If my Spaceland Patrons have grasped
this general conception, so far as to conceive the possibility of it
and not to reject my account as altogether incredible --
I shall have attained all I can reasonably expect. Were I to attempt
further details I should only perplex. Yet for the sake of the young
and inexperienced, who may perchance infer -- from the two simple
instances I have given above, of the manner in which I should
recognize my Father and my Sons -- that Recognition by sight
is an easy affair, it may be needful to point out that in actual life
most of the problems of Sight Recognition are far more
subtle and complex.
If for example, when my Father, the Triangle, approaches me,
he happens to present his side to me instead of his angle, then,
until I have asked him to rotate, or until I have edged my eye
round him, I am for the moment doubtful whether he may not be
a Straight Line, or, in other words, a Woman. Again, when I am
in the company of one of my two hexagonal Grandsons, contemplating one
of his sides (AB) full front, it will be evident from
the accompanying diagram that I shall see one whole line (AB)
in comparative brightness (shading off hardly at all at the ends)
and two smaller lines (CA and BD) dim throughout and shading away
into greater dimness towards the extremities C and D.
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