BOOK OF THE DAMNED 147 



ion must be the product of either deliberate disregard or ignorance 

 or fatigue. The stone belongs to a class of phenomena that is re- 

 pulsive to the System. It will not assimilate with the System. Let 

 such an object be heard of by such a systematist as Avebury, and 

 the mere mention of it is as nearly certainly the stimulus to a con- 

 ventional reaction as is a charged body to an electroscope or a glass 

 of beer to a prohibitionist. It is of the ideals of Science to know 

 one object from another before expressing an opinion upon a thing, 

 but that is not the spirit of universal mechanics: 



A thing. It is attractive or repulsive. Its conventional reaction 

 follows. 



Because it is not the stone from Grave Creek that is in Hebrew 

 characters, either ancient or modern: it is a stone from Newark, 

 Ohio, of which the story is told that a forger made this mistake 

 of using modern instead of ancient Hebrew characters. We shall 

 see that the inscription upon the Grave Creek stone is not in He- 

 brew. 



Or all things are presumed to be innocent, but are supposed to be 

 guilty unless they assimilate. 



Col. Whittelsey (Western Reserve Historical Tracts, No. 33) 

 says that the Grave Creek stone was considered a fraud by Wilson, 

 Squires, and Davis. Then he comes to the Congress of Archaeolo- 

 gists at Nancy, France, 1875. It is hard for Col. Whittelsey to 

 admit that, at this meeting, which sounds important, the stone was 

 endorsed. He reminds us of Mr. Symons, and "the man" who 

 "considered" that he saw something. Co). Whittelsey's somewhat 

 tortuous expression is that the finder of the stone "so imposed his 

 views" upon the congress that it pronounced the stone genuine. 



Also the stone was examined by Schoolcraft. He gave his opinion 

 for genuineness. 



Or there's only one process, and "see-saw" is one of its aspects. 

 Three or four fat experts on the side against us. We find four or 

 five plump ones on our side. Or all that we call logic and reason- 

 ing ends up as sheer preponderance of avoirdupois. 



Then several philologists came out in favor of genuineness. Some 

 of them translated the inscription. Of course, as we have said, it is 

 our method or the method of orthodoxy way in which all conclu- 

 sions are reached to have some awfully eminent, or preponderantly 

 plump, authorities with us whenever we can in this case, however, 

 we feel just a little apprehensive in being caught in such excellently 

 obese, but somewhat negativized company: 



