s, and in either case
be no more.'

By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues, of Meditation
this grand Theorem is here unfolded, and innumerable practical
Corollaries are drawn therefrom, it were perhaps a mad ambition to
attempt exhibiting. Our Professor's method is not, in any case, that
of common school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each
holding by the skirts of the other; but at best that of practical
Reason, proceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic groups and
kingdoms; whereby, we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that
of Nature, reigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature: a
mighty maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay we
complained above, that a certain ignoble complexity, what we must call
mere confusion, was also discernible. Often, also, we have to exclaim:
Would to Heaven those same Biographical Documents were come! For it
seems as if the demonstration lay much in the Author's individuality;
as if it were not Argument that had taught him, but Experience. At
present it is only in local glimpses, and by significant fragments,
picked often at wide-enough intervals from the original Volume, and
carefully collated, that we can hope to impart some outline or
foreshadow of this Doctrine. Readers of any intelligence are once more
invited to favour us with their most concentrated attention: let
these, after intense consideration, and not till then, pronounce,
Whether on the utmost verge of our actual horizon there is not a
looming as of Land; a promise of new Fortunate Islands, perhaps whole
undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to sail thither?--As
exordium to the whole, stand here the following long citation:

'With men of a speculative turn,' writes Teufelsdroeckh, 'there come
seasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear
you ask yourself that unanswerable question: Who am _I_; the thing
that can say "I" (_das Wesen das sich_ ICH _nennt_)? The world, with
its loud trafficking, retires into the distance; and, through the
paper-hangings, and stone-walls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce
and Polity, and all the living and lifeless integuments (of Society
and a Body), wherewith your Existence sits surrounded,--the sight
reaches forth into the void Deep, and you are alone with the Universe,
and silently commune with it, as one mysterious Presence with another.

'Who am I; what is this ME? A Voice, a Motion