nt rock changed slowly into
dust, that the eternal sea was restless, never still; that stars moved
in the vault of heavens, warmth changed to cold and night to day. How
did they account for changes in these outer forms if not by inner cause?

They changed the shapes of things themselves, these men; the seed ground
into meal, the moving animal shot down with stick or stone and stilled
and changed to food, the moving of the smaller rocks, erection of a
dwelling made of poles and thatch to change environment for the man
inside. Change, then, man knew; why fear the greater change, the easier
one? Why tug and lift and strain to move the boulder from the path, when
all was needed was to shift proportion in one tiny way, rebalance the
equation of relationship with one slight thought, and lo, the stone no
longer barred the way?

Too long ago, lost in the distant past, the crystals had forgot their
own once-orientation of all other things to me-and-mine, forgot to
credit it to man. To lift the boulder with one's strength to serve a
purpose was within the ken of man, a thing that he could do. To see it
lifted, moved, without his strength, bespoke a greater strength than
his, and purpose that he could not understand. And man fell to his knees
in fear and awe.

For man knew only one relation to all things--to conquer if he could,
and force acknowledgment of superior strength and purpose. To kill if
that acknowledgment was not given. To survive by giving that
acknowledgment to a stronger one than he.

Man groveled in the dust, the only pattern of survival that he knew when
strength beyond his own was shown. But even while he knelt, to scheme a
way that he-and-his might find ascendancy in future days. The one
invariable pattern persisting from the cave man dressed in furs to
diplomat in striped pants, the only pattern possible while me-and-mine
ascendant is the aim and goal.

To show another pattern then, the crystals aim. Ascendancy of
me-and-mine was meaningless, belonged to orders of awareness lower than
intelligence that they could meet in partnership. Instruct them, then.
No joy or purpose in conquering them. No companionship in these
disgusting grovelings. Show them the inner forces that controlled the
outer shapes of things.

Once crystals, now divorced from hardened form, the outer shape of
things was no longer a consideration in their life; but for this form of
life, still dependent for that life upon the maintenance