always been, even down to our own day, in all
human communities which have emerged from their primal state of savagery.

Ever since mankind has existed, teachers have always arisen among
peoples, who have enunciated science in this restricted sense,--the
science of what it is most useful for man to know. This science has
always had for its object the knowledge of what is the true ground of the
well-being of each individual man, and of all men, and why. Such was the
science of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of Mahomet, and of others;
such is this science as they understood it, and as all men--with the
exception of our little circle of so-called cultured people--understand
it. This science has not only always occupied the highest place, but has
been the only and sole science, from which the standing of the rest has
been determined. And this was the case, not in the least because, as the
so-called scientific people of our day think, cunning priestly teachers
of this science attributed to it such significance, but because in
reality, as every one knows, both by personal experience and by
reflection, there can be no science except the science of that in which
the destiny and welfare of man consist. For the objects of science are
_incalculable_ in number,--I undermine the word "incalculable" in the
exact sense in which I understand it,--and without the knowledge of that
in which the destiny and welfare of all men consist, there is no
possibility of making a choice amid this interminable multitude of
subjects; and therefore, without this knowledge, all other arts and
branches of learning will become, as they have become among us, an idle
and hurtful diversion.

Mankind has existed and existed, and never has it existed without the
science of that in which the destiny and the welfare of men consist. It
is true that the science of the welfare of men appears different on
superficial observation, among the Buddhists, the Brahmins, the Hebrews,
the Confucians, the Tauists; but nevertheless, wherever we hear of men
who have emerged from a state of savagery, we find this science. And all
of a sudden it appears that the men of our day have decided that this
same science, which has hitherto served as the guiding thread of all
human knowledge, is the very thing which hinders every thing. Men erect
buildings; and one architect has made one estimate of cost, a second has
made another, and a third yet another. The estimates dif