But I must not allow questions of School Board politics to divert me from my subject. Enough has been said, I trust, to show that Recognition by Feeling is not so tedious or indecisive a process as might have been supposed; and it is obviously more trustworthy than Recognition by hearing. Still there remains, as has been pointed out above, the objection that this method is not without danger. For this reason many in the middle and lower classes, and all without exception in the Polygonal and Circular orders, prefer a third method, the description of which shall be reserved for the next section.

Of Recognition by Sight

I am about to appear very inconsistent. In previous sections I have said that all Figures in Flatland present the appearance of a straight line; and it was added or implied, that it is consequently impossible to distinguish by the visual organ between individuals of different classes: yet now I am about to explain to my Spaceland critics how we are able to recognize one another by the sense of sight.

If however the reader will take the trouble to refer to the passage in which Recognition by Feeling is stated to be universal, he will find this qualification⁠—“among the lower classes.” It is only among the higher classes and in our temperate climates that Sight Recognition is practised.