Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception,
absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have
found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks,
so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much
even for the wisdom of the Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature
has decreed that, in proportion as the working-classes increase
in intelligence, knowledge, and all virtue, in that same proportion
their acute angle (which makes them physically terrible)
shall increase also and approximate to the comparatively harmless
angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal
and formidable of the soldier class -- creatures almost on a level
with women in their lack of intelligence -- it is found that,
as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ
their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane
in the power of penetration itself.
How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof
of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin
of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland!
By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles
are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle,
taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness
of the human mind.
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