' 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 Slaves
of our respective Dimensional prejudices, as one of your
Spaceland poets has said --
'One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin'."
[Note: The Author desires me to add, that the misconception of some
of his critics on this matter has induced him to insert in his
dialogue with the Sphere, certain remarks which have a bearing
on the point in question, and which he had previously omitted
as being tedious and unnecessary.]
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.
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