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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
167
If
the
Law
of
Gravitation
could
be
stated
as
a
real
utterance,
it
might
be
a
real
resistance
to
us.
But
we
are
told
only
that
gravitation
is
gravitation.
Of
course
to
an
intermediatist,
nothing
can
be
defined
except
in
terms
of
itself--but
even
the
orthodox,
in
what
seems
to
me
to
be
the
innate
premonitions
of
realness,
not
founded
upon
experience,
agree
that
to
define
a
thing
in
terms
of
itself
is
not
real
definition.
It
is
said
that
by
gravitation
is
meant
the
attraction
of
all
things
proportionately
to
mass
and
inversely
as
the
square
of
the
distance.
Mass
would
mean
inter-attraction
holding
together
final
particles,
if
there
were
final
particles.
Then,
until
final
particles
be
discovered,
only
one
term
of
this
expression
survives,
or
mass
is
attraction.
But
distance
is
only
extent
of
mass,
unless
one
holds
out
for
absolute
vacuum
among
planets,
a
position
against
which
we
could
bring
a
host
of
data.
But
there
is
no
possible
means
of
expressing
that
gravitation
is
anything
other
than
attraction.
So
there
is
nothing
to
resist
us
but
such
a
phantom
as--that
gravitation
is
the
gravitation
of
all
gravitations
proportionately
to
gravitation
and
inversely
as
the
square
of
gravitation.
In
a
quasi-existence,
nothing
more
sensible
than
this
can
be
said
upon
any
so-called
subject--perhaps
there
are
higher
approximations
to
ultimate
sensibleness.
Nevertheless
we
seem
to
have
a
feeling
that
with
the
System
against
us
we
have
a
kind
of
resistance
here.
We'd
have
felt
so
formerly,
at
any
rate:
I
think
the
Dr.
Grays
and
Prof.
Hitchcocks
have
modified
our
trustfulness
toward
indistinguishability.
As
to
the
perfection
of
this
System
that
quasi-opposes
us
and
the
infallibility
of
its
mathematics--as
if
there
could
be
real
mathematics
in
a
mode
of
seeming
where
twice
two
are
not
four--we've
been
told
over
and
over
of
their
vindication
in
the
discovery
of
Neptune.
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