That Eternal Will is thus assuredly the Creator of the World, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the only way in which it needs creation: — in the finite reason. Those who regard Him as building up a world from an everlasting inert matter, which must still remain inert and lifeless, — like a vessel made by human hands, not an eternal procession of His selfdevelopment, — or who ascribe to Him the production of a material universe out of nothing, know neither the world nor Him. If matter only can be reality, then were the world indeed nothing, and throughout all eternity would remain nothing. Reason alone exists:— the Infinite in Himself, — the finite in Him and through Him. Only in our minds has He created a world; at least that from which we unfold it, and that by which we unfold it; — the voice of duty, and harmonious feelings, intuitions, and laws of thought. It is His light through which we behold the light, and all that it reveals to us. In our minds He still creates this world, and acts upon it by acting upon our minds through the call of duty, as soon as another free being changes aught therein. In our minds He upholds this world, and thereby the finite existence of which alone we are capable, by continually evolving from each state of our existence other states in succession. When He shall have sufficiently proved us according to His supreme designs, for our next succeeding vocation, and we shall have sufficiently cultivated ourselves for entering upon it, then, by that which we call death, will He annihilate for us this life, and introduce us to a new life, the product of our virtuous actions. All our life is His life. We are in His hand^and abide therein, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. We are eternal, because He is eternal.
Sublime and Living Will! named by no name, compassed by no thought! I may well raise my soul to Thee, for Thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds within me, mine resounds in Thee; and all my thoughts, if they be but good and true, live in Thee also. In Thee, the Incomprehensible, I myself, and the world in which I live, become clearly comprehensible to me; all the secrets of my existence are laid open, and perfect harmony arises in my soul.
Thou art best known to the child-like, devoted, simple mind. To it Thou art the searcher of hearts, who seest its inmost depths; the ever-present true witness of its thoughts, who knowest its truth, who knowest it though all the world know it not. Thou art the Father who ever desirest its good, who rulest all things for the best. To Thy will it unhesitatingly resigns itself: " Do with me," it says, " what thou wilt; I know that it is good, for it is Thou who doest it." The inquisitive understanding, which has heard of Thee, but seen Thee not, would teach us thy nature; and as Thy image, shows us a monstrous and incongruous shape, which the sagacious laugh at, and the wise and good abhor.
I hide my face before Thee, and lay my hand upon my mouth. How Thou art, and seemest to Thine own being, I can never know, any more than I can assume Thy nature. After thousands upon thousands of spirit-lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this earthly house. That which I conceive, becomes finite through my very conception of it; and this can ney^r, even by endless exaltation, rise into the Infinite. Thou differest from men, not in degree but in nature. In every.stage of their advancement they think of Thee as a greater man, and still a greater; but never as God — the Infinite, — whom no measure can mete. I have only this discursive, progressive thought, and I can conceive of no other: — how can I venture to ascribe it to Thee? In the Idea of person there are imperfections, limitations: — how can I clothe Thee with it without these?
I will not attempt that which the imperfection of my finite nature forbids, and which would be useless to rne: — How Thou art, I may not know. But, let me be what I ought to be, and Thy relations to me — the mortal — and to all mortals, lie open before my eyes, and surround me more clearly than the consciousness of my own existence. Thou workest in me the knowledge of my duty, of my vocation in the world of reasonable beings; — how, I know not, nor need I to know. Thou knowest what I think and what I will: — how Thou canst know, through what act thou bringest about that consciousness, I cannot understand, — nay, I know that the idea of an act, of a particular act of consciousness, belongs to me alone, and not to Thee, — the Infinite One. Thou wiliest that my free obedience shall bring with it eternal consequences: — the act of Thy will I cannot comprehend, I only know that it is not like mine. Thou doest, and Thy will itself is the deed; but the way of Thy working is not as my ways, — I cannot trace it. Thou livest and art, for Thou knowest and wiliest and workest, omnipresent to finite Reason; but Thou art not as / now and always must conceive of being.
In the contemplation of these Thy relations to me, the finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know immediately only what I ought to do. This will I do, freely, joyfully, and without cavilling or sophistry, for it is Thy voice which commands me to do it; it is the part assigned to me in the spiritual World-plan; and the power with which I shall perform it is Thy power. Whatever may be commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power, is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tranquil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy world. Nothing can perplex or surprise or dishearten me, as surely as Thou livest, and I can look upon Thy life. For in Thee, and through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold even my present world in another light. Nature, and natural consequences, in the destinies and conduct of free beings, as opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words. Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art.
