Out of Their Minds by Clifford D. Simak Page A

horror and disbelief, what could supersede man, what could beat intelligence?
    I believe I know.
    I believe the superseder is already in existence and has been for many years.
    Abstract thought is a new thing in the world. No other creature than man ever has been blessed (or cursed) with such a faculty. It took from us the old security accorded other creatures which are aware of nothing except the here and now, and in some cases aware only dimly of the here and now. It let us look into the past and, what is worse, peer darkly futureward. It made us aware of loneliness, and filled us with a hope, from which stemmed hopelessness, and it showed us how we stood alone, naked and defenseless, before the uncaring of the cosmos. That day when the first manlike creature became aware of the implications of space and time as related to himself must be classed, at once, as the most fearful and most glorious day in the history of life upon the earth.
    We used our intelligence for many practical purposes and for theoretical probing which, in turn, gave us other answers for practical application. And we used it for something else as well. We used it to fill an enigmatic world with many shadowy creatures—with gods, devils, angels, ghosts, nymphs, fairies, brownies, goblins. We created in our tribal minds a dark and warring world in which we had enemies and allies. And we created other mythical creatures which were neither dark nor fearsome, but simply pleasant products of our imagination—Santa Claus, the Easter Rabbit, Jack Frost, the Sandman, and many, many others. Not only did we create these things intellectually, but we believed in them in varying degrees. We saw them and we talked of them and they were very real to us. Why, if not for fear of meeting such things, did the peasants of medieval days in Europe bar their hovels at the fall of night and refuse to venture out? Why the fear of the dark still inherent in many modern men if it is not the fear of meeting something in the dark? Today we talk but little of these things of the dark, but that the old uneasiness and fear may still be with us is demonstrated by the wide belief today in such things as flying saucers. In this enlightened day it may be childish to talk of werewolf or of ghoul, but it is all right to believe in a technical wraith such as a flying saucer.
    What do we know of abstract thought? The answer, of course, is that we know nothing of it. There is a possibility, I understand, that it may be electrical in nature and that it is based upon some sort of energy exchange, for the physicists tell us that all processes must be based on energy. But what do we know, actually, either of electricity or of energy? What do we know, when one comes down to it, about anything at all? Do we know how the atom works or why it works or what an atom is? Can anyone explain the awareness of self and environment which distinguishes life from inorganic matter?
    We think of thought as a mental process and we do lip service to the physicists by admitting that an energy exchange must somehow be involved. But we know no more about the thought processes, perhaps even less, than the ancient Greeks knew about the atom. Democritus, who lived during the fourth century before Christ, is generally accorded the honor of being the first man to put forward the atomic theory, and this was, admittedly, an advance in thinking, but the atoms of Democritus were a far cry, indeed, from what we now think of as atoms—and, which, incidentally, we still do not understand. So we talk of thought today as the Greeks in the day of Democritus may have talked (although only briefly and without too much conviction or belief) about the atom, and with as little understanding. We are, when it comes down to the truth of it, only mouthing words.
    We do know something of the result of thought. All that mankind has today is the product of his thinking. But this is the result of the impact of the thought upon the