BOOK OF THE DAMNED 185 



visit the moon, or cross it, or are held in temporary suspension near 

 it then some of them must often have been within the diameter of 

 an astronomer's hypnosis. 



Our general expression: 



That, upon the oceans of this earth, there are regularized vessels, 

 but also that there are tramp vessels: 



That, upon the super-ocean, there are regularized planets, but 

 also that there are tramp worlds: 



That astronomers are like mercantile purists who would deny 

 commercial vagabondage. 



Our acceptance is that vast celestial vagabonds have been ex- 

 cluded by astronomers, primarily because their irresponsibilities are 

 an affront to the pure and the precise, or to attempted positivism; 

 and secondarily because they have not been seen so very often. 

 The planets steadily reflect the light of the sun: upon this uni- 

 formity a system that we call Primary Astronomy has been built 

 up; but now the subject-matter of Advanced Astronomy is data of 

 celestial phenomena that are sometimes light and sometimes dark, 

 varying like some of the satellites of Jupiter, but with a wider 

 range. However, light or dark, they have been seen and reported 

 so often that the only important reason for their exclusion is that 

 they don't fit in. 



With dark bodies that are probably external to our own solar 

 system, I have, in the provincialism that no one can escape, not 

 much concern. Dark bodies afloat in outer space would have been 

 damned a few years ago, but now they're sanctioned by Prof. 

 Barnard and, if he says they're all right, you may think of them 

 without the fear of doing something wrong or ridiculous the close 

 kinship we note so often between the evil and the absurd I suppose 

 by the ridiculous I mean the froth of evil. The dark companion of 

 Algol, for instance. Though that's a clear case of celestial mis- 

 cegenation, the purists, or positivists, admit that's so. In the Pro- 

 ceedings of the National Academy oj Science, 1915-394, Prof. 

 Barnard writes of an object he calls it an "object" in Cephus. 

 His idea is that there are dark, opaque bodies outside this solar 

 system. But in the Astrophysical Journal, 1916-1, he modifies into 

 regarding them as "dark nebulae." That's not so interesting. 



We accept that Venus, for instance, has often been visited by 

 other worlds, or by super-constructions, from which come cinders 

 and coke and coal; that sometimes these things have reflected light 

 and have been seen from this earth by professional astronomers. 



