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back. Such an event having shortly come to a pass, it [[strikethrough]] was caused [[/strikethrough]] put an end to [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethorugh]] our phisoply [[philosophy]] of action and reaction, by one ignominious dismissal from school.

This seemed to me a very unreasonable rationale of the sequence, and impressed me with the necessity of striking out in another direction. The clouds next drew my attention. Heavy masses of these bodies were flitting about in the heavens, why not learn from them how to build castles in the air? Certainly if what I had been taught by my godly parents was true, that flight to the realms above was attainable by an individual after he was dead, the same thing ought to be attainable while he was living. And to such an end all my thoughts were turned. I heard of people leaving their bodies on earth while their spirits soared into other worlds, and when so good an authority of this matter as Swedenbourg declared it, the question of its attainment [[strikethrough]] became in that way became fixed in my mind. [[/strikethrough]] seemed more like a matter of perseverance, than one of abstract science.

Nevertheless, I had a notion that it would be better if the corporeal body could be allowed to participate in the adventure, and as a means of counteracting the laws of gravitation had now been discovered in the use of hydrogen gas, the next resolve was, to make this the medium of getting up. Once away from the earth, what was there to prevent a voyage to the moon, and from thence hither and thither, through the realms of space, to see what was to be seen. The only trouble that beset me in the idea of making a gas bag, was the magnitude of the vessel, as this necessarily exposed the thing more or less to public criticism, as it could not be carried on in the same private manner that [[strikethrough]] my [[/strikethrough]] the tub experiments had been. And it turned out to cause me considerable perplexity of mind, because many of the people declared it to be a hallucination, as it was only given to a very few persons to use such contrivances.

Transcription Notes:
changed only one word in a [[strikethrough]] phrase "became". Ready for Completion