To the highest attractive energy, man gave the name of divine,
and for its control he invented the science called Religion, a
word which meant, and still means, cultivation of occult force
whether in detail or mass. Unable to define Force as a unity, man
symbolized it and pursued it, both in himself, and in the
infinite, as philosophy and theology; the mind is itself the
subtlest of all known forces, and its self-introspection
necessarily created a science which had the singular value of
lifting his education, at the start, to the finest, subtlest, and
broadest training both in analysis and synthesis, so that, if
language is a test, he must have reached his highest powers early
in his history; while the mere motive remained as simple an
appetite for power as the tribal greed which led him to trap an
elephant. Hunger, whether for food or for the infinite, sets in
motion multiplicity and infinity of thought, and the sure hope of
gaining a share of infinite power in eternal life would lift most
minds to effort.
He had reached this completeness five thousand years ago, and
added nothing to his stock of known forces for a very long time.
The mass of nature exercised on him so feeble an attraction that
one can scarcely account for his apparent motion. Only a
historian of very exceptional knowledge would venture to say at
what date between 3000 B.
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