followed that the unknown people, if superior to us, could not be subjected to the inferior terrestrial life, above which the Colymbians had risen. Therefore, the unknown people must be denizens of the water like themselves, and all the references in the books to terrestrial life must be understood in a non-natural sense and as mere metaphors and figures of speech.
That the books said nothing about the aquatic habits of the unknown people was evidently owing to this, that they were written at a time when, and given to a people of terrestrial habits to whom an aquatic life was unknown and to whom a description of aquatic habits would have been incomprehensible. That the language of the books was therefore adapted to the limited intelligence and ignorance of these first recipients; but that it was for the Colymbians to reconcile the descriptions of the books with the habits and customs of the superior beings who lived in water, and to cease to represent the unknowns—who were confessedly their superiors—as bound to the inferior mode of life on land the Colymbians had long ago abandoned.
This doctrine, enforced with a degree of eloquence unusual among professors of transcendental geography, proved very attractive to the Colymbians, and the professor had a great many followers among the people, and even brought several other professors over to his mode of thinking.
The teachers of the old doctrine got alarmed at this; and, with the view of stopping the teaching of the audacious innovator, they cited him before the highest legal tribunal of the country.
The learned pundits of the law laid their heads together, pottered over the books for what seemed an unconscionably long time, comparing the new doctrine
