"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 possibly 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 β we are all liable to the same errors, all alike the Slaves of our respective Dimensional prejudices, as one of your Spaceland poets has said β 'One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin.'"
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Academics from EnglandAbsurdistsNovelists from EnglandScience fiction authors from the United KingdomClergy from England
Original Language: English
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Preface to the Second and Revised Edition (1884)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Abbott_Abbott
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Edwin Abbott Abbott
Edwin Abbott Abbott (20 December 1838 β 12 October 1926) was an English schoolmaster and theologian, most famous as the author of the social satire Flatland (1884), widely noted for its use of mathematical dimensions in religious and political allegories.
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