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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
93
I'm
collecting
notes
upon
persons
supposed
to
have
been
struck
by
lightning.
I
think
that
high
approximation
to
positivism
has
often
been
achieved--instantaneous
translation--residue
of
negativeness
left
behind,
looking
much
like
effects
of
a
stroke
of
lightning.
Some
day
I
shall
tell
the
story
of
the
Marie
Celeste--"properly,"
as
the
Scientific
American
Supplement
would
say--mysterious
disappearance
of
a
sea
captain,
his
family,
and
the
crew--
Of
positivists,
by
the
route
of
Abrupt
Transition,
I
think
that
Manet
was
notable--but
that
his
approximation
was
held
down
by
his
intense
relativity
to
the
public--or
that
it
is
quite
as
impositive
to
flout
and
insult
and
defy
as
it
is
to
crawl
and
placate.
Of
course,
Manet
began
with
continuity
with
Courbet
and
others,
and
then,
between
him
and
Manet
there
were
mutual
influences--but
the
spirit
of
abrupt
difference
is
the
spirit
of
positivism,
and
Manet's
stand
was
against
the
dictum
that
all
lights
and
shades
must
merge
away
suavely
into
one
another
and
prepare
for
one
another.
So
a
biologist
like
De
Vries
represents
positivism,
or
the
breaking
of
Continuity,
by
trying
to
conceive
of
evolution
by
mutation--against
the
dogma
of
indistinguishable
gradations
by
"minute
variations."
A
Copernicus
conceives
of
helio-centricity.
Continuity
is
against
him.
He
is
not
permitted
to
break
abruptly
with
the
past.
He
is
permitted
to
publish
his
work,
but
only
as
"an
interesting
hypothesis."
Continuity--and
that
all
that
we
call
evolution
or
progress
is
attempt
to
break
away
from
it--
That
our
whole
solar
system
was
at
one
time
attempt
by
planets
to
break
away
from
a
parental
nexus
and
set
up
as
individualities,
and,
failing,
move
in
quasi-regular
orbits
that
are
expressions
of
relations
with
the
sun
and
with
one
another,
all
having
surrendered,
being
now
quasi-incorporated
in
a
higher
approximation
to
system:
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