"Abbott, Edwin A - Flatland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Abbott Edwin A)

that true mercy would dictate their entire suppression, by enacting
that all who fail to pass the Final Examination of the University
should be either imprisoned for life, or extinguished by a painless
death.
But I find myself digressing into the subect of Irregularities, a
matter of such vital interest that it demans a separate section.


* * *


SECTION 7. -- Concerning Irregular Figures

Throughout the previous pages I have been assuming -- what perhaps
should have been laid down at the beginning as a distinct and
fundamental proposition -- that every human being in Flatland is a
Regular Figure, that is to say of regular construction. By this I
mean that a Woman must not only be a line, but a straight line; that
an Artisan or Soldier must have two of his sides equal; that Tradesmen
must have three sides equal; Lawyers (of which class I am a humble
member), four sides equal, and, generally, that in every Polygon, all
the sides must be equal.
The sizes of the sides would of course depend upon the age of the
individual. A Female at birth would be about an inch long, while a
tall adult Woman might extend to a foot. As to the Males of every
class, it may be roughly said that the length of an adult's size, when
added together, is two feet or a little more. But the size of our
sides is not under consideration. I am speaking of the _equality_ of
sides, and it does not need much reflection to see that the whole of
the social life in Flatland rests upon the fundamental fact that
Nature wills all Figures to have their sides equal.
If our sides were unequal our angles might be unequal. Instead of
its being sufficient to feel, or estimate by sight, a single angle in
order to determine the form of an individual, it would be necessary to
ascertain each angle by the experiment of Feeling. But life would be
too short for such a tedious groping. The whole science and art of
Sight Recognition would at once perish; Feeling, so far as it is an
art, would not long survive; intercourse would become perilous or
impossible; there would be an end to all confidence, all forethought;
no one would be safe in making the most simple social arrangements; in
a word, civilization might relapse into barbarism.
Am I going too fast to carry my Readers with me to these obvious
conclusions? Surely a moment's reflection, and a single instance from
common life, must convince every one that our social system is based
upon Regularity, or Equality of Angles. You meet, for example, two or
three Tradesmen in the street, whom your recognize at once to be
Tradesman by a glance at their angles and rapidly bedimmed sides, and
you ask them to step into your house to lunch. This you do at present
with perfect confidence, because everyone knows to an inch or two the
area occupied by an adult Triangle: but imagine that your Tradesman