As we turn from the galaxies
to the swarming cells of our own being,
which toil for something,
some entity beyond their grasp,
let us remember man, the self-fabricator
who came across an ice age to look
into the mirrors and the magic of science.
Surely he did not come to see himself or his wild visage only.
He came because he is at heart a listener and a searcher
for some transcendent realm beyond himself.
This he has worshiped by many names,
even in the dismal caves of his beginning.
Man, the self-fabricator, is so by reason of gifts he had no part in devising –
and so he searches as the single living cell in the beginning
must have sought the ghostly creature it was to serve.
Loren Eiseley The Hidden Teacher