It no longer appears to me to be the end and purpose of the present world to produce that state of universal peace among men, and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of nature, for its own sake alone, — but that this should be produced by man himself, — and, since it is expected from all, that it should be produced by all, as one great, free, moral, community. Nothing new and better for an individual shall be attainable, except through his own virtuous will; nothing new and better for a community, except through the common will being in accordance with duty: — this is a fundamental law of the great moral empire, of which the present life is a part. The good will of the individual is thus often lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individual, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his, — and then its results are to be found solely in a future world; while even the passions and vices of men cooperate in the attainment of good, — • not in and for themselves, for in this sense good can never come out of evil, — but by holding the balance against the opposite vices, and, at last, by their excess, annihilating these antagonists, and themselves with them. Oppression could never have gained the upper hand in human affairs, unless the cowardice, baseness, and mutual mistrust of men had smoothed the way to it. It will continue to increase, until it extirpate cowardice and slavishness; and despair itself at last reawaken courage. Then shall the two opposite vices have annihilated each other, and the noblest of all human relations, lasting freedom, come forth from their antagonism.
The actions of free beings, strictly considered, have results only in other free beings; for in them, and for them alone, there is a world; and that in which they all agree, is itself the • world. But they have these results only through the Infinite Will, — the medium through which all individual beings influence each other. But the announcement, the publication of this Will to us, is always a call to a particular duty. Thus even what we call evil in the world, the consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through Him; and it exists for those who experience it only in so far as, through it, duties are laid upon them. Were it not in the eternal plan of our moral culture, and the culture of our whole race, that precisely these duties should be laid upon us, they would not be so laid upon us; and that through which they are laid upon us — i. e. what we call evil — would not have been produced. In so far, everything that is, is good, and absolutely legitimate. There is but one world possible, — a thoroughly good world. All that happens in this world is subservient to the improvement and culture of man, and, by means of this, to the promotion of the purpose of his earthly existence. It is this higher World-plan which we call Nature, when we say, — Nature leads men through want to industry; through the evils of general disorder to a just constitution; through the miseries of continual wars to endless peace on earth.
Thy will, O Infinite One! thy Providence alone, is this higher Nature. This, too, is best understood by artless simplicity, when it regards this life as a place of trial and culture, as a school for eternity; when, in all the events of life, the most trivial as well as the most important, it beholds thy guiding Providence disposing all for the best; when it firmly believes that all things must work together for the good of those who love their duty, and who know Thee.
Oh! I have, indeed, dwelt in darkness during the past days of my life! I have indeed heaped error upon error, and imagined myself wise! Now, for the first time, do I wholly understand the doctrine which from thy lips, O Wonderful Spirit! seemed so strange to me, although my understanding had nothing to oppose to it; for now, for the first time, do I comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest foundations, and through all its consequences.
Man is not a product of the world of sense, and the end of his existence cannot be attained in it. His vocation transcends Time and Space, and everything that pertains to sense. What he is, and to what he is to train himself, that he must know; — as his vocation is a lofty one, he must be able to raise his thoughts above all the limitations of sense. He must accomplish it: — where his being finds its home, there his thoughts too seek their dwelling-place; and the truly human mode of thought,, that which alone is worthy of him, that in which his whole spiritual strength is manifested, is that whereby he raises himself above those limitations, whereby all that pertains to sense vanishes into nothing, — into a mere reflection, in mortal eyes, of the One, Self-existent Infinite.
Many have raised themselves to this mode of thought, without scientific inquiry, merely by their nobleness of heart and their pure moral instinct, because their life has been preeminently one of feeling and sentiment. They have denied, by their conduct, the efficiency and reality of the world of sense, and made it of no account in regulating their resolutions and their actions; — whereby they have not indeed made it clear, by reasoning, that this world has no existence for the intellect. Those who could dare to say, " Our citizenship is in heaven; we have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come; " — those whose chief principle it was " to die to the world, to be born again, and already here below to enter upon a new life," — certainly set no value whatever on the things of sense, and were, to use the language of the schools, practical Transcendental Idealists.
Others, who, besides possessing the natural proneness to mere sensuous activity which is common to us all, have also added to its power by the adoption of similar habits of thought, until they have got wholly entangled in it, and it has grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, can raise themselves above it, permanently and completely, only by persistent and conclusive thought; otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, they would be continually drawn down again by their understanding, and their whole being would remain a prolonged and insoluble contradiction. For these, the philosophy which I now, for the first time, thoroughly understand, will be the first power that shall set free the imprisoned Psyche and unfold her wings, so that, hovering for a moment above her former self, she may cast a glance on her abandoned slough, and then soar upwards thenceforward to live and move in higher spheres.
