The loss of a few sides in a highly-developed
Polygon is not easily noticed, and is sometimes compensated
by a successful operation in the Neo-Therapeutic Gymnasium,
as I have described above; and the Circles are too much disposed
to acquiesce in infecundity as a Law of the superior development.
Yet, if this evil be not arrested, the gradual diminution
of the Circular class may soon become more rapid, and the time
may be not far distant when, the race being no longer able to produce
a Chief Circle, the Constitution of Flatland must fall.
One other word of warning suggests itself to me, though I cannot
so easily mention a remedy; and this also refers to our relations
with Women. About three hundred years ago, it was decreed by
the Chief Circle that, since women are deficient in Reason
but abundant in Emotion, they ought no longer to be treated
as rational, nor receive any mental education. The consequence
was that they were no longer taught to read, nor even to master
Arithmetic enough to enable them to count the angles of their husband
or children; and hence they sensibly declined during each generation
in intellectual power.
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