BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



Our especial interest is in modem science as a manifestation of 

 this one ideal or purpose or process: 



That it has falsely excluded, because there are no positive stand- 

 ards to judge by : that it has excluded things that, by its own pseudo- 

 standards, have as much right to come in as have the chosen. 



s s > 



Our general expression: 



That the state that is commonly and absurdly called "existence," 

 is a flow, or a current, or an attempt, from negativeness to positive- 

 ness, and is intermediate to both. 



By positiveness we mean: 



Harmony, equilibrium, order, regularity, stability, consistency, 

 unity, realness, system, government, organization, liberty, independ- 

 ence, soul, self, personality, entity, individuality, truth, beauty, jus- 

 tice, perfection, definiteness 



That all that is called development, progress, or evolution is move- 

 ment toward, or attempt toward, this state for which, or for aspects 

 of which, there are so many names, all of which are summed up in 

 the one word "positiveness." 



At first this summing up may not be very readily acceptable. 

 At first it may seem that all these words are not synonyms: that 

 "harmony" may mean "order," but that by "independence," for in- 

 stance, we do not mean "truth," or that by "stability" we do not 

 mean "beauty," or "system," or "justice." 



I conceive of one inter-continuous nexus, which expresses itself 

 in astronomic phenomena, and chemic, biologic, psychic, sociologic: 

 that it is everywhere striving to localize positiveness: that to this 

 attempt in various fields of phenomena which are only quasi-dif- 

 ferent we give different names. We speak of the "system" of the 

 planets, and not of their "government": but in considering a store, 

 for instance, and its management, we see that the words are inter- 

 changeable. It used to be customary to speak of chemic equilibrium, 

 but not of social equilibrium: that false demarcation has been broken 

 down. We shall see that by all these words we mean the same state. 

 As every-day conveniences, or in terms of common illusions, of 

 course, they are not synonyms. To a child an earth worm is not an 

 animal. It is to the biologist. 



By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete. 



Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 



Venus de Milo. 



To a child sh^ is ugly. 



