TIME
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that Halley’s Comet, being the sole measure
of time in use on his farm, was 133° S.,
entering Capricorn, at the very moment of
the blow being struck.
Myst. Tam glad you join me in ridicule
of the scheme ; but do you quite grasp how
serious the situation has become?
Scept. I confess I do not see whither you
would lead me. Your own computation
strikes one as fantastic in the extreme.
Myst, Who knows? Think, yourself, of
certain abnormal and pathological pheno-
mena, whose consideration might lay down
the bases for a possible argument.
Scept. There are several things that spring
instantly into the mind. First and foremost
is the wonderfully suggestive work, misnamed
fiction, of our greatest novelist, H. G. Wells.
This man, the John Bunyan of modern
scientific thought, has repeatedly attacked
the problem, or at least indicated the lines
on which a successful research might be
prosecuted, in many of his wonderful tales.
He has (I say it not to rob you of the honour
of your discoveries, but in compliment, and
I can imagine none higher) put his finger on
the very spot whence all research must begin :
the illusionary nature of the time-idea. But
I will leave you to study his books at your
leisure, and try to give a more direct answer
to your question, We have cases ofbrain dis-
order, where grave local mischief survives the
disappearance of general symptoms. One
man may forget a year of his life; another
the whole of it; while yet another may have
odd patches effaced here and there, while the
inain current flows undisturbed.
Myst. Weis so much the poorer for such
losses?
Scept. Certainly.
Alfyst. Did the stars efface their tracks to
correspond ?
Scept. Joshua is dead.
Myst. Yama! be praised !
Scept, Amen.
Afyst. You have also, I make no doubt,
1 The Hindu Pluto,
VOL, II.
cases where the brain, from infancy, never
develops.
Scept. True: sothat a man of thirty thinks
and acts like a child: often like a stupid
child. Our social system is indeed devised to
provide for these cases; so common are they:
the Army, the Cabinet, are reserved for stich :
in the case of women thus afflicted they
are called ‘‘advanced” or “ intellectual”:
the advantages of these situations and titles
is intended to compensate them for Nature’s
neglect. Even sadder is it when young men
of great parts and talent, flourishing up to
a certain age, have their brains gradually
spoiled by the preposterous system of edu-
cation in vogue throughout the more miasmal
parts of the country, till they are fit for
nothing but ‘chairs’? and “ fellowships” at
‘“universities.”” The schools of philosophy
are full of these Pliocene anachronisms, as
the responsible government departments are
of the congenitally afflicted: in both cases
thinking men are disposed to deny (arguing
from the absence of human reason and wit,
though some of the creatures have a curious
faculty resembling the former, shorn of all
light-quality) to these unfortunates any con-
scious life worthy of the name, or the capa-
city to increase with years in the wisdom or
happiness of their more favoured fellow-
creatures.
Myst. Yet the stars have a regular rate of
progression ?
Scepft. I see what you would be at. You
would say that of two men born on a day,
dying on a day, one may be young, the
other old.
Alyst. Ay! But I would say this tc
vitiate the standard you somewhat incau-
tiously set up.
Scept, Abrogateit then ! But where are we?
jst. Were, that we may determine this
most vital point ; how so to act that we may
obtain the most from life; or, if existence,
the word of which intuitions are the letters,
be, as the Buddhists pretend, misery, how to
obtain the least from it.
Svept. Let us not speak ill of a noble
S