ce of heaven and earth could be seen,
should fancy that all the marvels he beheld belonged to that window. There
is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? or
come to the conviction that what seems the _succession_ of thought is only
the distribution of wholes into causal series? The intellect sees that
every atom carries the whole of Nature; that the mind opens to
omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and ascents, the metamorphosis
is entire, so that the soul doth not know itself in its own act, when that
act is perfected. There is illusion that shall deceive even the elect.
There is illusion that shall deceive even the performer of the miracle.
Though he make his body, he denies that he makes it. Though the world
exist from thought, thought is daunted in presence of the world. One after
the other we accept the mental laws, still resisting those which follow,
which however must be accepted. But all our concessions only compel us to
new profusion. And what avails it that science has come to treat space and
time as simply forms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical,
and withal our pretension of _property_ and even of self-hood are fading
with the rest, if, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities; but the
incessant flowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which
yesterday was a finality to-day is yielding to a larger generalization?

With such volatile elements to work in, 'tis no wonder if our estimates
are loose and floating. We must work and affirm, but we have no guess of
the value of what we say or do. The cloud is now as big as your hand, and
now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to drain the
drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman, and to run
with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been drinking up the
sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought, describes us who
are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the supreme energies of
Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad company and squalid condition,
low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher's
meat, sugar, milk, and coal. "Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will
show my spirit." "Not so," says the good Heaven; "plod and plough, vamp
your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best
wine by-and-by." Well, 'tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape
in all humility, and as well as we