Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
As to the doctrine of the Circles it may briefly be summed up
in a single maxim, "Attend to your Configuration." Whether political,
ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object
the improvement of individual and collective Configuration --
with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles,
to which all other objects are subordinated.
It is the merit of the Circles that they have effectually suppressed
those ancient heresies which led men to waste energy and sympathy
in the vain belief that conduct depends upon will, effort, training,
encouragement, praise, or anything else but Configuration.
It was Pantocyclus -- the illustrious Circle mentioned above,
as the queller of the Colour Revolt -- who first convinced mankind
that Configuration makes the man; that if, for example, you are born
an Isosceles with two uneven sides, you will assuredly go wrong
unless you have them made even -- for which purpose you must go
to the Isosceles Hospital; similarly, if you are a Triangle,
or Square, or even a Polygon, born with any Irregularity,
you must be taken to one of the Regular Hospitals to have your
disease cured; otherwise you will end your days in the State Prison
or by the angle of the State Executioner.
All faults or defects, from the slightest misconduct to the most
flagitious crime, Pantocyclus attributed to some deviation from
perfect Regularity in the bodily figure, caused perhaps
(if not congenital) by some collision in a crowd; by neglect
to take exercise, or by taking too much of it; or even by a sudden
change of temperature, resulting in a shrinkage or expansion
in some too susceptible part of the frame. Therefore,
concluded that illustrious Philosopher, neither good conduct
nor bad conduct is a fit subject, in any sober estimation,
for either praise or blame. For why should you praise, for example,
the integrity of a Square who faithfully defends the interests
of his client, when you ought in reality rather to admire
the exact precision of his right angles? Or again, why blame a lying,
thievish Isosceles when you ought rather to deplore the incurable
inequality of his sides?
Theoretically, this doctrine is unquestionable; but it has
practical drawbacks. In dealing with an Isosceles, if a rascal pleads
that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness,
you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot help being
a nuisance to his neighbours, you, the Magistrate, cannot help
sentencing him to be consumed -- and there's an end of the matter.
But in little domestic difficulties, where the penalty of consumption,
or death, is out of the question, this theory of Configuration
sometimes comes in awkwardly; and I must confess that occasionally
when one of my own Hexagonal Grandsons pleads as an excuse
for his disobedience that a sudden change of the temperature has been
too much for his Perimeter, and that I ought to lay the blame
not on him but on his Configuration, which can only be strengthened
by abundance of the choicest sweetmeats, I neither see my way
logically to reject, nor practically to accept, his conclusions.
For my own part, I find it best to assume that a good sound scolding
or castigation has some latent and strengthening influence on
my Grandson's Configuration; though I own that I have no grounds
for thinking so. At all events I am not alone in my way
of extricating myself from this dilemma; for I find that many
of the highest Circles, sitting as Judges in law courts,
use praise and blame towards Regular and Irregular Figures;
and in their homes I know by experience that, when scolding
their children, they speak about "right" or "wrong" as vehemently
and passionately as if they believed that these names represented
real existences, and that a human Figure is really capable
of choosing between them.
Constantly carrying out their policy of making Configuration
the leading idea in every mind, the Circles reverse the nature
of that Commandment which in Spaceland regulates the relations
between parents and children. With you, children are taught
to honour their parents; with us -- next to the Circles,
who are the chief object of universal homage -- a man is taught
to honour his Grandson, if he has one; or, if not, his Son.
By "honour", however, is by no means meant "indulgence",
but a reverent regard for their highest interests: and the Circles
teach that the duty of fathers is to subordinate their own interests
to those of posterity, thereby advancing the welfare of
the whole State as well as that of their own immediate descendants.
The weak point in the system of the Circles -- if a humble Square
may venture to speak of anything Circular as containing
any element of weakness -- appears to me to be found
in their relations with Women.
As it is of the utmost importance for Society that Irregular births
should be discouraged, it follows that no Woman who has
any Irregularities in her ancestry is a fit partner for one
who desires that his posterity should rise by regular degrees
in the social scale.
Now the Irregularity of a Male is a matter of measurement;
but as all Women are straight, and therefore visibly Regular
so to speak, one has to devise some other means of ascertaining
what I may call their invisible Irregularity, that is to say
their potential Irregularities as regards possible offspring.
This is effected by carefully-kept pedigrees, which are preserved
and supervised by the State; and without a certified pedigree
no Woman is allowed to marry.
Now it might have been supposed that a Circle -- proud of his ancestry
and regardful for a posterity which might possibly issue hereafter
in a Chief Circle -- would be more careful than any other to choose
a wife who had no blot on her escutcheon. But it is not so.
The care in choosing a Regular wife appears to diminish as one rises
in the social scale. Nothing would induce an aspiring Isosceles,
who had hopes of generating an Equilateral Son, to take a wife
who reckoned a single Irregularity among her Ancestors;
a Square or Pentagon, who is confident that his family is steadily
on the rise, does not inquire above the five-hundredth generation;
a Hexagon or Dodecagon is even more careless of the wife's pedigree;
but a Circle has been known deliberately to take a wife
who has had an Irregular Great-Grandfather, and all because
of some slight superiority of lustre, or because of the charms
of a low voice -- which, with us, even more than you,
is thought "an excellent thing in Woman".
Such ill-judged marriages are, as might be expected, barren,
if they do not result in positive Irregularity or in
diminution of sides; but none of these evils have hitherto proved
sufficiently deterrent. 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. And this system of female non-education
or quietism still prevails.
My fear is that, with the best intentions, this policy has been
carried so far as to react injuriously on the Male Sex.
For the consequence is that, as things now are, we Males have to lead
a kind of bi-lingual, and I may almost say bi-mental, existence.
With Women, we speak of "love", "duty", "right", "wrong", "pity",
"hope", and other irrational and emotional conceptions,
which have no existence, and the fiction of which has no object
except to control feminine exuberances; but among ourselves,
and in our books, we have an entirely different vocabulary
and I may almost say, idiom. "Love" then becomes "the anticipation
of benefits"; "duty" becomes "necessity" or "fitness"; and other words
are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover, among Women,
we use language implying the utmost deference for their Sex;
and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more
devoutly adored by us than they are: but behind their backs they are
both regarded and spoken of -- by all except the very young --
as being little better than "mindless organisms".
Our Theology also in the Women's chambers is entirely different from
our Theology elsewhere.
Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well
as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young,
especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken
from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language --
except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of
their Mothers and Nurses -- and to learn the vocabulary and idiom
of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of
mathematical truth at the present time as compared with
the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago.
I say nothing of the possible danger if a Woman should ever
surreptitiously learn to read and convey to her Sex the result
of her perusal of a single popular volume; nor of the possibility
that the indiscretion or disobedience of some infant Male
might reveal to a Mother the secrets of the logical dialect.
On the simple ground of the enfeebling of the Male intellect,
I rest this humble appeal to the highest Authorities to reconsider
the regulations of Female education.
