Chapter 22
It was before 1860 that Perrey made his great compilation. We take most of our data from lists compiled long ago. Only the safe and unpainful have been published in recent years--at least in ambitious, voluminous form. The restraining hand of the "System"--as we call it, whether it has any real existence or not--is tight upon the sciences of today. The uncanniest aspect of our quasi-existence that I know of is that everything that seems to have one identity has also as high a seeming of everything else. In this oneness of allness, or continuity, the protecting hand strangles; the parental stifles; love is inseparable from phenomena of hate. There is only Continuity--that is in quasi-existence. _Nature_, at least in its correspondents' columns, still evades this protective strangulation, and the _Monthly Weather Review_ is still a rich field of unfaithful observation: but, in looking over other long-established periodicals, I have noted their glimmers of quasi-individuality fade gradually, after about 1860, and the surrender of their attempted identities to a higher attempted organization. Some of them, expressing Intermediateness-wide endeavor to localize the universal, or to localize self, soul, identity, entity--or positiveness or realness--held out until as far as 1880; traces findable up to 1890--and then, expressing the universal process--except that here and there in the world's history there may have been successful approximations to positiveness by "individuals"--who only then became individuals and attained to selves or souls of their own--surrendered, submitted, became parts of a higher organization's attempt to individualize or systematize into a complete thing, or to localize the universal or the attributes of the universal. After the death of Richard Proctor, whose occasional illiberalities I'd not like to emphasize too much, all succeeding volumes of _Knowledge_ have yielded scarcely an unconventionality. Note the great number of times that the _American Journal of Science_ and the _Report of the British Association_ are quoted: note that, after, say, 1885, they're scarcely mentioned in these inspired but illicit pages--as by hypnosis and inertia, we keep on saying.
About 1880.
Throttle and disregard.
But the coercion could not be positive, and many of the excommunicated continued to creep in; or, even to this day, some of the strangled are faintly breathing.
Some of our data have been hard to find. We could tell stories of great labor and fruitless quests that would, though perhaps imperceptibly, stir the sympathy of a Mr. Symons. But, in this matter of concurrence of earthquakes with aerial phenomena, which are as unassociable with earthquakes, if internally caused, as falls of sand on convulsed small boys full of sour apples, the abundance of so-called evidence is so great that we can only sketchily go over the data, beginning with Robert Mallet's Catalogue (_Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1852), omitting some extraordinary instances, because they occurred before the eighteenth century:
Earthquake "preceded" by a violent tempest, England, Jan. 8, 1704--"preceded" by a brilliant meteor, Switzerland, Nov. 4, 1704--"luminous cloud, moving at high velocity, disappearing behind the horizon," Florence, Dec. 9, 1731--"thick mists in the air, through which a dim light was seen: several weeks before the shock, globes of light had been seen in the air," Swabia, May 22, 1732--rain of earth, Carpentras, France, Oct. 18, 1737--a black cloud, London, March 19, 1750--violent storm and a strange star of octagonal shape, Slavange, Norway, April 15, 1752--balls of fire from a streak in the sky, Augermannland, 1752--numerous meteorites, Lisbon, Oct. 15, 1755--"terrible tempests" over and over--"falls of hail" and "brilliant meteors," instance after instance--"an immense globe," Switzerland, Nov. 2, 1761--oblong, sulphurous cloud, Germany, April, 1767--extraordinary mass of vapor, Boulogne, April, 1780--heavens obscured by a dark mist, Grenada, Aug. 7, 1804--"strange, howling noises in the air, and large spots obscuring the sun," Palermo, Italy, April 16, 1817--"luminous meteor moving in the same direction as the shock," Naples, Nov. 22, 1821--fire ball appearing in the sky: apparent size of the moon, Thuringerwald, Nov. 29, 1831.
And, unless you be polarized by the New Dominant, which is calling for recognition of multiplicities of external things, as a Dominant, dawning new over Europe in 1492, called for recognition of terrestrial externality to Europe--unless you have this contact with the new, you have no affinity for these data--beans that drop from a magnet--irreconcilables that glide from the mind of a Thomson--
Or my own acceptance that we do not really think at all; that we correlate around super-magnets that I call Dominants--a Spiritual Dominant in one age, and responsively to it up spring monasteries, and the stake and the cross are its symbols: a Materialist Dominant, and up spring laboratories, and microscopes and telescopes and crucibles are its ikons--that we're nothing but iron filings relatively to a succession of magnets that displace preceding magnets.
