It must not be supposed that, during all the ages which had elapsed before the establishment of the world-parliament, speculation had not been rife among the Hesperians as to the nature and significance of the sudden and mysterious wakening into life which they had all simultaneously experienced. Quite the reverse was the fact. From the very earliest period, even from the time when small groups of them had invented the first rude forms of speech, the questions how they had been formed, how summoned into life, whence had they come, and whither were they going, had been started, discussed, solved, the solutions rejected, abandoned for a time as hopeless, again resumed, and as zealously as ever re-discussed, with the same results as before. All were agreed that Something had made them, and had made them for some purpose. But that the Something either could not or would not speak to them, or hold any sort of communication with them was a patent fact, and this caused unutterable sorrow to the Hesperian mind. In the earlier ages all persons were so much engrossed with the cares unavoidable for the supply of the necessaries of life; and, besides, were so deeply interested in investigating the physical laws of the world in which they were placed, that this increasing source of grief and anxiety did not produce as much effect upon them as it did in later times. But even then there was hardly a small town to be found which had not, among its public buildings, some sort of a temple, with the inscription ‘To the Unknown God,’ whom they ignorantly worshipped and longed after, but in vain.