but a solid, and that he
was endowed with six plain sides and eight terminal points
called solid angles. And I remembered the saying of the
Sphere that just such a creature as this would be

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formed by a square moving in space parallel to himself.
And I rejoice to think that so insignificant a creature
as I could, in some sense be called the progenitor
of so illustrious an offspring. But still I could did
not fully understand the meaning of what my teacher had

(20:03):
told me concerning light and shade and perspective, and I
did not hesitate to put my difficulties before him. Were
I to give the Sphere's explanation of these matters, succinct
and clear though it was, it would be tedious to
an inhabitant of space, who knows these things already. Suffice

(20:27):
it that by his lucid statements, and by changing the
position of objects and lights, and by allowing me to
feel the several objects and even his own sacred person,
he at last made all things clear to me, so
that I could now readily distinguish between a circle and

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a sphere, a plain figure and a solid This was
the climax, the paradise of my strange, eventful history. Henceforth
I have to relate the story of my miserable fall,
most miserable, yet surely most undeserved. For why should the

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thirst for knowledge be aroused only to be disappointed and punished.
My volition shrinks from the painful task of recalling my humiliation. Yet,
like a second Prometheus, I will endure this and worse.
If by any means I may arouse in the interiors
of plain and solid humanity a spirit of rebellion against

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the conceit which would limit our dimensions to two or three,
or any number short of infinity away, then with all
personal considerations, let me continue to the end as I began,
without further digressions or anticipations, pursuing the plain path of

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dispassionate history. The exact facts, the exact words, and they
are burnt in upon my brain shall be set down
without alteration of an iota. And let my readers judge
between me and Destiny. The sphere would willingly have continued

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his lessons by indoctrinating me in the conformation of all
regular solids, cylinders, cones, pyramids, pentahedrons, hexahedrons, dough decahedrons, and spheres.
But I ventured to interrupt him, not that I was
wearied of knowledge. On the contrary, I thirsted for yet

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deeper and fuller drafts than he was offering to me.
Pardon me, said I, O, thou whom I must no
longer address as the perfection of all beauty. But let
me beg THEE to vouchsafe thy servant a sight of
thine interior sphere. My what ay thine interior, thy stomach,

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thy intestines sphere? Whence this ill timed, impertinent request? And
what mean you by saying that I am no longer
the perfection of all beauty? I, my lord, your own
wisdom has taught me to aspire to one even more great,

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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

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the solids of spaceland. And even as we who are
now in space look down on flat land and see
the insides of all things, so of a certainty there
is yet above us higher purer region, whither thou dost
surely purpose to lead me, O thou whom I shall

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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

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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 woo stuff. Enough of this trifling. The time is short,

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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

(25:08):
am satisfied forever 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 show you what you wish if I could,

(25:31):
but I cannot. Would you have me turn my stomach
inside out to oblige you?

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Ay?

Speaker 1 (25:38):
But my Lord has shown 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

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this land of three dimensions, and see the inside of
every three dimensioned house, the secrets of the solid earth,
the treasures of the minds in spaceland, and the intestines
of every solid, living creature, even of the noble and
adorable spheres sphere. But where is this land of four dimensions?

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I I know not, But doubtless my teacher knows sere not.
I there is no such land. The very idea of
it is utterly inconceivable. I your lordship tempts his servant
to see whether he remembers the revelations imparted to him.

(26:45):
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 they are, was the realm of flatland,
though that poor puny lineland monarch could neither turn to

(27:06):
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, nor eye in my interior to
discern it. So of a surety there is a fourth dimension,

(27:28):
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?

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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

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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

(28:43):
two four eight sixteen? 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

(29:06):
bounding lines, so in a cube there must be six
bounding squares. Behold once more the confirming series two four
six Is not this an arithmetical progression? And consequently does
it not of necessity follow that the more divine offspring

(29:29):
of the divine cube in the land of four dimensions
must have eight bounding cubes. And is not this also,
as my Lord has taught me to believe strictly according
to analogy. Oh, my lord, my lord, behold, I cast
myself in faith upon conjecture, not knowing the facts, and

(29:54):
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

(30:18):
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

(30:40):
deny it, and I am henceforth silent only that safe
an answer sphere after a pause, it is reported so.
But men are divided in opinion as to the facts,
and even granting the facts, they explain that in different ways.

