turn round
and despise these means of advancement, and declare that they are mere
non-essential _circumstances_, and that a man may reach the same end by
studying himself _in_ himself. It is as if a man should use a ladder to
reach a lofty crag, and then kick it over contemptuously, and aver that he
could just as well have flown up, and ask the crowd below to break up that
miserable ladder and try their wings. Doubtless they _have_ wings, if they
only knew it. But seriously, I am not inclined to join in the hue-and-cry
against even the ultra-transcendentalist. He has truth mixed up with what
I esteem objectionable, and some truth to which others have not attained;
and as I deem the eclectic the only true mode of philosophy, I am willing
to take truth where I can find it, whether in China or Boston, in
Confucius or Emerson, Kant or Cousin, the Bible or the Koran; and though I
have more reverence for one of these sources than all others, it is only
because I think I find there the greatest amount of truth, sanctioned by
the highest authority. To put the belief in the Bible on any other ground,
is to base it on educational prejudice and superstition; on which
principle the Koran should be as binding on the Mahometan as the Bible on
us. Do we not all finally resort to _ourselves_ in order to decide a
difficult question in morals or religion? and is not the decision more or
less correct accordingly as we refer it to the better or to the baser
portion of our nature?

'Most certainly! I have often said I would not and could not believe in
the Bible, if it commanded us to worship Sin and leave our passions
unbridled.'

Well said! And in so saying, you acknowledge yourself to be governed by
the same principle which actuates the ultra-transcendentalist; the moral
sense or instinct, similar to the 'inward light' of the Friends. After
all, I apprehend the true point in which men differ is, whether this moral
sense is really an instinct, or whether it is evolved and put in operation
by education. How much is due to nature? is the true question. But to
solve it, is important only theoretically, for practically we all act
alike; we cannot, if we would, separate the educational from the natural
moral sense; we cannot _uneducate_ it, and then judge by it, freed from
all circumstantial bias. But whether more or less indebted either to
nature or education, it is to this moral and religious sense that the
ultra-transcendentalist refers e