Blessed be the hour in which I first resolved to inquire into myself and my vocation! All my doubts are solved; I know what I can know, and have no apprehensions regarding that which I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect harmony and clearness reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious spiritual existence begins for me.
My entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what I shall be hereafter transcends all my thoughts. A part of that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One, to the Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I know only that it is sure, and that it is eternal and glorious like Himself. But that part of it which is confided to myself, I know, and know it thoroughly, for it is the root of all my other knowledge. I know assuredly, in every moment of my life, what I ought to do; and this is my whole vocation in so far as it depends on me. From this point, since my knowledge does not reach beyond it, I shall not depart; I shall not desire to know aught beyond this; I shall take my stand upon this central point, and firmly root myself here. To this shall all my thoughts and endeavours, my whole powers, be directed; my whole existence shall be interwoven with it.
I ought, as far as in me lies, to cultivate my understanding and to acquire knowledge; — but only with the purpose of preparing thereby within me a larger field and wider sphere of duty. I ought to desire to have much; — in order that much may be required of me. I ought to exercise my powers and capacities in every possible way; — but only in order to render myself a more serviceable and fitting instrument of duty, for until the commandment shall have been realized V V in the outward world, by means of my whole personality, I am answerable for it to my conscience. I ought to exhibit in myself, as far as I am able, humanity in all its completeness;— not for the mere sake of humanity, which in itself has not the slightest worth, but in order that virtue, which alone has worth in itself, may be exhibited in its highest perfection in human nature. I ought to regard myself, body and soul, with all that is in me or that belongs to me, only as a means of duty; and only be solicitous to fulfil that, and to make myself able to fulfil it, as far as in me lies. But when the commandment, — provided only that it shall have been in truth the commandment which I have obeyed, and I have been really conscious only of the pure, single intention of obeying it, — when the commandment shall have passed beyond my personal being to its realization in the outward world, then I have no more anxiety about it, for thenceforward it is committed into the hands of the Eternal Will. Farther care or anxiety would be but idle self-torment; would be unbelief and distrust of that Infinite Will. I shall never dream of governing the world in His stead; of listening to the voice of my own imperfect wisdom instead of to His voice in my conscience; or of substituting the partial views of a short-sighted creature for His vast plan which embraces the universe. I know that thereby I should lose my own place in His order, and in the order of all spiritual being.
As with calmness and devotion I reverence this higher Providence, so in my actions ought I to reverence the freedom of other beings around me. The question for me is not what they, according to my conceptions, ought to do, but what I may venture to do in order to induce them to do it. I can only desire to act on their conviction and their will as far as the order of society and their own consent will permit; but by no means, without their conviction and consent, to influence their powers and relations. They do what they do on their own responsibility; with this I neither can nor dare intermeddle, and the Eternal Will will dispose all for the best. It concerns me more to respect their freedom, than to hinder or prevent what to me seems evil in its use.
In this point of view I become a new creature, and my whole relations to the existing world are changed. The ties by which my mind was formerly united to this world, and by whose secret guidance I followed all its movements, are for ever sundered, and I stand free, calm and immovable, a universe to myself. No longer through my affections, but by my eye alone, do I apprehend outward objects and am connected with them; and this eye itself is purified by freedom, and looks through error and deformity to the True and Beautiful, as upon the unruffled surface of water shapes are more purely mirrored in a milder light.
My mind is for ever closed against embarrassment and perplexity, against uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety;— my heart, against grief, repentance and desire. There is but one thing that I may know, — namely, what I ought to do; and this I always know infallibly. Concerning all else I know nothing, and know that I know nothing. I firmly root myself in this my ignorance, and refrain from harassing myself with conjectures concerning that of which I know nothing. No occurrence in this world can affect me either with joy or sorrow; calm and unmoved I look down upon all i68 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
things, for I know that I cannot explain a single event, nor comprehend its connexion with that which alone concerns me. All that happens belongs to the plan of the Eternal World, and is good in its place: thus much I know; — what in this plan is pure gain, what is only a means for the removal of some existing evil, what therefore ought to afford me more or less satisfaction, I know not. In His world all things prosper; — this satisfies me, and in this belief I stand fast as a rock; — but what in His world is merely the germ, what the blossom, and what the fruit itself, I know not.
