What I’m reading

Somebody famous—one of the most influential authors of the 20th Century, in fact—being reprinted via Distributed Proofreaders. The page I just read:

…lished, inhabitants of a host of other worlds have—dropped here, hopped here, wafted, sailed, flown, motored—walked here, for all I know—been pulled here, been pushed; have come singly, have come in enormous numbers; have visited occasionally, have visited periodically for hunting, trading, replenishing harems, mining: have been unable to stay here, have established colonies here, have been lost here; far-advanced peoples, or things, and primitive peoples or whatever they were: white ones, black ones, yellow ones—

I have a very convincing datum that the ancient Britons were blue ones.

Of course we are told by conventional anthropologists that they only painted themselves blue, but in our own advanced anthropology, they were veritable blue ones—

Annals of Philosophy, 14-51:

Note of a blue child born in England.

That’s atavism.

Giants and fairies. We accept them, of course. Or, if we pride ourselves upon being awfully far-advanced, I don’t know how to sustain our conceit except by very largely going far back. Science of today—the superstition of tomorrow. Science of tomorrow—the superstition of today.

Notice of a stone ax, 17 inches long: 9 inches across broad end. (Proc. Soc. of Ants. of Scotland, I-9-184.)

Amer. Antiquarian, 18-60:

Copper ax from an Ohio mound: 22 inches long; weight 38 pounds.

Amer. Anthropologist, n.s., 8-229:

Stone ax found at Birchwood, Wisconsin—exhibited in the collection of the Missouri Historical Society—found with “the pointed end embedded in the soil”—for all I know, may have dropped there—28 inches long, 14 wide, 11 thick—weight 300 pounds.

Or the footprints, in sandstone, near Carson, Nevada—each print 18 to 20 inches long. (Amer. Jour. Sci., 3-26-139.)

These footprints are very clear and well-defined: reproduction of them in the Journal–but they assimilate with the System, like sour apples to other systems: so Prof. Marsh, a loyal and unscrupulous systematist, argues: …

“Science of today—the superstition of tomorrow. Science of tomorrow—the superstition of today.” Whether one is a skeptic or gullible fool, that cynical appraisal seems valid. Here’s to you, Charlie.