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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
155
The
only
seemingly
conclusive
utterance,
or
seemingly
substantial
thing
to
cling
to,
is
a
product
of
dishonesty,
ignorance,
or
fatigue.
All
sciences
go
back
and
back,
until
they're
worn
out
with
the
process,
or
until
mechanical
reaction
occurs:
then
they
move
forward--as
it
were.
Then
they
become
dogmatic,
and
take
for
bases,
positions
that
were
only
points
of
exhaustion.
So
chemistry
divided
and
sub-divided
down
to
atoms;
then,
in
the
essential
insecurity
of
all
quasi-constructions,
it
built
up
a
system,
which,
to
anyone
so
obsessed
by
his
own
hypnoses
that
he
is
exempt
to
the
chemist's
hypnoses,
is
perceptibly
enough
an
intellectual
anaemia
built
upon
infinitesimal
debilities.
In
Science,
n.s.,
31-298,
E.D.
Hovey,
of
the
American
Museum
of
Natural
History,
asserts
or
confesses
that
often
have
objects
of
material
such
as
fossiliferous
limestone
and
slag
been
sent
to
him
He
says
that
these
things
have
been
accompanied
by
assurances
that
they
have
been
seen
to
fall
on
lawns,
on
roads,
in
front
of
houses.
They
are
all
excluded.
They
are
not
of
true
meteoritic
material.
They
were
on
the
ground
in
the
first
place.
It
is
only
by
coincidence
that
lightning
has
struck,
or
that
a
real
meteorite,
which
was
unfindable,
has
struck
near
objects
of
slag
and
limestone.
Mr.
Hovey
says
that
the
list
might
be
extended
indefinitely.
That's
a
tantalizing
suggestion
of
some
very
interesting
stuff--
He
says:
"But
it
is
not
worth
while."
I'd
like
to
know
what
strange,
damned,
excommunicated
things
have
been
sent
to
museums
by
persons
who
have
felt
convinced
that
they
had
seen
what
they
may
have
seen,
strongly
enough
to
risk
ridicule,
to
make
up
bundles,
go
to
express
offices,
and
write
letters.
I
accept
that
over
the
door
of
every
museum,
into
which
such
things
enter,
is
written:
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
