De Selby's objective, it seems, was to reconstruct the conditions experienced by infants before they are inveigled into an existence in this present plane of reality. A process of reverse-engineering convinced him that those conditions are almost unimaginably alien from the physical laws that function here, accounting for the new-born child's habitual expression of gobsmacked stupefaction.
He observed, for instance, that no amount of repetition of the experiment will accustom infants to the way an object reappears after it has vanished behind a visual barrier. Each demonstration of object permanence is as flabbergasting as the first. Evidently the mode of existence from which they recently arrived was one of oneiric, Heraclitean flux and transformation, in which objects lack permanence and the very concept of 'object' is moot.
It is not clear how de Selby came by opportunities for this observation. One struggles to imagine the austere philosopher divesting himself of his dignity so far as to play Peekaboo with a toddler; still harder to conceive of parents who would willingly entrust their child to a man noted more for his otherworldliness than for his pedagogy. Hatchjaw accepts without question that the first draft of the Country Album was written during the poorly-documented phase of de Selby’s career in which he taught elementary school in rural Austria. In contrast, du Garbandier implies that the savant’s nephew may have served as an experimental subject – a Baby Albert to de Selby’s Watson, as it were – but the only evidence to bolster this calumnious speculation is the sense of responsibility and obligation that de Selby displayed when discharging the debts accrued by his reprobate relative in later life.
You call that a screwdriver?
Needs more vodka, ya wowser!
Needs more vodka, ya wowser!

Some of the practical inferences built by de Selby on this empirical foundation seem unexceptional, even anodyne. He expresses his confidence that "these new arrivals in our midst" are capable of overcoming their origins and assimilating into society as model citizens, assuming an effort on their part to learn the dominant language and relinquish any sentimental attachment to their previous environment. Other remarks may raise the eyebrows of contemporary readers, as for instance his call for an attitude of greater suspicion and heightened surveillance, given the uncertain nature of their loyalties and intentions. It is easy for the savant to point out how little we know about why infants have migrated – whether they are refugees,

7 comments:
Flann is on my night-table for another reading, scheduled for book after next.
OBJECT PERMANENCE IS THEFT.
I weish! (wv)
~
It's astounding!
Time is fleeting
Madness takes it's toll
He observed, for instance, that no amount of repetition of the experiment will accustom infants to the way an object reappears after it has vanished behind a visual barrier. Each demonstration of object permanence is as flabbergasting as the first.
This works on me, too. I also respond very approvingly to jingling keys.
Way too much information, VS.
Smut, I assure you I was inappropriately young to attend any key parties at the height of their popularity. As you can see the by the picture, though, I was clearly a swinger.
Nowadays, I suppose I'd be up for attending a key party, but I reckon I'd probably just end up stealing people's cars.
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