"Abbott, Edwin A - flatland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Abbott Edwin A)

Hence, all my Flatland friends -- when I talk to them about the
unrecognized Dimension which is somehow visible in a Line -- say, 'Ah,
you mean _brightness_': and when I reply, 'No, I mean a real
Dimension,' they at once retort, 'Then measure it, or tell us in what
direction it extends'; and this silences me, for I can do neither.
Only yesterday, when the Chief Circle (in other words our High Priest)
came to inspect the State Prison and paid me his seventh annual visit,
and when for the seventh time he put me the question, 'Was I any
better?' I tried to prove to him that he was 'high,' as well as long
and broad, although he did not know it. But what was his reply? 'You
say I am "high"; measure my "high-ness" and I will believe you.' What
could I do? How could I meet his challenge? I was crushed; and he
left the room triumphant.
"Does this still seem strange to you? Then put yourself in a
similar position. Suppose a person of the Fourth Dimension,
condescending to visit you, were to say, 'Whenever you open your eyes,
you see a Plane (which is of Two Dimensions) and you _infer_ a Solid
(which is of Three); but in reality you also see (though you do not
recognize) a Fourth Dimension, which is not colour nor brightness nor
anything of the kind, but a true Dimension, although I cannot point
out to you its direction, nor can you posssibly measure it.' What
would you say to such a visitor? Would not you have him locked up?
Well, that is my fate: and it is as natural for us Flatlanders to
lock up a Square for preaching the Third Dimension, as it is for you
Spacelanders to lock up a Cube for preaching the Fourth. Alas, how
strong a family likeness runs through blind and persecuting humanity
in all Dimensions! Points, Lines, Squares, Cubes, Extra-Cubes -- we
are all liable to the same errors, all alike the Slavers of our
respective Dimensional prejudices, as one of our Spaceland poets has
said --

'One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin.'" (footnote 1)

On this point the defence of the Square seems to me to be
impregnable. I wish I could say that his answer to the second (or
moral) objection was equally clear and cogent. It has been objected
that he is a woman-hater; and as this objection has been vehemently
urged by those whom Nature's decree has constituted the somewhat
larger half of the Spaceland race, I should like to remove it, so far
as I can honestly do so. But the Square is so unaccustomed to the use
of the moral terminology of Spaceland that I should be doing him an
injustice if I were literally to transcribe his defence against this
charge. Acting, therefore, as his interpreter and summarizer, I
gather that in the course of an imprisonment of seven years he has
himself modified his own personal views, both as regards Women and as
regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes. Personally, he now inclines
to the opinion of the Sphere (see page 86) that the Straight Lines are
in many important respects superior to the Circles. But, writing as a
Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the
views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed)