Taking away the number one first thought of

They that go about the world asking riddles and doing puzzles (those enemies of the human race) used to have one particular game which, after ramifications of arithmetic, ended with "taking away the number one first thought of." It is a silly game, and, like many other silly games, has been played by great empires and on a large scale. That touch of over-civilisation which is always the first touch of a returning barbarism can best be noted whenever we note this game of subtracting the original thought with which everything began. I mean that men will build up institutions and elaborations round the central pillar of some thought. Then, after the passage of centuries the central pillar falls down, but the rest of the edifice remains. Such an edifice is not always in danger, but it is in decay.

-March 9, 1912, Illustrated London News