THE CRIME OF PROMETHEUS 20

the comprehension of matter, but instead deduced from
essential definitions a base upon which the material world
could rest as rational image, the theology adhering to the
universal being has been directed toward the search
for a general force acting on matter and a principle of
energy comprehending all mass, such energy-force being
conceived as manifesting the will of a universal existence.
It is this theology, in which is comprised the methods:
of physical science, that gives its philosophical foundation
of egotism to modern society.

The god of reason, Self, that most ancient of Aryan
gods, the master, was external to man, like light, and being
social, could be obtained only through the language of so-
ciety. Every Greek god bespoke this Self, and therefore
dialogue like drama meant to the Greeks a joyous banquet
and holy communion. It was a shared feast, through which
they attained individual mastery and social order. Through
dialogue they tasted a god.

The Modern Spirit has peeled off this external um-
fying grace of science and society and has replaced it by
a fictive internal principle of unity, whereby like units of
force cohering through a field men must conglomerate,
their mere existence conceived as a social force, into a spa-
tio-temporal relation as separate points of ego-energy.
They belong not to ordered society, but they are amalga-
mated into an analogous society of mass, which is but a
collection of identical ego-forces, whose co-existence is con-
ceived as compelling their unity. In this collective ego-cen-
tered society the basic relationship between man and man
is necessarily one of radical violence, both repulsive and
attractive. Such a Promethean society is a conceptual par-
adox.

For, as a point of force has no real center comprehend-
ing both its position and motion but is in this respect dual,
.so0 is the ego a false center of personality. It is a mere part
of an analogous unified field which 1s itself a mere collection