Magic, or the Secret System

XVII

Preface.

the ignorance and errors that still prevail in the most important matters arise precisely from the fact that the individual branches of human knowledge are separated too much. For this very reason, he seeks out all principles in order to be able to explain the course of the world and the full content of its effects from the combined activity of all forces or active causes in the realm of the visible and invisible **). Something of this method seems all the more appropriate to the needs of our age, the more one is now accustomed to turning everything into mere specialized frameworks of philistinism: Banausie, derived from the Greek word for a common artisan; used here to describe a narrow, mechanical, or purely utilitarian approach to science and art, and cannot believe that a certain "universal light" exists, and that indeed someone must be able to think equally well in many essential things if they wish to shed more than common light upon individual subjects. Otherwise, no one confuses the plan

*) original French: "Accoutumons nos yeux à saisir l'ensemble des Principes, si nous voulons saisir l'ensemble des faits." Let us accustom our eyes to grasp the whole of the principles if we wish to grasp the whole of the facts. Natural Table, Part II, p. 35.