Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or
synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the
honey-bee; he had acute sensibility to the higher forces. Fire
taught him secrets that no other animal could learn; running
water probably taught him even more, especially in his first
lessons of mechanics; the animals helped to educate him, trusting
themselves into his hands merely for the sake of their food, and
carrying his burdens or supplying his clothing; the grasses and
grains were academies of study. With little or no effort on his
part, all these forces formed his thought, induced his action,
and even shaped his figure.
Long before history began, his education was complete, for the
record could not have been started until he had been taught to
record. The universe that had formed him took shape in his mind
as a reflection of his own unity, containing all forces except
himself. Either separately, or in groups, or as a whole, these
forces never ceased to act on him, enlarging his mind as they
enlarged the surface foliage of a vegetable, and the mind needed
only to respond, as the forests did, to these attractions.
Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius;
selection between them is the highest science; their mass is the
highest educator. Man always made, and still makes, grotesque
blunders in selecting and measuring forces, taken at random from
the heap, but he never made a mistake in the value he set on the
whole, which he symbolized as unity and worshipped as God.
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