Those men who survived â€" those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them â€" those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men â€" men with nothing to offer save their great numbers â€" lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I have been answered â€" and for the same reasons. â€"Anthem, Ayn Rand What imagery is used in this passage?.