IMAGO MUNDI 5 



to view the world so no, we are as yet very far from that ; 

 for all practical consequences, scarce nearer than the barbarians 

 who trembled before the thunder and offered human sacrifices 

 to calm an infuriate Being above. 



It seems a formidable theorem to grasp. It might be called 

 the pons asinorum of intellectual development, alike of the 

 individual and of the race. 



But, if yet far from spiritual clarity, we have come some 

 way. We no longer think the earth is flat, as was probably 

 true, for example, of Socrates or of Solomon. We no longer 

 believe that the sun is a god ; nor do we regard it as an object 

 two feet in width, as Epicurus taught. Nowadays frogs are 

 not born from the mud, as Aristotle believed. The alchemist 

 who offers us a receipt for transmuting base metal into noble 

 gold we receive with a benevolent smile ; the man with a new 

 scheme for perpetual motion we know to be a crook or a fool ; 

 and if a priestess of spooks may still befuddle many seeming 

 sane and clever men, at least presidents and premiers no longer 

 consult an oracle before they go to war. How has all this come 

 about ? 



In a way we may answer : Through the growth of calcula- 

 tion and experiment, and the invention of mechanical devices 

 which have almost infinitely widened, corrected, and supple- 

 mented our primitive five senses ; in a larger way, we may 

 say: From an inherent impulse to know the effort of 1 "the 

 restless cause-seeking animal " to probe the eternal riddle that 

 surrounds and envelops him. Born into a world the mystery 

 of whose phenomena fascinates even as it baffles, he has sought, 

 undaunted by failure, undismayed by time, to find the elusive 

 thread which binds events. It is the working of that instinct, 

 not wholly absent in animals, which Renan calls the noblest 

 craving of our nature : curiosity. It is the instinct of the 

 child, whose incessant question is " Why ? Why ? " It is the 

 interrogation which must have troubled the childhood of the 

 world : " What am I ? " " Where am I ? " " Whence ? and 

 O heavens, whither ? " 



From the infancy of the race there have been minds which, 

 turning aside from the ordinary pursuits and passions of men, 

 from the prizes of trade, from the clamour of war, from the 

 pluckings of fame, have given over their lives to the search. 

 Argonauts in quest of the golden fleece of knowledge and of 



