Touch and bodily proof

Use in the book

The King of Lineland rejects touching as illegal, coarse and unnecessary. Contact could shatter a Point-Woman, and the law therefore prohibits the removal of the interval between any two inhabitants. The Square's suggestion that neighbours feel one another is deliberately provocative and, by his own admission, would not solve the proposed difficulty. Familiar bodily practices cannot simply be exported to a world whose dimensions alter their effects.

In the sitting-room, however, the Wife's demand to feel the stranger yields useful information. Her tactile introduction2345 establishes the absence of angles and corrects her first supposition that a Woman has entered. The Square later repeats the procedure because dry indoor conditions make Sight Recognition unreliable. His shame at touching someone apparently of Circular rank demonstrates how etiquette can discourage an effective means of inquiry.

The Sphere transforms this ordinary contact into an alarming new possibility. He reaches the Square's stomach without crossing the outline that the Square understands as his bodily boundary. Announcing that slight pain will be outweighed by mental benefit, he proceeds before the pupil can remonstrate. The proof is real within the encounter, but its result is terror and renewed attack. More intimate evidence does not necessarily persuade better, particularly when it arrives as a violation.

In Spaceland, touch becomes constructive rather than coercive. The Cube's visual appearance at first resembles an irregular plane figure. Handling it helps the Square learn that it has six plane faces and eight solid angles. The Sphere also lets himself be felt during the subsequent instruction in light, shade and perspective. Sensory cooperation, not simply one superior sense replacing another, produces understanding.

This pattern complicates the hierarchy of Part I. The method associated with women and lower classes becomes indispensable to the geometer's highest discovery, while the supposedly commanding visual faculty repeatedly misleads him when deprived of training. Yet the novel does not romanticize touch as infallible: feeling the Sphere's section correctly establishes a Circle within the plane without disclosing the whole Sphere. Every method has a range, and the ethics of using it upon another person remains a separate question.

Places to read

1. §14234“illegal and unnatural excess of approximation” — Lineland condemns bodily contact
2. §152“Feeling is believing” — The Wife asserts her preferred method of verification
3. §162345“My Wife was right” — The Square confirms her tactile finding
4. §172“Before I could utter a word of remonstrance” — The internal touch precedes possible objection
5. §192345“as you shall learn by the sense of Feeling” — Touch is necessary to recognize a Solid

In this edition

The notes explain both Flatland's etiquette and the geometry of the internal touch. Their historical discussion of coercive language illuminates the Sphere's justification but does not make the inflicted pain a neutral or automatically successful educational technique.

Approximation

An approach towards another body. In the King's legal explanation, approaching so closely that no interval remains becomes a dangerous, punishable act of contact. Printed form: approximation (§ 14234). See Touch and bodily proof.

Arbitrary visitations

Intrusions dependent on another's unrestricted will. The Square fears repeated attacks upon his interior, making resistance a response to vulnerability as well as unbelief. Printed form: arbitrary visitations (§ 172). See Touch and bodily proof.

Demoniacal

Resembling or attributed to a demon. The laugh apparently arising inside the Square turns a geometrical intervention into the experience of bodily possession and terror. Printed form: demoniacal (§ 172). See Touch and bodily proof.

Feeling is believing

The Wife's maxim that touch establishes what sight may misjudge. Her examination correctly finds no angles, although feeling the section cannot yet disclose the whole Sphere. Printed form: Feeling is believing (§ 152). See Touch and bodily proof.

Remonstrance

An objection or protest. The visitor touches the Square's interior before he can remonstrate, so an announced educational benefit is imposed rather than accepted. Printed form: remonstrance (§ 172). See Touch and bodily proof.

Deeds, and not words, shall proclaim the truth (contextual phrase)

§172. “Deeds, and not words, shall proclaim the truth.”

The declaration promises an escape from verbal misunderstanding. The Sphere will remove a tablet from a locked cupboard and then reach the Square's bodily interior. These deeds certainly disturb the pupil's account of what is possible, but they do not immediately establish the visitor's explanation. Instead they produce fear of a magician and another attack. The contrast between words and deeds therefore fails to settle the deeper problem: an event has to be interpreted, and several interpretations may initially seem possible to someone lacking a new spatial concept. The maxim also conceals an ethical escalation. A demonstration using a household object becomes an invasion of the pupil's body before he can object.

See also. Evidence and demonstration · Touch and bodily proof