82 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM II 



musk and dyes richer than Tyrian purple. If the 

 so-called " elements," oxygen and hydrogen, which 

 compose water, are aggregates of the same ultimate 

 particles, or physical units, as those which enter 

 into the structure of the so-called element "car- 

 bon," it is obvious that alcohol and other substances, 

 composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, may 

 be produced by a rearrangement of some of the 

 units of oxygen and hydrogen into the " element " 

 carbon, and their synthesis with the rest of the 

 oxygen and hydrogen. 



Theoretically, therefore, we can have no sort of 

 objection to your miracle. And our reply to the 

 levitators is just the same. Why should not your 

 friend " levitate " ? Fish are said to rise and sink 

 in the water by altering the volume of an internal 

 air-receptacle ; and there may be many ways 

 science, as yet, knows nothing of, by which we, who 

 live at the bottom of an ocean of air, may do the 

 same thing. Dialectic gas and wind appear to be 

 by no means wanting among you, and why should 

 not long practice in pneumatic philosophy have 

 resulted in the internal generation of something a 

 thousand times rarer than hydrogen, by which, in 

 accordance with the most ordinary natural laws, 

 you would not only rise to the ceiling and float 

 there in quasi-angelic posture, but perhaps, as one 

 of your feminine adepts is said to have done, flit 

 swifter than train or telegram to " still-vexed 

 Bermoothes," and twit Ariel, if he happens to be 



