p force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot
go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being which
in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from
things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them
and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and
being also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist and
afterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have
shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here
are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom and which
cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of
immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs
of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do
nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence
this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy
is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man
discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary
perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect
faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that
these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My wilful
actions and acquisitions are but roving;--the idlest reverie, the
faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless
people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of
opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish
between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this
or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see
a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all
mankind,--although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For
my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is
profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he
should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world
with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from
the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the
whole. Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old
things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now,
and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All thi