world which is neither flat, nor straight, nor uniform.

     Now Dantzig is quite wrong in supposing that Euclidean 
space, linear, flat, straight, uniform, is rooted in our minds at 
all. Such space is a product of literacy and is unknown to pre-
literate or archaic man. We have seen earlier that Mircea Eliade 
has recently devoted a volume to this theme (The Sacred and  
the Profane ), showing how the Western notions of space and 
time as continuous and homogeneous are quite absent from 
the lives of archaic man. They are equally absent from Chinese 
culture. Pre-literate man conceives always of uniquely 
structured spaces and times in the manner of mathematical 
physics.

     The invaluable demonstration of Dantzig is that in order 
to protect our vested interest in Euclidean space (i.e., literacy)