It is our notion that if they could almost realize, that would be almost
realness: that they would instantly be translated into real existence.
Such thinkers are good positivists, but they are evil in an economic and
sociologic sense, if, in that sense, nothing has justification for
being, unless it serve, or function for, or express the relations of,
some higher aggregate. So Science functions for and serves society at
large, and would, from society at large, receive no support, unless it
did so divert itself or dissipate and prostitute itself. It seems that
by prostitution I mean usefulness.
There have been red rains that, in the middle ages, were called "rains
of blood." Such rains terrified many persons, and were so unsettling to
large populations, that Science, in its sociologic relations, has
sought, by Mrs. Eddy's method, to remove an evil--
That "rains of blood" do not exist;
That rains so called are only of water colored by sand from the Sahara
Desert.
My own acceptance is that such assurances, whether fictitious or not,
whether the Sahara is a "dazzling white" desert or not, have wrought
such good effects, in a sociologic sense, even though prostitutional in
the positivist sense, that, in the sociologic sense, they were well
justified:
But that we've gone on: that this is the twentieth century; that most of
us have grown up so that such soporifics of the past are no longer
necessary:
That if gushes of blood should fall from the sky upon New York City,
business would go on as usual.
We began with rains that we accepted ourselves were, most likely, only
of sand. In my own still immature hereticalness--and by heresy, or
progress, I mean, very largely, a return, though with many
modifications, to the superstitions of the past, I think I feel
considerable aloofness to the idea of rains of blood. Just at present,
it is my conservative, or timid purpose, to express only that there
have been red rains that very strongly suggest blood or finely divided
animal matter--
Debris from inter-planetary disasters.
Aerial battles.
Food-supplies from cargoes of super-vessels, wrecked in inter-planetary
traffic.
There was a red rain in the Mediterranean region, March 6, 1888. Twelve
days later, it fell again. Whatever this substance may have been, when
burned, the odor of animal matter from it was strong and persistent.
(_L'Astronomie_, 1888-205.)
But--infinite heterogeneity--or debris from many different kinds of
aerial cargoes--there have been red rains that have been colored by
neither sand nor animal matter.
_Annals of Philosophy_, 16-226:
That, Nov. 2, 1819--week before the black rain and earthquake of
Canada--there fell, at Blankenberge, Holland, a red rain. As to sand,
two chemists of Bruges concentrated 144 ounces of the rain to 4
ounces--"no precipitate fell." But the color was so marked that had
there been sand, it would have been deposited, if the substance had been
diluted instead of concentrated. Experiments were made, and various
reagents did cast precipitates, but other than sand. The chemists
concluded that the rain-water contained muriate of cobalt--which is not
very enlightening: that could be said of many substances carried in
vessels upon the Atlantic Ocean. Whatever it may have been, in the
_Annales de Chimie_, 2-12-432, its color is said to have been
red-violet. For various chemic reactions, see _Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst._,
9-202, and _Edin. Phil. Jour._, 2-381.
Something that fell with dust said to have been meteoric, March 9, 10,
11, 1872: described in the _Chemical News_, 25-300, as a "peculiar
substance," consisted of red iron ocher, carbonate of lime, and organic
matter.