With no soul of your own, and with no soul of my own--except that some day some of us may no longer be Intermediatisms, but may hold out against the cosmos that once upon a time thousands of fishes were cast from one pail of water--we have psycho-valency for these data, if we're obedient slaves to the New Dominant, and repulsion to them, if we're mere correlates to the Old Dominant. I'm a soulless and selfless correlate to the New Dominant, myself: I see what I have to see. The only inducement I can hold out, in my attempt to rake up disciples, is that some day the New will be fashionable: the new correlates will sneer at the old correlates. After all, there is some inducement to that--and I'm not altogether sure it's desirable to end up as a fixed star.
As a correlate to the New Dominant, I am very much impressed with some of these data--the luminous object that moved in the same direction as an earthquake--it seems very acceptable that a quake followed this thing as it passed near this earth's surface. The streak that was seen in the sky--or only a streak that was visible of another world--and objects, or meteorites, that were shaken down from it. The quake at Carpentras, France: and that, above Carpentras, was a smaller world, more violently quaked, so that earth was shaken down from it.
But I like best the super-wolves that were seen to cross the sun during the earthquake at Palermo.
They howled.
Or the loves of the worlds. The call they feel for one another. They try to move closer and howl when they get there.
The howls of the planets.
I have discovered a new unintelligibility.
In the _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_--have to go away back to 1841--days of less efficient strangulation--Sir David Milne lists phenomena of quakes in Great Britain. I pick out a few that indicate to me that other worlds were near this earth's surface:
Violent storm before a shock of 1703--ball of fire "preceding," 1750--a large ball of fire seen upon day following a quake, 1755--"uncommon phenomenon in the air: a large luminous body, bent like a crescent, which stretched itself over the heavens, 1816--vast ball of fire, 1750--black rains and black snows, 1755--numerous instances of upward projection--or upward attraction?--during quakes--preceded by a cloud, very black and lowering," 1795--fall of black powder, preceding a quake, by six hours, 1837.
Some of these instances seem to me to be very striking--a smaller world: it is greatly racked by the attraction of this earth--black substance is torn down from it--not until six hours later, after an approach still closer, does this earth suffer perturbation. As to the extraordinary spectacle of a thing, world, super-construction, that was seen in the sky, in 1816, I have not yet been able to find out more. I think that here our acceptance is relatively sound: that this occurrence was tremendously of more importance than such occurrence as, say, transits of Venus, upon which hundreds of papers have been written--that not another mention have I found, though I have not looked so especially as I shall look for more data--that all but undetailed record of this occurrence was suppressed.
Altogether we have considerable agreement here between data of vast masses that do not fall to this earth, but from which substances fall, and data of fields of ice from which ice may not fall, but from which water may drip. I'm beginning to modify: that, at a distance from this earth, gravitation has more effect than we have supposed, though less effect than the dogmatists suppose and "prove." I'm coming out stronger for the acceptance of a Neutral Zone--that this earth, like other magnets, has a neutral zone, in which is the Super-Sargasso Sea, and in which other worlds may be buoyed up, though projecting parts may be subject to this earth's attraction--
But my preference:
Here are the data.
I now have one of the most interesting of the new correlates. I think I should have brought it in before, but, whether out of place here, because not accompanied by earthquake, or not, we'll have it. I offer it as an instance of an eclipse, by a vast, dark body, that has been seen and reported by an astronomer. The astronomer is M. Lias: the phenomenon was seen by him, at Pernambuco, April 11, 1860.
_Comptes Rendus_, 50-1197:
It was about noon--sky cloudless--suddenly the light of the sun was diminished. The darkness increased, and, to illustrate its intensity, we are told that the planet Venus shone brilliant. But Venus was of low visibility at this time. The observation that burns incense to the New Dominant is:
That around the sun appeared a corona.
There are many other instances that indicate proximity of other world's during earthquakes. I note a few--quake and an object in the sky, called "a large, luminous meteor" (_Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst._, 5-132); luminous body in the sky, earthquake, and fall of sand, Italy, Feb. 12 and 13, 1870 (_La Science Pour Tous_, 15-159); many reports upon luminous object in the sky and earthquake, Connecticut, Feb. 27, 1883 (_Monthly Weather Review_, February, 1883); luminous object, or meteor, in the sky, fall of stones from the sky, and earthquake, Italy, Jan. 20, 1891 (_L'Astronomie_, 1891-154); earthquake and prodigious number of luminous bodies, or globes, in the air, Boulogne, France, June 7, 1779 (Sestier, "_La Foudre_," 1-169); earthquake at Manila, 1863, and "curious luminous appearance in the sky" (Ponton, _Earthquakes_, p. 124).
