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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
170
My
notion
of
astronomic
accuracy:
Who
could
not
be
a
prize
marksman,
if
only
his
hits
be
recorded?
As
to
Halley's
comet,
of
1910--everybody
now
swears
he
saw
it.
He
has
to
perjure
himself:
otherwise
he'd
be
accused
of
having
no
interest
in
great,
inspiring
things
that
he's
never
given
any
attention
to.
Regard
this:
That
there
never
is
a
moment
when
there
is
not
some
comet
in
the
sky.
Virtually
there
is
no
year
in
which
several
new
comets
are
not
discovered,
so
plentiful
are
they.
Luminous
fleas
on
a
vast
black
dog--in
popular
impressions,
there
is
no
realization
of
the
extent
to
which
this
solar
system
is
flea-bitten.
If
a
comet
have
not
the
orbit
that
astronomers
have
predicted--perturbed.
If--like
Halley's
comet--it
be
late--even
a
year
late--perturbed.
When
a
train
is
an
hour
late,
we
have
small
opinion
of
the
predictions
of
timetables.
When
a
comet's
a
year
late,
all
we
ask
is--that
it
be
explained.
We
hear
of
the
inflation
and
arrogance
of
astronomers.
My
own
acceptance
is
not
that
they
are
imposing
upon
us:
that
they
are
requiting
us.
For
many
of
us
priests
no
longer
function
to
give
us
seeming
rapport
with
Perfection,
Infallibility--the
Positive
Absolute.
Astronomers
have
stepped
forward
to
fill
a
vacancy--with
quasi-phantomosity--but,
in
our
acceptance,
with
a
higher
approximation
to
substantiality
than
had
the
attenuations
that
preceded
them.
I
should
say,
myself,
that
all
that
we
call
progress
is
not
so
much
response
to
"urge"
as
it
is
response
to
a
hiatus--or
if
you
want
something
to
grow
somewhere,
dig
out
everything
else
in
its
area.
So
I
have
to
accept
that
the
positive
assurances
of
astronomers
are
necessary
to
us,
or
the
blunderings,
evasions
and
disguises
of
astronomers
would
never
be
tolerated:
that,
given
such
latitude
as
they
are
permitted
to
take,
they
could
not
be
very
disastrously
mistaken.
Suppose
the
comet
called
Halley's
had
not
appeared--
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