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"They described the strange feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of Science, the pleasure that it was to repeat certain statistics out of it, however little meaning those statistics conveyed to the outward ear, the ecstasy of touching an instrument, however unimportant, or of hearing new Scientific revelation, however superflous.

"The Science," they exclaimed, "feeds us and protects us and elevates us; with it we speak to one another, with it we teach one another, in it is the totality of being. The Science is the friend of rationality and the enemy of superstition: the Science is omniscient, unquestioned; blessed is the Science." And before long this allocution was printed on the first page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into a complicated system of praise and prayer." - A parody of The Machine Stops