. . . and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept, “Upward, not Northward,” haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. -Abbott
Abbott’s novel premiered in the England of the 1880s, an unsuitably proper Victorian atmosphere but perfect for his didactic approach. But does the novel merely offer a “romantic fantasy” of an alternate world, teach geometry, promote women’s rights, or mock the pettiness of society--or does it also allude to theological ascent?
Since Abbott spent much of his life defending Christianity against irrationality and superstition, the clues may be altogether too clear. . . . One particular battle in the 1840s revolved around the Catholic Church’s call to “credulity,” a faith-based (and therefore not scientific) acceptance of the improvable and unlikely. For Abbott, like his idol Francis Bacon, all knowledge comes from logic and personal experience, whether it’s physical or spiritual. Abbott argued that if the supernatural were to impose itself on the natural world, it could only do so without violating natural laws. Credulity must be replaced with credibility.
Why does our universe have three physical dimensions instead of two or four? Does it exist this way because it must; that is, do the laws produce their own universe or is there a universe that demands certain laws? Are we mathematically limited to three dimensions or is this by Design? How might we perceive an encounter from One who dwells in a universe with more dimensions?
Too, we can look at the novel as a witty attack against Victorian society. Women, though compelled to wiggle their posteriors and emit small cries of warning where they walk, are ironically capable of “piercing” men and causing great damage or death. The circular priests and sages of Flatland protect their social status politically, spurning the concepts of “sides” even while ensuring the practice of determining how many sides every citizen has by putting down the Chromatic Sedition.
However you choose to read the novel this first time, it endures because it is eminently re-readable; Flatland can be revisited and re-argued as can “the infinite beatitude of existence.”