24 From Matter to Man. 



known," answer the orthodox. But why should we 

 glorify the unknown rather than the known ? If it 

 be merely on account of its mystery, as Pasteur 

 implies, then the worship of the infinite becomes the 

 worship of nescience, the adoration of stupidity, the 

 deification of ignorance. 



The mystery of the infinite is a necessary condition 

 of our intelligence, for as something can only know 

 (through motion or touch) of something, we as some- 

 thing can never understand nothing as anything else 

 than a symbolical term denoting the antithesis to 

 something. But an antithesis is not an entity. 

 Further, there are doubtless things in infinity at 

 present mysterious to us because beyond our 

 sensuous touch, but their incomprehensibility does 

 not thereby constitute them worthy objects of 

 worship. The world is already overstocked with 

 deities. Lastly, infinite, correctly defined, is only a 

 term invented by humanity to express either a sub- 

 jective condition of our present ignorance or the 

 boundaries of our present intelligence; hence, as it 

 contains no objective reality in itself, its apotheosis 

 is as absurd as the deification of any other verbal 

 expression similarly begotten — such as past, present, 

 and future. More absurd, in fact, than to worship 

 any animal, for all animals possess at least some 

 demonstrable infinities in them through their inde- 

 structible substance in its endless re-creations. 



The loftiest conception of infinite is thus not as 

 a cause, not even as an antecedent or a consequent, 



