ght
of the spirit. To us this earth, this life, all that we see, and hear,
and touch is certain. Here, we feel, is our home, here lie our duties,
here our pleasures. To him this earth is a thing that once was not,
and that again will cease to be; this life is a short dream from which
we shall soon awake. Of nothing he professes greater ignorance than of
what to others seems to be most certain, namely what we see, and hear,
and touch; and as to our home, wherever that may be, he knows that
certainly it is not here.

Do not suppose that such men are mere dreamers. Far from it! And if we
can only bring ourselves to be quite honest to ourselves, we shall
have to confess that at times we all have been visited by these
transcendental aspirations, and have been able to understand what
Wordsworth meant when he spoke of those

"Obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized."

The transcendent temperament acquired no doubt a more complete
supremacy in the Indian character than anywhere else; but no nation,
and no individual, is entirely without that "yearning beyond;" indeed
we all know it under a more familiar name--namely, _Religion_.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between religion and _a_
religion, quite as much as in another branch of philosophy we have to
distinguish between language and _a_ language or many languages. A man
may accept _a_ religion, he may be converted to the Christian
religion, and he may change his own particular religion from time to
time, just as he may speak different languages. But in order to have
_a_ religion, a man must have religion. He must once _at least_ in his
life have looked beyond the horizon of this world, and carried away in
his mind an impression of the Infinite, which will never leave him
again. A being satisfied with the world of sense, unconscious of its
finite nature, undisturbed by the limited or negative character of all
perceptions of the senses, would be incapable of any religious
concepts. Only when the finite character of all human knowledge has
been received is it possible for the human mind to conceive that which
is beyond the Finite, call it what you like, the Beyond, the Unseen,
the Infinite, the Supernatural, or the Divine. That step must have
been taken before religion of any kind becomes possible. What kind of
religion it w