Page:The Book of the Damned (Fort, 1919).djvu/108

102 The finders jumped to the conclusion that the axes had fallen there.

Another stone ax—or wedge-shaped object of worked stone—said to have been found in a tree that had been struck by something that looked like lightning. (Thunder Weapons, p. 71.)

The finder jumped to the conclusion.

Story told by Blinkenberg, of a woman, who lived near Kulsbjaergene, Sweden, who found a flint near an old willow—"near her house." I emphasize "near her house" because that means familiar ground. The willow had been split by something.

She jumped.

Cow killed by lightning, or by what looked like lightning (Isle of Sark, near Guernsey). The peasant who owned the cow dug up the ground at the spot and found a small greenstone "ax." Blinkenberg says that he jumped to the conclusion that it was this object that had fallen luminously, killing the cow.

Reliquary, 1867-208:

A flint ax found by a farmer, after a severe storm—described as a "fearful storm"—by a signal staff, which had been split by something. I should say that nearness to a signal staff may be considered familiar ground.

Whether he jumped, or arrived at the conclusion by a more leisurely process, the farmer thought that the flint object had fallen in the storm.

In this instance we have a lamentable scientist with us. It's impossible to have positive difference between orthodoxy and heresy: somewhere there must be a merging into each other, or an overlapping. Nevertheless, upon such a subject as this, it does seem a little shocking. In most works upon meteorites, the peculiar, sulphurous odor of things that fall from the sky is mentioned. Sir John Evans ("Stone Implements," p. 57) says—with extraordinary reasoning powers, if he could never have thought such a thing with ordinary reasoning powers—that this flint object "proved to have been the bolt, by its peculiar smell when broken."

If it did so prove to be, that settles the whole subject. If we prove that only one object of worked stone has fallen from the sky, all piling up of further reports is unnecessary. However, we have already taken the stand that nothing settles anything; that the disputes of ancient Greece are no nearer solution now than they were several thousand years ago—all because, in a positive sense, there is nothing to prove or solve or settle. Our object is to be more