"I admit," said he -- when I mentioned to him this objection -- "I 
admit the truth of your critic's facts, but I deny his conclusions.  
It is true that we have really in Flatland a Third unrecognized 
Dimension called 'height,' just as it also is true that you have 
really in Spaceland a Fourth unrecognized Dimension, called by no name 
at present, but which I will call 'extra-height.'  But we can no more 
take cognizance of our 'height' than you can of your 'extra-height.'  
Even I -- who have been in Spaceland, and have had the privilege of 
understanding for twenty-four hours the meaning of 'height' -- even I 
cannot now comprehend it, nor realize it by the sense of sight or by 
any process of reason; I can but apprehend it by faith. 

    "The reason is obvious.  Dimension implied direction, implies 
measurement, implies the more and the less.  Now, all our lines are 
_equally_ and _infinitesimally_ thick (or high, whichever you like); 
consequently, there is nothing in them to lead our minds to the 
conception of that Dimension.  No 'delicate micrometer' -- as has been 
suggested by one too hasty Spaceland critic -- would in the least 
avail us; for we should not know _what to measure, nor in what 
direction._  When we see a Line, we see something that is long and 
_bright; brightness,_ as well as length, is necessary to the existence 
of a Line; if the brightness vanishes, the Line is extinguished.  
Hence, all my Flatland friends -- when I talk to them about the 
unrecognized Dimension which is somehow visible in a Line -- say, 'Ah, 
you mean _brightness_':  and when I reply, 'No, I mean a real 
Dimension,' they at once retort, 'Then measure it, or tell us in what 
direction it extends'; and this silences me, for I can do neither.  
Only yesterday, when the Chief Circle (in other words our High Priest) 
came to inspect the State Prison and paid me his seventh annual visit, 
and when for the seventh time he put me the question, 'Was I any 
better?' I tried to prove to him that he was 'high,' as well as long 
and broad, although he did not know it.  But what was his reply?  'You 
say I am "high"; measure my "high-ness" and I will believe you.'  What 
could I do?  How could I meet his challenge?  I was crushed; and he 
left the room triumphant. 

    "Does this still seem strange to you?  Then put yourself in a 
similar position.  Suppose a person of the Fourth Dimension, 
condescending to visit you, were to say, 'Whenever you open your eyes, 
you see a Plane (which is of Two Dimensions) and you _infer_ a Solid 
(which is of Three); but in reality you also see (though you do not 
recognize) a Fourth Dimension, which is not colour nor brightness nor 
anything of the kind, but a true Dimension, although I cannot point 
out to you its direction, nor can you posssibly measure it.'  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 Slavers of our 
respective Dimensional prejudices, as one of our Spaceland poets has 
said --

         'One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin.'" (footnote 1) 

    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.  But the Square is so unaccustomed to the use 
of the moral terminology of Spaceland that I should be doing him an 
injustice if I were literally to transcribe his defence against this 
charge.  Acting, therefore, as his interpreter and summarizer, I 
gather that in the course of an imprisonment of seven years he has 
himself modified his own personal views, both as regards Women and as 
regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes.  Personally, he now inclines 
to the opinion of the Sphere (see page 86) that the Straight Lines are 
in many important respects superior to the Circles.  But, writing as a 
Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the 
views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) 
even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent 
times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom 
been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration. 

    In a still more obscure passage he now desires to disavow the 
Circular or aristocratic tendencies with which some critics have 
naturally credited him.  While doing justice to the intellectual power 
with which a few Circles have for many generations maintained their 
supremacy over immense multitudes of their countrymen, he believes 
that the facts of Flatland, speaking for themselves without comment on 
his part, declare that Revolutions cannot always be suppressed by 
slaughter, and that Nature, in sentencing the Circles to infecundity, 
has condemned them to ultimate failure -- "and herein," he says, "I 
see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom 
of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains 
it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing."  For 
the rest, he begs his readers not to suppose that every minute detail 
in the daily life of Flatland must needs correspond to some other 
detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work 
may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of 
moderate and modestminds who -- speaking of that which is of the 
highest importance, but lies beyond experience -- decline to say on 
the one hand, "This can never be," and on the other hand, "It must 
needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it."
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Footnote 1.  The Author desires me to add, that the misconceptions of