We often mention the pre-historic times, but we seldom ask ourselves at what date history can have begun. With the first heap of stones piled up by the men of a certain tribe at the burial of a venerated chief, history commenced; this heap became the point at which the past touched the future, a visible link in the interminable chain of human thought. At the origin of all this mental activity we find an inspiration--a poetical fiat. It was a historical moment--no other similar to it has ever been, before or since--when the first group of human creatures acclaimed with inarticulate cries their first cavern, or the first den dug by themselves. At a much later date when man, looking up at the vault of heaven--his curiosity aroused--wished to know what were the brilliant things he saw moving high above him, was he not impelled by the feeling of the presence of a Being hitherto unknown, and to whom he paid unconscious homage by giving Him a name? If the feeling had not made itself felt simultaneously with the awakened attention caused by the appearance of the sky, the electric spark would not have burst forth. At a later date still to what can we attribute the union of pure thought and beating hearts but to the first definite perception of the Divine breath, and the conception of an invisible yet longed for God, whose name descended from generation to generation down to ourselves? Aristotle, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and Max Müller, have all described this ascension of the reason from the first thought which contained the germ of the idea, up to God Himself. * * * * * We thus arrive at a high level though starting from low ground; we should be higher still, but that we are retarded equally by lack of speech and of thought. As long as we fondly imagine that in possessing a word we are also masters of the thought attached to it, and that to penetrate to the heart of a thought is nothing but a linguistic exercise, or an intellectual gymnastic feat, we shall not use the sole method with which we are supplied, of growing morally, rationally, and religiously. We form ideas of many things, but we know them only partially and disjointedly; sciences which we have learnt possess unity, since with grammar is connected synthesis, and with mathematics, algebra; (this word algebra is of Arab origin, “al djabroun,” and means the reduction of dislocated members), is it possible that we--the creators of these sciences--should be destined to wander around and away from unity, and never attain it? * * * * * It is time to end this study; I suspect that I am not the only one of this opinion. It is possible that amongst my readers--if I have any--some may already have found means of shortening it for themselves; they will perhaps turn over the pages, read a few, and say, “How tedious the old pedant is,” then shut the book and not open it again.