The most notable appearance of fishes during an earthquake is that of Riobamba. Humboldt sketched one of them, and it's an uncanny-looking thing. Thousands of them appeared upon the ground during this tremendous earthquake. Humboldt says that they were cast up from subterranean sources. I think not myself, and have data for thinking not, but there'd be such a row arguing back and forth that it's simpler to consider a clearer instance of the fall of living fishes from the sky, during an earthquake. I can't quite accept, myself, whether a large lake, and all the fishes in it, was torn down from some other world, or a lake in the Super-Sargasso Sea, distracted between two pulling worlds, was dragged down to this earth--
Here are the data:
_La Science Pour Tous_, 6-191:
Feb. 16, 1861. An earthquake at Singapore. Then came an extraordinary downpour of rain--or as much water as any good-sized lake would consist of. For three days this rain or this fall of water came down in torrents. In pools on the ground, formed by this deluge, great numbers of fishes were found. The writer says that he had, himself, seen nothing but water fall from the sky. Whether I'm emphasizing what a deluge it was or not, he says that so terrific had been the downpour that he had not been able to see three steps away from him. The natives said that the fishes had fallen from the sky. Three days later the pools dried up and many dead fishes were found, but, in the first place--though that's an expression for which we have an instinctive dislike--the fishes had been active and uninjured. Then follows material for another of our little studies in the phenomena of disregard. A psycho-tropism here is mechanically to take pen in hand and mechanically write that fishes found on the ground after a heavy rainfall came from overflowing streams. The writer of the account says that some of the fishes had been found in his courtyard, which was surrounded by high walls--paying no attention to this, a correspondent (_La Science Pour Tous_, 6-317) explains that in the heavy rain a body of water had probably overflowed, carrying fishes with it. We are told by the first writer that these fishes of Singapore were of a species that was very abundant near Singapore. So I think, myself, that a whole lakeful of them had been shaken down from the Super-Sargasso Sea, under the circumstances we have thought of. However, if appearance of strange fishes after an earthquake be more pleasing in the sight, or to the nostrils, of the New Dominant, we faithfully and piously supply that incense--An account of the occurrence at Singapore was read by M. de Castelnau, before the French Academy. M. de Castelnau recalled that, upon a former occasion, he had submitted to the Academy the circumstance that fishes of a new species had appeared at the Cape of Good Hope, after an earthquake.
It seems proper, and it will give luster to the new orthodoxy, now to have an instance in which, not merely quake and fall of rocks or meteorites, or quake and either eclipse or luminous appearances in the sky have occurred, but in which are combined all the phenomena, one or more of which, when accompanying earthquake, indicate, in our acceptance, the proximity of another world. This time a longer duration is indicated than in other instances.
In the _Canadian Institute Proceedings_, 2-7-198, there is an account, by the Deputy Commissioner at Dhurmsalla, of the extraordinary Dhurmsalla meteorite--coated with ice. But the combination of events related by him is still more extraordinary:
That within a few months of the fall of this meteorite there had been a fall of live fishes at Benares, a shower of red substance at Furruckabad, a dark spot observed on the disk of the sun, an earthquake, "an unnatural darkness of some duration," and a luminous appearance in the sky that looked like an aurora borealis--
But there's more to this climax:
We are introduced to a new order of phenomena:
Visitors.
The Deputy Commissioner writes that, in the evening, after the fall of the Dhurmsalla meteorite, or mass of stone covered with ice, he saw lights. Some of them were not very high. They appeared and went out and reappeared. I have read many accounts of the Dhurmsalla meteorite--July 28, 1860--but never in any other of them a mention of this new correlate--something as out of place in the nineteenth century as would have been an aeroplane--the invention of which would not, in our acceptance, have been permitted, in the nineteenth century, though adumbrations to it were permitted. This writer says that the lights moved like fire balloons, but:
"I am sure that they were neither fire balloons, lanterns, nor bonfires, or any other thing of that sort, but bona fide lights in the heavens."
It's a subject for which we shall have to have a separate expression--trespassers upon territory to which something else has a legal right--perhaps someone lost a rock, and he and his friends came down looking for it, in the evening--or secret agents, or emissaries, who had an appointment with certain esoteric ones near Dhurmsalla--things or beings coming down to explore, and unable to stay down long--
In a way, another strange occurrence during an earthquake is suggested. The ancient Chinese tradition--the marks like hoof marks in the ground. We have thought--with a low degree of acceptance--of another world that may be in secret communication with certain esoteric ones of this earth's inhabitants--and of messages in symbols like hoof marks that are sent to some receptor, or special hill, upon this earth--and of messages that at times miscarry.
