Yet of this they know nothing. They say that they stand and walk.
For this orb has an attractive force.
Diagram II.—“Two beings walking round.”
By that very same impulse of coming together whereby it gathered its particles out of the dust on the bubble, by that very same force it draws towards its centre all that is near it or on it. Thus “up” is to these inhabitants a movement from the centre of the disk on the rim of which they live and away from it. “Down” is a movement from the rim towards the centre. The thin layer which forms the mass of the disk is their solid matter. They are not able even in thought to rise away from the surface of the bubble, and look from space upon their mode of existence. They ever pass to and fro upon a line, upon a rim; and no two can walk except after one another. If you look at the rude picture you will see that the two beings represented by two triangles cannot pass one another if they are unable to lift themselves up from lying on the surface of the paper. The surface of the paper represents the surface of the bubble, and sliding freely on it, but unable to lift up from it, are tenuous shapes that are the inhabitants, and that thin layer of particles that is to them solid matter.
Diagram III.—A section of the film of the bubble showing a disk BD lying on it, and a creature AB on the rim of the disk. CE is a section of the film, BD is a section of the disk, AB is a section of the creature. The thickness is enormously magnified and also the height AB of the creature compared with the diameter BD of the disk. The attraction which AB feels keeps him to BD; both AB and BD, the being and the disk, slide freely on the film CE without knowing of its existence.
Now were it not for the fact that the orb is reft into these chasms and passages, the only movement that these beings would have would be of passing round and round on the rim of their world.
Many words that we have, to them could bear no meaning. Thus “right and left” is to them unknown. For consider their faces bent in one direction along the rim. In following this direction, they go forward, in retracting from it they go backward. If they go away from the centre they go up, towards the centre is down. And by no means can they turn, raising themselves from the surface whereon they are. They do not even know that they have two sides; their movements, thoughts, and imaginations are all confined to that surface on which they are. This they call their space, their universe; nor does aught that lies beyond it, towards the interior of the bubble or away from it, directed outwards, come into their thoughts, even as an imaginary possibility of existence.
Life is extremely limited on such a world. To take a single instance, in order for two beings to pass each other, a complicated arrangement is necessary, shown in Diagram IV.