The Progress of the Race 



past been erecting cities, not with stones, 

 bricks, and lime, but with some pliable 

 substance painfully secreted by special 

 organs of our body. One day an all- 

 powerful being places us in the midst of 

 a fabulous city. We recognise that it is 

 made of a substance similar to the one 

 that we secrete, but, as regards the rest, it 

 is a dream, whereof what is logical is so 

 distorted, so reduced, and as it were con- 

 centrated, as to be more disconcerting 

 almost than had it been incoherent. Our 

 habitual plan is there ; in fact, we find 

 everything that we had expected ; but all 

 has been put together by some antecedent 

 force that would seem to have crushed it, 

 arrested it in the mould, and to have 

 hindered its completion. The houses 

 whose height must attain some four or 

 five yards are the merest protuberances, 

 that our two hands can cover. Thousands 

 of walls are indicated by signs that hint 

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