    35

    inert

    sphere of matter--an egg--turns seemingly by itself into a chick.

    Yet enthusiasts in the Age of Reason felt Newton held the keys that

    would unlock all of life's mysteries.

    Newtonian science swept nearly every other form of analysis

    from respectability.  And Newton himself obtained the power to crush

    his rivals, dictate what was intellectually acceptable and what was not,

    and even to steal the credit for the discoveries of his fellow natural

    philosophers.54

    When men look desperately for masters of control, they do not

    peck at the limitations of the new savior.  They seize the idea of his

    power with hungry enthusiasm.  For the new sorcerer offers the

    promise of influencing the uninfluencable.

    The same trick of using a few insights into the motions of

    heavenly bodies to imply mastery over all of the known universe

    vaulted previous generations of savants to positions of incredible

    power.  Babylonian astronomers, three thousand years before Newton,

    became power brokers by predicting the seasons and producing a

    viable calendar.55  So did the Chinese emperors, who made sure that

    the computations of their own calendar were kept top secret, since

    those calculations were the key to their hold over the state.56  Mayan

    and Aztec priests in Central America also held massive power by

    virtue of a bit of astronomical virtuosity.  These priests were housed in

    elaborately architected city centers, while the peasants who raised the

    crops they ate resided in hovels in the countryside.57  Tribute of all

    kinds flowed to the divine intercessors: food, clothing and gold.  And

    prelates could dictate life and death.  These holy men ordered the

    armies of the Aztec Empire to scour distant lands in search of captives.

    Then the priests sacrificed the prisoners of war by the tens of

    thousands to satisfy their invisible gods.  On occasion, the Aztec clerics

    would cut open the chests and tear out the hearts of as many as 5,000

    humans in a single day.58

    The key to the power of the Aztec priests was the same as that

    which made Newton the king of science.  These Central American men

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