Chapter 17, From Bondage to Freedom, part 1

Moses had said, from the first, that the people of Israel would have to think of “I Am” as the deliverer from bondage; but they were not, at the time when he said it, advanced enough in their algebra to understand that idea properly. So he gave them, as an hypothesis to work on for the time being, that “I Am” did not like the people of Isra¨l to eat and drink and smell unwholesome things. He wished to make them attend to their own affairs, and think as little as possible about what was done and thought outside of their own land. But, after the time of Elijah, there came a change. A higher kind of algebra came into use. Its incarnation was called Isaiah.

The imagination of the Hebrews broke loose from the hypothesis that “I Am” had wishes and likes about the people of Isra¨l different from what wase right for all the rest of the world. When that hypothesis was taken away, the imagination of such people as Isaiah took wings and flew to—well—we do not know where, but we call it Infinity. We know nothing about Infinity; except that it comes when a chain is loosened. If you want to understand what it was that happened to Isaiah, and what Infinity means in algebra, this is how you can find out. Get a bowl and dip up some of the water out of a barrel in which a gnat has laid her eggs. Little wigglers are born from those eggs. If you watch them you will see that they swim in different positions, some with their tails uppermost, some with their heads uppermost. There may also be some worms, who do not swim much, but wriggle about at the bottom of the bowl. Perhaps if we could hear them talking we should hear them quarrelling about which was the right position. Some of them might be disputing about what would happen to them in the future.