(31:01):
And in any case, however, great may be the number
of different explanations no one has adopted or suggested the
theory of a fourth dimension. Therefore, pray, have done with
this trifling and let us return to business. I I
was certain of it. I was certain that my anticipations

(31:25):
would be fulfilled. And now have patience with me, and
answer me yet one more question, Best of teachers, those
who have thus appeared, no one knows whence, and have returned.
No one knows whither Have they also contracted their sections
and vanished somehow into that more spacious space. Whither I

(31:49):
now entreat you to conduct me sphere moodily, They have vanished, certainly,
if they ever appeared. But most people say that these
visions arose from the thought. You will not understand me
from the brain, from the perturbed angularity of the seer.

(32:12):
I say they so, who believe them not? Or if
it indeed be so, that this other space is really
thought land, then take me to that blessed region where I,
in thought shall see the insides of all solid things.
There before my ravished eye, a cube moving in some

(32:34):
altogether new direction, but strictly according to analogy, so as
to make every particle of his interior pass through a
new kind of space with a wake of its own,
shall create a still more perfect perfection than himself, with
sixteen terminal extra solid angles and eight solid cubes for

(32:57):
his perimeter. And once there shall we stay our upward
course in that blessed region of four dimensions? Shall we
linger on the threshold of the fifth and not enter therein? Ah? No,
let us rather resolve that our ambition shall soar with
our corporal assent. Then, yielding to our intellectual onset, the

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gates of the sixth dimension shall fly open, after that
a seventh, and then an eighth. How long I should
have continued, I know not in vain did the Sphere,
in his voice of thunder, reiterate his commands of silence
and threaten me with the direst penalties. If I persisted,

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nothing could stem the flood of my ecstatic aspirations. Perhaps
I was to blame, but indeed I was intoxicated with
the recent drafts of truth to which he himself had
introduced me. However, the end was not long in coming.

(34:04):
My words were cut short by a crash outside and
a simultaneous crash inside me, which impelled me through space
with a velocity that precluded speech. Down, Down, Down, I
was rapidly descending, and I knew that return to flat
Land was my doom. One glimpse, one last and never

(34:27):
to be forgotten glimpse I had of that dull level
wilderness which was now to become my universe again spread
out before my eye, then a darkness, then a final,
all consummating thunder peal, And when I came to myself,
I was once more a common creeping square in my

(34:51):
study at home, listening to the peace cry of my
approaching wife Section twenty. How the sphere encouraged me in
a vision. Although I had less than a minute for reflection,
I felt, by a kind of instinct that I must

(35:12):
conceal my experiences from my wife. Not that I apprehended
at the moment any danger from her divulging my secret.
But I knew that to any woman in flat Land,
the narrative of my adventures must needs be unintelligible. So
I endeavored to reassure her by some story invented for

(35:33):
the occasion, that I had accidentally fallen through the trap
door of the cellar and had there lain stunned. The
southward attraction in our country is so slight that even
to a woman my tale necessarily appeared extraordinary. And well
nigh incredible. But my wife, whose good sense far exceeds

(35:54):
that of the average of her sex, and who perceived
that I was unusually excited, did not argue with me
on the subject, but insisted that I was ill and
required repose. I was glad of an excuse for retiring
to my chamber to think quietly over what had happened.
When I was at last by myself, a drowsy sensation

(36:17):
fell on me. But before my eyes closed, I endeavored
to reproduce the third dimension, and especially the process by
which a cube is constructed through the motion of a square.
It was not so clear as I could have wished,
but I remembered that it must be upward and yet
not northward. And I determined steadfastly to retain these words

(36:42):
as the clue, which if firmly grasped, could not fail
to guide me to the solution. So mechanically repeating like
a charm the words upward yet not northward, I fell
into a sound, refreshing sleep. During my slumber I had

