If all signs of humanity would be wiped from the face of the earth, everybody would, in want of metaphors, become lost in work, and the first dances and comedies would end in frenzy, without any recollection, as long as the treading of feet had not yet worn the venerable path, traced out the first draft of the temple. But as soon as the dancer submits to the human sign, reading resumes, and humanity begins to flower again into culture.

Alain (Emile-Auguste Chartier), Propos I (1922)