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- comprehend the strange writer's conceit in all its bearings. Yet was
this conceit apparently one of the plainest in the world; so natural, a
child might almost have originated it. Nevertheless, again so profound,
that scarce Juggularius himself could be the author; and still again so
exceedingly trivial, that Juggularius' smallest child might well have
been ashamed of it.
Seeing then that this curious paper rag so puzzled Pierre; foreseeing,
too, that Pierre may not in the end be entirely uninfluenced in his
conduct by the torn pamphlet, when afterwards perhaps by other means he
shall come to understand it; or, peradventure, come to know that he, in
the first place, did--seeing too that the author thereof came to be made
known to him by reputation, and though Pierre never spoke to him, yet
exerted a surprising sorcery upon his spirit by the mere distant glimpse
of his countenance;--all these reasons I account sufficient apology for
inserting in the following chapters the initial part of what seems to me
a very fanciful and mystical, rather than philosophical Lecture, from
which, I confess, that I myself can derive no conclusion which
permanently satisfies those peculiar motions in my soul, to which that
Lecture seems more particularly addressed. For to me it seems more the
excellently illustrated re-statement of a problem, than the solution of
the problem itself. But as such mere illustrations are almost
universally taken for solutions (and perhaps they are the only possible
human solutions), therefore it may help to the temporary quiet of some
inquiring mind; and so not be wholly without use. At the worst, each
person can now skip, or read and rail for himself.
III.
"_EI_,"
BY PLOTINUS PLINLIMMON,
(_In Three Hundred and Thirty-three Lectures._)
LECTURE FIRST.
CHRONOMETRICALS AND HOROLOGICALS,
(_Being not to much the Portal, as part of the temporary Scaffold to the
Portal of this new Philosophy._)
"Few of us doubt, gentlemen, that human life on this earth is but a
state of probation; which among other things implies, that here below,
we mortals have only to do with things provisional. Accordingly, I hold
that all our so-called wisdom is likewise but provisional.
"This preamble laid down, I begin.
"It seems to me, in my visions, that there is a certain most rare order
of human souls, which if carefully carried in the body will almost
always and everywhere give Heaven's own Truth, with some small grains of
variance. For peculiarly coming from God, the sole source of that
heavenly truth, and the great Greenwich hill and tower from which the
universal meridians are far out into infinity reckoned; such souls seem
as London sea-chronometers (_Greek_, time-namers) which as the London
ship floats past Greenwich down the Thames, are accurately adjusted by
Greenwich time, and if heedfully kept, will still give that same time,
even though carried to the Azores. True, in nearly all cases of long,
remote voyages--to China, say--chronometers of the best make, and the
most carefully treated, will gradually more or less vary from Greenwich
time, without the possibility of the error being corrected by direct
comparison with their great standard; but skillful and devout
observations of the stars by the sextant will serve materially to lessen
such errors. And besides, there is such a thing as _rating_ a
chronometer; that is, having ascertained its degree of organic
inaccuracy, however small, then in all subsequent chronometrical
calculations, that ascertained loss or gain can be readily added or
deducted, as the case may be. Then again, on these long voyages, the
chronometer may be corrected by comparing it with the chronometer of
some other ship at sea, more recently from home.
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