The Book of the Damned

The fittest survive. What is meant by the fittest? Not the strongest; not the cleverest-- Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive. There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive. "Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival." Darwinism: That survivors survive. Although Darwinism, then, seems positively baseless, or absolutely irrational, its massing of supposed data, and its attempted coherence approximate more highly to Organization and Consistency than did the inchoate speculations that preceded it. Or that Columbus never proved that the earth is round. Shadow of the earth on the moon? No one has ever seen it in its entirety. The earth's shadow is much larger than the moon. If the periphery of the shadow is curved--but the convex moon--a straight-edged object will cast a curved shadow upon a surface that is convex. All the other so-called proofs may be taken up in the same way. It was impossible for Columbus to prove that the earth is round. It was not required: only that with a higher seeming of positiveness than that of his opponents, he should attempt. The thing to do, in 1492, was nevertheless to accept that beyond Europe, to the west, were other lands. I offer for acceptance, as something concordant with the spirit of this first quarter of the 20th century, the expression that beyond this earth are--other lands--from which come things as, from America, float things to Europe. As to yellow substances that have fallen upon this earth, the endeavor to exclude extra-mundane origins is the dogma that all yellow rains and yellow snows are colored with pollen from this earth's pine trees. Symons' Meteorological Magazine is especially prudish in this respect and regards as highly improper all advances made by other explainers.