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Show CHAPTER VIII.THE NORMALSVERYTHING has certain traits which characterize it, and in Utonia each thing has not only traits of its own, but it is also required to have some peculiarity which shall link it with either the Real or the Apparent government. The trouble, then, about the Normals is this: Is a Normal real, or real apparent, or apparently real? Psychology, the mainstay of the pedagogues, would have it that things are only what we think they are. But Heaven forbid that the Normals should be what we think they are. To be sure, the Normals are for the most part girls, and girls are most always apparent-but then what shall be done with the few lone boys?It is said that boys are so scarce among these embryonic pedagogues that they are almost classed as non-entities. Now, "non-entity" means "not whole" (not "knot-hole," but "not whole"), and anything that is not whole is not real; that is, not normal. Hence a Normal boy is not normal and not real. But as he must be either real or apparent-not being real, he must be apparent, and thus it is established at last that all Normals are apparent. That is very apparent.And to conclude with a conundrum: What is the difference between a Normal and a knot-hole? A knot-hole is nothing surrounded by a board, while the Normals surround us and we are bored. But that is not true.94 |