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[p. 232] absolute. nineteenth century anyone had uttered such a thought as that, he'd have felt the blight of a Dominant; that Materialistic Science was a jealous god, excluding, as works of the devil, all utterances against the seemingly uniform, regular, periodic; that to defy him would have brought on--withering by ridicule--shrinking away by publishers--contempt of friends and family--justifiable grounds for divorce--that one who would so defy would feel what unbelievers in relics of saints felt in an earlier age; what befell virgins who forgot to keep fires burning, in a still earlier age--but that, if he'd almost absolutely hold out, just the same--new fixed star reported in Monthly Notices. Altogether, the point in Positivism here is that by Dominants and their correlates, quasi-existence strives for the positive state, aggregating, around a nucleus, or dominant, systematized members of a religion, a science, a society--but that "individuals" who do not surrender and submerge may of themselves highly approximate to positiveness--the fixed, the real, the In Notes and Queries, 2-4-139, there is an account of a darkness in Holland, in the midst of a bright day, so intense and terrifying that many panic-stricken persons lost their lives stumbling into the canals. Gentleman's Magazine, 33-414: A darkness that came upon London, Aug. 19, 1763, "greater than at the great eclipse of 1748." However, our preference is not to go so far back for data. For a list of historic "dark days," see Humboldt, Cosmos, 1-120. Monthly Weather Review, March, 1886-79: That, according to the La Crosse Daily Republican, of March 20, 1886, darkness suddenly settled upon the city of Oshkosh, Wis., at 3 P.M., March 19. In five minutes the darkness equaled that of midnight.