Go back as far as you will in the history of the past, and you will find the most ancient of religions affirming this possibility of knowledge.

In India, for instance, with its antique civilisation, you find that the very central idea of Hinduism is this supreme knowledge, the knowledge of God.

As I pointed out to you the other day with regard to this old Eastern religion, all knowledge is regarded in a higher or a lower degree as the knowledge of God; for there is no division, as you know, in that ancient faith, between the secular and the sacred.

That division is a modern division, and was unknown in the ancient world.

But they did make a division in knowledge between the higher and the lower; and the lower knowledge, or the lower science, called the "lower divine science," was that which you will call "science" nowadays, the study of the external world.