“’The progenitors called it the Illumination,’ the unscathed Dunyain said…. ‘The age that saw the Tekne become their faith, the idol they raised above all others. They turned their back on their old Gods, their old temples, and raised new ones, great houses dedicated to unravelling the wellsprings of existence. Cause [emphasis mine] became their one and only God.’

But what is sunlight to a mole? In their curious, collective manner the Mutilated told how the Tekne so transformed the problems faced by the progenitors that all the old ways become impossible. It raised them from their traditions, struck the shackles of custom from their intellects, until only their common animality constrained them. They worshipped themselves as the measure of all significance, gave themselves over to wanton gluttony. Nothing was forbidden them, short the obstruction of others and their desires. Justice became the calculation of competing appetites. Logos became the principle of their entire civilization.

‘By imperceptible increments…the Tekne unfettered their desires, allowed them to plumb ever deeper perversions…. They began moulding themselves the way potters mould clay.’

The Tekne and the transformation wrought by its bottomless potency….

How, in relieving the Inchoroi of want and deprivation, it had stripped them of everything sacred….
‘There was only one riddle they could not solve…. The soul….

‘And when the soul at last yielded its secrets to their scrutiny…. They discovered their entire race damned.’” (pp. 391-3)