(37:02):
a dream. I thought I was once more by the
side of the sphere, whose lustrous hue betokened that he
had exchanged his wrath against me for perfect placability. We
were moving together towards a bright but infinitesimally small point,
to which my master directed my attention. As we approached, methought,

(37:27):
there issued from it a slight, humming noise, as from
one of your spaceland blue bottles, only less resonant by far.
So slight, indeed, that, even in the perfect stillness of
the vacuum through which we soared, the sound reached not
our ears, till we checked our flight at a distance
from it of something under twenty human diagonals. Look yonder,

(37:52):
said my guide in flat land. Thou hast lived of
line land. Thou hast received a vision. Thou hast soared
with me to the heights of spaceland. Now, in order
to complete the range of thy experience, I conduct thee
downward to the lowest depths of existence, even to the

(38:13):
realm of point Land, the abyss of no dimensions. Behold,
yon miserable creature. That point is a being like ourselves,
but confined to the non dimensional gulf. He is himself,
his own world, his own universe. Of any other than himself,

(38:36):
he can form no conception. He knows not length, nor breadth,
nor height, for he has had no experience of them.
He has no cognizance even of the number two. Nor
has he a thought of plurality, for he is himself,
his one and all being, really nothing. Yet mark his

(39:00):
perfect self contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to
be self contented is to be vile and ignorant, and
that to aspire is better than to be blindly and
impotently happy. Now listen, he ceased, and there arose from

(39:21):
the little buzzing creature a tiny, low, monotonous but distinct tinkling,
as from one of your space and phonographs from which
I caught these words.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Infinite beatitude of existence. It is, and there is none
else beside it. What said I, does the puny creature
mean by it? He means himself, said the sphere. Have
you not noticed before now that babies and babyish people

(39:55):
who cannot distinguish themselves from the world speak of themselves
the third person? But hush, it fills all space, continued
the little soliloquising creature. And what it feels it is,
what it thinks that it utters, and what it utters

(40:19):
that it hears, and it itself is thinker utterer hearer, thought, word, audition.
It is the one, and yet the all in all
are the happiness, are the happiness of being? Can you

(40:42):
not startle the little thing out of its complacency? Said
I Tell it what it really is, as you told me.
Reveal to it the narrow limitations of Pointland, and lead
it up to something higher. That is no easy task,
said my master, Try you hereon, raising my voice to

(41:06):
the uttermost, I addressed the point as follows. Silence, silence,
contemptible creature. You call yourself the all in all, but
you are the nothing. Your so called universe is a
mere speck in a line, and a line is a
mere shadow as compared with Hush, harsh. You have said enough,

(41:28):
interrupted the spheer. Now listen and mark the effect of
your harangue on the King of Pointland. The luster of
the monarch, who beamed more brightly than ever upon hearing
my words, showed clearly that he retained his complacency, and
I had hardly ceased when he took up his strain again.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Ah, the joy, ah, the joy of thought? What can
it not achieve by thinking it? His own thought coming
to itself suggestive of its disparagement, thereby to enhance its happiness.
Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph. Ah, the

(42:14):
divine creative power of the all in one AH, the joy,
the joy of being.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
You see, said my teacher, how little your words have
done so far. As the monarch understands them at all.
He accepts them as his own, for he cannot conceive
of any other except himself, and plumes himself upon the
variety of its thought as an instance of creative power.

(42:50):
Let us leave this god of Pointland to the ignorant
fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience. Nothing that you or
I can do can rescue him from his self satisfaction.
After this, as we floated gently back to flatland, I
could hear the mild voice of my companion, pointing the

(43:12):
moral of my vision and stimulating me to aspire and
to teach others to aspire. He had been angered at
first he confessed by my ambition to soar to dimensions
above the third. But since then he had received fresh insight,
and he was not too proud to acknowledge his error

(43:34):
to a pupil. Then he proceeded to initiate me into
mysteries yet higher than those I had witnessed, showing me
how to construct extra solids by the motion of solids,
and double extra solids by the motion of extra solids,
and all strictly according to analogy, all by methods so simple,

(43:59):
so easy as to be patent even to the female sex.
End of Section twenty. Recording by Ruth Golding