We attempt to co-ordinate various streaks of data, all of which signify
to us that, external to this earth, and in relation with, or relatable
to, this earth are lands and lives and a generality of conditions that
make of the whole, supposed solar system one globule of circumstances
like terrestrial circumstances. Our expressions are in physical terms,
though in outer space there may be phenomena known as psychic phenomena,
because of the solid substances and objects that have fallen from the
sky to this earth, similar to, but sometimes not identified with, known
objects and substances upon this earth. Opposing us is the more or less
well-established conventional doctrine that has spun like a cocoon
around mind upon this earth, shutting off research, and stifling even
speculation, shelling away all data of relations and relatability with
external existences, a doctrine that, in its various explanations and
disregards and denials, is unified in one expression of Exclusionism.
An unknown vegetable substance falls from the sky. The datum is buried:
it may sprout some day.
The earth quakes. A luminous object is seen in the sky. Substance falls
from the unknown. But the event is cataloged with subterranean
earthquakes.
All conventional explanations and all conventional disregards and
denials have Exclusionism in common. The unity is so marked, all
writings in the past are so definitely in agreement, that I now think of
a general era that is, by Exclusionism, as distinctly characterized as
ever was the Carboniferous Era.
A pregnant woman stands near Niagara Falls. There are sounds, and they
are vast circumstances; but the cells of an unborn being respond, or
vibrate, only as they do to disturbances in their own little
environment. Horizons pour into a gulf, and thunder rolls upward:
embryonic consciousness is no more than to slight perturbations of
maternal indigestion. It is Exclusionism.
Stones fall from the sky. To the same part of this earth, they fall
again. They fall again. They fall from some region that, relatively to
this part of the earth’s surface, is stationary. But to say this leads
to the suspicion that it is this earth that is stationary. To think that
is to beat against the walls of uterine dogmas—into a partly hairy and
somewhat reptilian mass of social undevelopment comes exclusionist
explanation suitable for such immaturity.
It does not matter which of our subjects we take up, our experience is
unvarying: the standardized explanation will be Exclusionism. As to many
appearances in the sky, the way of excluding foreign forces is to say
that they are auroras, which are supposed to be mundane phenomena.
School children are taught that auroras are electric manifestations
encircling the poles of this earth. Respectful urchins are shown an ikon
by which an electrified sphere does have the polar encirclements that it
should have. But I have taken a disrespectful, or advanced, course
through the _Monthly Weather Review_, and have read hundreds of times of
auroras that were not such polar crownings: of auroras in Venezuela,
Sandwich Islands, Cuba, India; of an aurora in Pennsylvania, for
instance, and not a sign of it north of Pennsylvania. There are lights
in the sky for which “auroral” is as good a name as any that can be
thought of, but there are others for which some other names will have to
be thought of. There have been lights like luminous surfs beating upon
the coasts of this earth’s atmosphere, and lights like vast reflections
from distant fires; steady pencils of light and pulsating clouds and
quick flashes and seeming objects with definite outlines, all in one
poverty of nomenclature, for which science is, in some respects, not
notable, called “auroral.” Nobody knows what an aurora is. It does not
matter. An unknown light in the sky is said to be auroral. This is
standardization, and the essence of this standardization is
Exclusionism.
I see one resolute, unified, unscrupulous exclusion from science of the
indications of nearby lands in the sky. It may not be unscrupulousness:
it may be hypnosis. I see that all seeming hypnotics, or somnambulics of
the past, who have most plausibly so explained, or so denied, have
prospered and have had renown. According to my impressions, if a
Brewster, or a Swift, or a Newcomb ever had written that there may be
nearby lands and living beings in the sky, he would not have prospered,
and his renown would be still subject to delayal. If an organism
flourishes, it is said to be in harmony with environment, or with higher
forces. I now conceive of successful and flourishing Exclusionism as an
organization that has been in harmony with higher forces. Suppose we
accept that all general delusions function sociologically. Then, if
Exclusionism be general delusion; if we shall accept that conceivably
the isolation of this earth has been a necessary factor in the
development of the whole geo-system, we see that exclusionistic science
has faithfully, though falsely, functioned. It would be world-wide crime
to spread world-wide too soon the idea that there are other existences
nearby and that they have been seen and that sounds from them have been
heard: the peoples of this earth must organize themselves before
conceiving of, and trying to establish, foreign relations. A premature
science of such subjects would be like a United States taking part in a
Franco-Prussian War, when such foreign relations should be still far in
the future of a nation that has still to concentrate upon its own
internal development.
So in the development of all things—or that a stickleback may build a
nest, and so may vaguely and not usefully and not explicably at all, in
terms of Darwinian evolution, foreshadow a character of coming forms of
life; but that a fish that should try to climb a tree and sing to its
mate before even the pterodactyl had flapped around with wings daubed
with clay would be an unnoticed little clown in cosmic drama. But I do
conceive that when the Carboniferous Era is dominant, and when not a
discordant thing will be permitted to flourish, though it may adumbrate,
restrictions will not last forever, and that the rich and bountiful
curse upon rooted things will some day be lifted.