after a long series of military successes, or diligent
and skillful labours, it is generally found that the more intelligent
among the Artisan and Soldier classes manifest a slight increase of
their third side or base, and a shrinkage of the two other sides.
Intermarriages (arranged by the Priests) between the sons and daughters
of these more intellectual members of the lower classes generally
result in an offspring approximating still more to the type of the
Equal-Sided Triangle.

Rarely--in proportion to the vast numbers of Isosceles births--is a
genuine and certifiable Equal-Sided Triangle produced from Isosceles
parents (footnote 1). Such a birth requires, as its antecedents, not
only a series of carefully arranged intermarriages, but also a
long-continued exercise of frugality and self-control on the part of
the would-be ancestors of the coming Equilateral, and a patient,
systematic, and continuous development of the Isosceles intellect
through many generations.

The birth of a True Equilateral Triangle from Isosceles parents is the
subject of rejoicing in our country for many furlongs round. After a
strict examination conducted by the Sanitary and Social Board, the
infant, if certified as Regular, is with solemn ceremonial admitted
into the class of Equilaterals. He is then immediately taken from his
proud yet sorrowing parents and adopted by some childless Equilateral,
who is bound by oath never to permit the child henceforth to enter his
former home or so much as to look upon his relations again, for fear
lest the freshly developed organism may, by force of unconscious
imitation, fall back again into his hereditary level.

The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his
serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves,
as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their
existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher
classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little
or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as almost useful
barrier against revolution from below.

Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely
destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in
some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their
superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the
Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that in proportion