r6 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



That, if every observable body is continuous, mediately or im- 

 mediately, with all other bodies, it can not be influenced only by 

 its own inertia, so that there is no way cf knowing what the phe- 

 nomena of inertia may be; that, if all things are reacting to an in- 

 finitude of forces, there is no way of knowing what the effects of 

 only one impressed force would be; that if every reaction is con- 

 tinuous with its action, it can not be conceived of as a whole, and 

 that there is no way of conceiving what it might be equal and 

 opposite to 



Or that Newton's three laws are three articles of faith; 



Or that demons and angels and inertias and reactions are all 

 mythological characters; 



But that, in their eras of dominance, they were almost as firmly 

 believed in as if they had been proved. 



Enormities and preposterousnesses will march. 

 They will be "proved" as well as Moses or Darwin or Lyell ever 

 "proved" anything. 



We substitute acceptance for belief. 



Cells of an embryo take on different appearances in different eras. 



The more firmly established, the more difficult to change. 



That social organism is embryonic. 



That firmly to believe is to impede development. 



That only temporarily to accept is to facilitate. 



But: 



Except that we substitute acceptance for belief, our methods will 

 be the conventional methods; the means by which every belief has 

 been formulated and supported : or our methods will be the method? 

 of theologians and savages and scientists and children. Because, 

 if all phenomena are continuous, there can be no positively different 

 methods. By the inconclusive means and methods of cardinal? and 

 fortune tellers and evolutionists and peasants, methods which must 

 be inconclusive, if they relate always to the local, and if there is 

 nothing local to conclude, we shall write this book. 



If it function as an expression of its era, it will prevail. 



All sciences begin with attempts to define. 

 Nothing ever has been defined. 

 Because there is nothing to define. 



