BOOK OF THE DAMNED 53 



that is the attempt to assimilate all phenomena under the materialist 

 explanation, or to formulate a final, all-inclusive system, upon the 

 materialist basis. If this attempt could be realized, that would be 

 the attaining of realness; but this attempt can be made only by 

 disregarding psychic phenomena, for instance or, if science shall 

 eventually give in to the psychic, it would be no more legitimate 

 to explain the immaterial in terms of the material, than to explain 

 the material in terms of the immaterial. Our own acceptance is 

 that material and immaterial are of a oneness, merging, for instance, 

 in a thought that is continuous with a physical action: that oneness 

 can not be explained, because the process of explaining is the inter- 

 preting of something in terms of something else. All explanation is 

 assimilation of something in terms of something else that has been 

 taken as a basis: but, in Continuity, there is nothing that is any 

 more basic than anything else unless we think that delusion built 

 upon delusion is less real than its pseudo-foundation. 



In 1829 (Timb's Year Book, 1848-235) in Persia, fell a sub- 

 stance that the people said they had never seen before. As to what 

 it was, they had not a notion, but they saw that the sheep ate it. 

 They ground it into flour and made bread, said to have been pass- 

 able enough, though insipid. 



That was a chance that science did not neglect. Manna was 

 placed upon a reasonable basis, or was assimilated and reconciled 

 with the system that had ousted the older and less nearly real 

 system. It was said that, likely enough, manna had fallen in 

 ancient times because it was still falling but that there was no 

 tutelary influence behind it that it was a lichen from the steppes 

 of Asia Minor "up from one place in a whirlwind and down in 

 another place." In the American Almanac, 1833-71, it is said 

 that this substance "unknown to the inhabitants of the region" 

 was "immediately recognized" by scientists who examined it: and 

 that "the chemical analysis also identified it as a lichen." 



This was back in the days when Chemical Analysis was a god. 

 Since then his devotees have been shocked and disillusioned. Just 

 how a chemical analysis could so botanize, I don't know but it 

 was Chemical Analysis who spoke, and spoke dogmatically. It 

 seems to me that the ignorance of inhabitants, contrasting with the 

 local knowledge of foreign scientists, is overdone: if there's anything 

 good to eat, within any distance conveniently covered by a wliirlwind 

 inhabitants know it. I have data of other falls, in Persia and 

 Asiatic Turkey, of edible substances. They are all dogmatically 



