asi-existence, in which above all
other things, hopes, ambitions, emotions, motivations, stands Attempt to
Positivize: that we are here considering an attempt to systematize that
is sheer fanaticism in its disregard of the unsystematizable--that it
represented the highest good in the 19th century--that it is mono-mania,
but heroic mono-mania that was quasi-divine in the 19th century--

But that this isn't the 19th century.

As a doubly sponsored Brahmin--in the regard of Baptists--the objects of
July 29, 1878, stand out and proclaim themselves so that nothing but
disregard of the intensity of mono-mania can account for their reception
by the system:

Or the total eclipse of July 29, 1878, and the reports by Prof. Watson,
from Rawlins, Wyoming, and by Prof. Swift, from Denver, Colorado: that
they had seen two shining objects at a considerable distance from the
sun.

It's quite in accord with our general expression: not that there is an
Intra-Mercurial planet, but that there are different bodies, many vast
things; near this earth sometimes, near the sun sometimes; orbitless
worlds, which, because of scarcely any data of collisions, we think of
as under navigable control--or dirigible super-constructions.

Prof. Watson and Prof. Swift published their observations.

Then the disregard that we cannot think of in terms of ordinary, sane
exclusions.

The text-book systematists begin by telling us that the trouble with
these observations is that they disagree widely: there is considerable
respectfulness, especially for Prof. Swift, but we are told that by
coincidence these two astronomers, hundreds of miles apart, were
illuded: their observations were so different--

Prof. Swift (_Nature_, Sept. 19, 1878):

That his own observation was "in close approximation to that given by
Prof. Watson."

In the _Observatory_, 2-161, Swift says that his observations and
Watson's were "confirmatory of each other."

The faithful try again:

That Watson and Swift mistook stars for other bodies.

In the _Observatory_, 2-193, Prof. Watson says that he had previously
committed to memory all stars near the sun, down to the seventh
magnitude--

And he's damned anyway.

How such exclusions work out is shown by Lockyer (_Nature_, Aug. 20,
1878). He says: "There is little doubt that an Intra-Mercurial planet
has been discovered by Prof. Watson."

That was before excommunication was pronounced.

He says:

"If it will fit one of