# Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884 explained — Flatland > Chapter companion for Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. ## What happens The Editor introduces the Square's second edition, addressing two objections: an intellectual one about the unrecognized dimension of height in Flatland, and a moral one about the Square's alleged woman-hating and aristocratic tendencies. The Square, now aged and imprisoned, defends his views through the Editor, acknowledging the limitations of perception and the tyranny of dimensional prejudice, while also modifying his personal opinions on women and the lower classes. ## Themes in this chapter ### Perception and Reality The Square argues that Flatlanders cannot perceive height just as Spacelanders cannot perceive a fourth dimension, highlighting how sensory limitations shape our understanding of reality. ### Knowledge and Ignorance The Square's imprisonment for preaching the Third Dimension illustrates the conflict between revealed knowledge and societal ignorance, as well as the difficulty of conveying truths beyond experience. ### Social Hierarchy and Class The Square disavows aristocratic tendencies and notes the Circles' eventual failure due to infecundity, while acknowledging the historical neglect of women and lower classes. ### Faith and Reason The Square can only apprehend height by faith, not by sight or reason, emphasizing the role of belief in accepting truths that lie beyond empirical measurement. ## Character check-ins ### The Narrator (A Square) The Square, now aged and imprisoned, defends his work through the Editor, admitting his own changed views on women and the Isosceles. ### The Sphere The Sphere is referenced as the source of the opinion that Straight Lines are superior to Circles, which the Square now inclines to. ### The Circles The Circles are mentioned as the aristocratic class whose supremacy is maintained by intellectual power but doomed by infecundity. ### The Isosceles The Isosceles are referenced as the lower classes, whose destinies have been neglected by historians, and toward whom the Square has modified his views. ### Chromatistes Chromatistes is not directly mentioned in this preface. ### The Stranger The Stranger is not directly mentioned in this preface. ### Many of the Highest Circles The Chief Circle (High Priest) is mentioned visiting the Square in prison and challenging him to measure 'high-ness'. ## Key lines > It is true that we have really in Flatland a Third unrecognized Dimension called 'height,' just as it is also true that you have really in Spaceland a Fourth unrecognized Dimension, called by no name at present, but which I will call 'extra-height.' The Square admits that Flatlanders possess a third dimension of height, just as Spacelanders possess a fourth dimension, but neither can perceive or measure it. _This defense addresses the intellectual objection about the visibility of thickness in lines._ > 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. The Square acknowledges the Circles' intellectual dominance but argues that history shows revolutions cannot be permanently crushed, and nature's decree of infertility ensures the Circles' eventual downfall. _This passage addresses the moral objection about aristocratic bias and hints at the inevitability of social change._ > One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin. A shared human (or dimensional) nature unites all beings across different worlds. _The Square uses this Spaceland poet's line to emphasize the universal tendency toward dimensional prejudice._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/flatland_se/chapters/preface-to-the-second-and-revised-edition-1884 - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/flatland_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/flatland_se/chapters