This other world comes close to this world--there are quakes--but advantage of proximity is taken to send a message--the message, designed for a receptor in India, perhaps, or in Central Europe, miscarries all the way to England--marks like the marks of the Chinese tradition are found upon a beach, in Cornwall, after an earthquake--
_Phil. Trans._, 50-500:
After the quake of July 15, 1757, upon the sands of Penzance, Cornwall, in an area of more than 100 square yards, were found marks like hoof prints, except that they were not crescentic. We feel a similarity, but note an arbitrary disregard of our own, this time. It seems to us that marks described as "little cones surrounded by basins of equal diameter" would be like hoof prints, if hoofs printed complete circles. Other disregards are that there were black specks on the tops of cones, as if something, perhaps gaseous, had issued from them; that from one of these formations came a gush of water as thick as a man's wrist. Of course the opening of springs is common in earthquakes--but we suspect, myself, that the Negative Absolute is compelling us to put in this datum and its disorders.
There's another matter in which the Negative Absolute seems to work against us. Though to super-chemistry, we have introduced the principle of celestio-metathesis, we have no good data of exchange of substances during proximities. The data are all of falls and not of upward translations. Of course upward impulses are common during earthquakes, but I haven't a datum upon a tree or a fish or a brick or a man that ever did go up and stay up and that never did come down again. Our classic of the horse and barn occurred in what was called a whirlwind.
It is said that, in an earthquake in Calabria, paving stones shot up far in the air.
The writer doesn't specifically say that they came down again, but something seems to tell me they did.
The corpses of Riobamba.
Humboldt reported that, in the quake of Riobamba, "bodies were torn upward from graves"; that "the vertical motion was so strong that bodies were tossed several hundred feet in the air."
I explain.
I explain that, if in the center of greatest violence of an earthquake, anything ever has gone up, and has kept on going up, the thoughts of the nearest observers were very likely upon other subjects.
The quay of Lisbon.
We are told that it went down.
A vast throng of persons ran to the quay for refuge. The city of Lisbon was in profound darkness. The quay and all the people on it disappeared. If it and they went down--not a single corpse, not a shred of clothing, not a plank of the quay, nor so much as a splinter of it ever floated to the surface.
18
The New Dominant.
I mean "primarily" all that opposes Exclusionism--
That Development or Progress or Evolution is Attempt to Positivize, and is a mechanism by which a positive existence is recruited--that what we call existence is a womb of infinitude, and is itself only incubatory--that eventually all attempts are broken down by the falsely excluded. Subjectively, the breaking down is aided by our own sense of false and narrow limitations. So the classic and academic artists wrought positivist paintings, and expressed the only ideal that I am conscious of, though we so often hear of "ideals" instead of different manifestations, artistically, scientifically, theologically, politically, of the One Ideal. They sought to satisfy, in its artistic aspect, cosmic craving for unity or completeness, sometimes called harmony, called beauty in some aspects. By disregard they sought completeness. But the light-effects that they disregarded, and their narrow confinement to standardized subjects brought on the revolt of the Impressionists. So the Puritans tried to systematize, and they disregarded physical needs, or vices, or relaxations: they were invaded and overthrown when their narrowness became obvious and intolerable. All things strive for positiveness, for themselves, or for quasi-systems of which they are parts. Formality and the mathematic, the regular and the uniform are aspects of the positive state--but the Positive is the Universal--so all attempted positiveness that seems to satisfy in the aspects of formality and regularity, sooner or later disqualifies in the aspect of wideness or universalness. So there is revolt against the science of today, because the formulated utterances that were regarded as final truths in a past generation, are now seen to be insufficiencies. Every pronouncement that has opposed our own acceptances has been found to be a composition like any academic painting: something that is arbitrarily cut off from relations with environment, or framed off from interfering and disturbing data, or outlined with disregards. Our own attempt has been to take in the included, but also to take in the excluded into wider expressions. We accept, however, that for every one of our expressions there are irreconcilables somewhere--that final utterance would include all things. However, of such is the gossip of angels. The final is unutterable in quasi-existence, where to think is to include but also to exclude, or be not final. If we admit that for every opinion we have expressed, there must somewhere be an irreconcilable, we are Intermediatists and not positivists; not even higher positivists. Of course it may be that some day we shall systematize and dogmatize and refuse to think of anything that we may be accused of disregarding, and believe instead of merely accepting: then, if we could have a wider system, which would acknowledge no irreconcilables we'd be higher positivists. So long as we only accept, we are not higher positivists, but our feeling is that the New Dominant, even though we have thought of it only as another enslavement, will be the nucleus for higher positivism--and that it will be the means of elevating into infinitude a new batch of fixed stars--until, as a recruiting instrument, it, too, will play out, and will give way to some new medium for generating absoluteness. It is our acceptance that all astronomers of today have lost their souls, or, rather, all chance of attaining Entity, but that Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo and Newton, and, conceivably, Leverrier are now fixed stars. Some day I shall attempt to identify them. In all this, I think we're quite a Moses. We point out the Promised Land, but, unless we be cured of our Intermediatism, will never be reported in _Monthly Notices_, ourself.