temperature above supposed. Permit me for brevity to call such a movement a non-Euclidean displacement.
If a sentient being happens to be in the neighborhood, his impressions will be modified by the displacement of the object, but he can reestablish them by moving in a suitable manner. It suffices if finally the aggregate of the object and the sentient being, considered as forming a single body, has undergone one of those particular displacements I have just called non-Euclidean. This is possible if it be supposed that the limbs of these beings dilate according to the same law as the other bodies of the world they inhabit.
Although from the point of view of our ordinary geometry there is a deformation of the bodies in this displacement and their various parts are no longer in the same relative position, nevertheless we shall see that the impressions of the sentient being have once more become the same.
In fact, though the mutual distances of the various parts may have varied, yet the parts originally in contact are again in contact. Therefore the tactile impressions have not changed.
On the other hand, taking into account the hypothesis made above in regard to the refraction and the curvature of the rays of light, the visual impressions will also have remained the same.
These imaginary beings will therefore like ourselves be led to classify the phenomena they witness and to distinguish among them the 'changes of position' susceptible of correction by a correlative voluntary movement.
If they construct a geometry, it will not