The Progress of the Race 
past been erecting cities, not with stones, 
bricks, and lime, but with some pliable 
substance painfully secreted by special 
organs of our body. One day an all- 
powerful being’ places us in the midst of 
a fabulous city. We recognise that it is 
made of a substance similar to the one 
that we secrete, but, as regards the rest, it 
is a dream, whereof what is logical is so 
distorted, so reduced, and as it were con- 
centrated, as to be more disconcerting 
almost than had it been incoherent. Our 
habitual plan is there; in fact, we find 
everything that we had expected; but all 
has been put together by some antecedent 
force that would seem to have crushed it, 
arrested it in the mould, and to have 
hindered its completion. The houses 
whose height must attain some four or 
five yards are the merest protuberances, 
that our two hands can cover. Thousands 
of walls are indicated by signs that hint 
377 
