There arises first an irresistible grouping principle which, in its impact on the intelligence, almost automatically overrules the egoistical and mutually repulsive tendencies of the human individual.
It is as though all our individual strivings after more truth soared upward into a mental “cupola” whose closed walls inexorably compel our minds to mingle! An enforced coalescence of all Thought in the sum total of itself….
Because of this separation of head and heart we are bound to conclude that, however social necessity and logic may impel it from behind, the human mass will only become thoroughly unified under the influence of some form of affective energy which will place the human particles in the fortunate position of being unable to love and fulfill themselves individually except by contributing in some degree to the love and fulfillment of all: to the extent, that is to say, that all are equal and integral parts of a single universe that is vitally converging.
If we look for the principal outcome, “Result № 1,” of the ineluctable scientific unification of our intellects during the past century, we must quickly perceive that the gain consists far less in our securing control of any particular source of natural energy than in the general awakening of our consciousness to the vast and extreme organicity of the universe as a whole, considered in terms of its internal forces of development. We see more clearly with every increase in our knowledge that we are, all of us, participants in a process (Cosmogenesis culminating in Anthropogensis) upon which our ultimate fulfillment—one might even say, our beatification—obscurely depends.