Giants and fairies. We accept them, of course. Or, if we pride ourselves upon being awfully far-advanced, I don't know how to sustain our conceit except by very largely going far back. Science of today—the superstition of tomorrow. Science of tomorrow—the superstition of today.
Notice of a stone ax, 17 inches long: 9 inches across broad end. (Proc. Soc. of Ants. of Scotland, 1-9-184.)
Amer. Antiquarian, 18-60:
Copper ax from an Ohio mound: 22 inches long; weight 38 pounds.
Amer. Anthropologist, n.s., 8-229:
Stone ax found at Birchwood, Wisconsin—exhibited in the collection of the Missouri Historical Society—found with "the pointed end embedded in the soil"—for all I know, may have dropped there—28 inches long, 14 wide, 11 thick—weight 300 pounds.
Or the footprints, in sandstone, near Carson, Nevada—each print 18 to 20 inches long. (Amer. Jour. Sci., 3-26-139.)
These footprints are very clear and well-defined: reproduction of them in the Journal—but they assimilate with the System, like sour apples to other systems: so Prof. Marsh, a loyal and unscrupulous systematist, argues:
"The size of these footprints and specially the width between the right and left series, are strong evidence that they were not made by men, as has been so generally supposed."
So these excluders. Stranglers of Minerva. Desperadoes of disregard. Above all, or below all, the anthropologists. I'm inspired with a new insult—someone offends me: I wish to express almost absolute contempt for him—he's a systematistic anthropologist. Simply to read something of this kind is not so impressive as to see for one's self: if anyone will take the trouble to look up these footprints, as pictured in the Journal, he will either agree with Prof. Marsh or feel that to deny them is to indicate a mind as profoundly enslaved by a system as was ever the humble intellect of a medieval monk. The reasoning of this representative phantom of the chosen, or of the spectral appearances who sit in judgment, or condemnation, upon us of the more nearly real: