Note 206.1 — The Evolution of Religion
Reading edition
When the best thought of the age had reached to such a point of spiritual abstraction, it was natural that the same question should arise as arose among the more philosophic adherents of early Christianity, whether special prayers were justifiable at all. It seems that at some period the Pythagorean school were inclined to forbid prayer altogether,206.1 for the reason that God knew better how to give than man knew how to ask; but the later Neo-Platonism discovered an ideal raison-d’être for the practice, on the ground that it raised the mind to direct communion and converse with God; and this view is developed at great length by Proclus.206.2