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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
263
Sense
of
homogeneity,
or
our
positivist
illusion
of
the
unknown--and
the
fate
of
all
positivism.
Astronomy
and
the
academic.
Ethics
and
the
abstract.
The
universal
attempt
to
formulate
or
to
regularize--an
attempt
that
can
be
made
only
by
disregarding
or
denying.
Or
all
things
disregard
or
deny
that
which
will
eventually
invade
and
destroy
them--
Until
comes
the
day
when
some
one
thing
shall
say,
and
enforce
upon
Infinitude:
"Thus
far
shalt
thou
go:
here
is
absolute
demarcation."
The
final
utterance:
"There
is
only
I."
In
the
Monthly
Notices
of
the
R.A.S.,
11-48,
there
is
a
letter
from
the
Rev.
W.
Read:
That,
upon
the
4th
of
September,
1851,
at
9:30
A.M.,
he
had
seen
a
host
of
self-luminous
bodies,
passing
the
field
of
his
telescope,
some
slowly
and
some
rapidly.
They
appeared
to
occupy
a
zone
several
degrees
in
breadth.
The
direction
of
most
of
them
was
due
east
to
west,
but
some
moved
from
north
to
south.
The
numbers
were
tremendous.
They
were
observed
for
six
hours.
Editor's
note:
"May
not
these
appearances
be
attributed
to
an
abnormal
state
of
the
optic
nerves
of
the
observer?"
In
Monthly
Notices,
12-38,
Mr.
Read
answers
that
he
had
been
a
diligent
observer,
with
instruments
of
a
superior
order,
for
about
28
years--"but
I
have
never
witnessed
such
an
appearance
before."
As
to
illusion
he
says
that
two
other
members
of
his
family
had
seen
the
objects.
The
Editor
withdraws
his
suggestion.
We
know
what
to
expect.
Almost
absolutely--in
an
existence
that
is
essentially
Hibernian--we
can
predict
the
past--that
is,
look
over
something
of
this
kind,
written
in
1851,
and
know
what
to
expect
from
the
Exclusionists
later.
If
Mr.
Read
saw
a
migration
of
dissatisfied
angels,
numbering
millions,
they
must
merge
away,
at
least
subjectively,
with
commonplace
terrestrial
phenomena--of
course
disregarding
Mr.
Read's
probable
familiarity,
of
28
years'
duration,
with
the
commonplaces
of
terrestrial
phenomena.
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