MAGIC AND WONDER
they have sought to correct all haphazard and irresponsible impressions of the universe, yet have so far failed, in that they have not greatly disturbed man's love of magical stories. Some of them, Francis Bacon, for example, have opened up visions of scientific control more magical than magic itself; we shall owe it to them eventually that our magic and our wonder have become identical. But most philosophers have been content to attack the ignorance of magic without satisfying its aspiration; and the wonder which they would substitute, though nobly imaginative, has stopped short of that power men yearn for. Lucretius serves for example, whose poem on the Nature of Things sought to take away our fear of death by removing our faith in immortality—or, as he would say, our superstition. This intended service has not roused the gratitude of mankind.
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