which they operate, so as to deal with them, obey them, make them serve
him, enable him to create character and to create a new type of
civilization, new things on the face of the earth.

Now what is true of each individual child has been true of the race.
The world started in childhood; and for thousands of years it believed
very easily, it believed altogether too much for its good, it believed
altogether too readily. Naturally, perhaps, necessary in that stage of
its development; but so long as it remained in that stage there was no
possibility of its becoming master of the earth.

Note, for example, the state of mind of the old Hebrews, I use them
merely as an illustration, because you are familiar with their story as
told in the Old Testament. Similar things are true of every race on the
face of the earth. They knew nothing about the real nature of this
universe. They knew nothing about natural forces working in accordance
with what we call natural laws. Consequently, they lived in a child-
world, a world of magic and miracle, a world in which anything might
happen. It did not trouble one of the people of that time to be told
that, in answer to the prayer of one of the prophets, an axe-head which
had sunk in the water rose and floated on the surface. There were no
natural laws in his mind contradicted by an asserted fact like that. It
never occurred to him to be troubled about it. There was nothing very
startling to him in being told that the sun stood still for an hour or
two to enable a general to finish a battle in which he was engaged. He
did not know enough about the universe to see what tremendous
consequences would be involved in the possibility of a thing like that.
He was not troubled when you told him that a man had been swallowed by
a great fish, and had lived for three days and three nights in its
stomach, and had come out uninjured. There was no improbability in it