...surely, if we would form some useful notion of what human beings may and should become under intensive cultivation, and, still more, if we would know how to conduct the process of cultivation so as to make some progress toward that ideal, we must start with some notion of the raw material provided by Nature for us to work upon! ...If I have a religion, its first precept is that we shall seek truth faithfully; and I would say this with Emerson: "God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.