Must we then feel that we are destined to ask perpetually, and to receive no answer? That need not be. Many things that our ancestors could not fathom are clear to us; what was unknown to them is known to us. That which prevents us from following up this line of progress through these phases is that each reply brings forth anew fresh questions, and thus it will be to the end--if the end should ever arrive. This last question we do not put to ourselves, which is an indication that we are not careful to arrive at the answer. When I compare the present state of our knowledge, and of our condition of mind, to which I have given the epithets of torpor and inertia--and they are rightly given--to that which held sway in the dark ages when the earth rested on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise swam in the void, I must acknowledge that we now see things more truly. But to start from the point of the sum of our acquired knowledge in this march of progress would be fatal to us; the ground we have won will only retain its solidity in proportion as we keep in sight the path we have trodden, with all its encountered and vanquished obstacles, and that will only be by pursuing the same path again in company with our ancestors. Here my friends interpose--“That would be a vain task, you cannot picture humanity in its infancy, that is an impossibility.” Doubtless, and since I am too practical to attempt the impossible, abstaining from every superhuman effort, and submitting my imagination to a strict discipline, I will again consult history, but not history as I know it, nor that history which is written in our days, polished, cautious, honestly critical, that which notes the old traces of humanity when they occur on the route mixed with events, and which treats the eternal truths as though they had no existence, and, truly, they do not belong to its dominion. I would study the other history, which at first was related, not written, because speech came before writing. I should try to collect information from the ancient literatures of the people concerning the manner in which our ancestors depicted divinity to themselves, especially with regard to dealings with mortals at the time when visits between the celestial inhabitants and those on earth were common.... We possess the Old Testament of the Hebrews, the sacred books of the Hindoos, and the mythology of the Aryan family; the mine is rich, so rich that I should have time to die a thousand times before I should have finished the task of searching in this mixed medley of historical remains, fantastic recitals, sublime thoughts, and flagrant falsehoods. Happily this work of digging in the past in quest of an idea is not the work of one man nor of one epoch, but that of many men and many epochs, and it never ceases.