The only matter in which I can be concerned is the progress of reason and morality in the world of reasonable beings; and this only for its own sake, — for the sake of this progress. Whether I or some one else be the instrument of this progress, whether it be my deed or that of another which prospers or is prevented, is of no importance to me. I regard myself merely as one of the instruments for carrying out the purpose of reason; I respect, love, or feel an interest in myself only as such an instrument, and desire the successful issue of my deed only in so far as it promotes this purpose. In like manner, I regard all the events of this world only with reference to this one purpose; whether they proceed from me or from others, whether they relate directly to me or to others. My breast is steeled against annoyance on account of personal offences and vexations, or exultation in personal merit; for my whole personality has disappeared in the contemplation of the purpose of my being.
Should it ever seem to me as if truth had been put.
to silence, and virtue expelled from the world; as if folly and vice had now summoned all their powers, and even assumed the place of reason and true wisdom; — should it happen, that just when all good men looked with hope for the regeneration of the human race, everything should become even worse than it had been before; — should the work, well and happily begun, on which the eyes of all true-minded men were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly be changed into the vilest forms of evil, — these things will not disturb me; and as little will I be persuaded to indulge in idleness, neglect, or false security, on account of an apparent rapid growth of enlightenment, a seeming diffusion of freedom and independence, an increase of more gentle manners, peacefulness, docility, and general moderation among men, as if now everything were attained. Thus it appears to me; or rather it is so, for it is actually so to me; and I know in both cases, as indeed I know in all possible cases, what I have next to do. As to everything else, I rest in the most perfect tranquillity, for I know nothing whatever about any other thing. Those, to me, so sorrowful events may, in the plan of the Eternal One, be the direct means for the attainment of a good result; — that strife of evil against good may be their last decisive struggle, and it may be permitted to the former to assemble all its powers for this encounter only to lose them, and thereby to exhibit itself in all its impotence. These, to me, joyful appearances may rest on very uncertain foundations; — what I had taken for enlightenment may perhaps be but hollow superficiality, and aversion to all true ideas; what I had taken for independence but unbridled passion; what I had taken for gentleness and moderation but weakness and indolence. I do not indeed know this, but it might be so; and then I should have as little cause to mourn over the one as to rejoice over the other. But I do know, that I live in a world which belongs to the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness, who thoroughly comprehends its plan, and will infallibly accomplish it; and in this conviction I rest, and am blessed.
That there are free beings, destined to reason and morality, who strive against reason, and call forth all their powers to the support of folly and vice; — just as little will this disturb me, and stir up within me indignation and wrath. The perversity which would hate what is good because it is good, and promote evil merely from a love of evil as such, — this perversity which alone could excite my just anger, I ascribe to no one who bears the form of man, for I know that it does not lie in human nature. I know that for all who act thus, there is really, in so far as they act thus, neither good nor evil, but only an agreeable or disagreeable feeling; that they do not stand under their own dominion, but under the power of Nature; and that it is not themselves, but this nature in them, which seeks the former and flies from the latter with all its strength without regard to whether it be otherwise good or evil. I know that being, once for all, what they are, they cannot act in any respect otherwise than as they do act, and I am very far from getting angry with necessity, or indulging in wrath against blind and unconscious Nature. Herein truly lies their guilt and unworthiness that they are what they are; and that, in place of being free and independent, they have resigned themselves to the current of mere natural impulse.
It is this alone which could excite my indignation; but here I should fall into absolute absurdity. I cannot call them to account for their want of freedom, without first attributing to them the power of making themselves free. I wish to be angry with them, and find no object for my wrath. What they actually are, does not deserve my anger; what might deserve it, they are not, and they would not deserve it, if they were. My displeasure would strike an impalpable nonentity. I must indeed always treat them, and address them, as if they were what I well know they are not; I must always suppose in them that whereby alone I can approach them and communicate with them. Duty commands me to act towards them according to a conception of them the opposite of that which I arrive at by contemplating them. And thus it may certainly happen that I turn towards them with a noble indignation, as if they were free, in order to arouse within them a similar indignation against themselves,— an indignation which in my own heart I cannot reasonably entertain. It is only the practical man of society within me whose anger is excited by folly and vice; not the contemplative man who reposes undisturbed in the calm serenity of his own spirit.
Should I be visited by corporeal suffering, pain, or disease, I cannot avoid feeling them, for they are accidents of my nature; and as long as I remain here below, I am a part of Nature. But they shall not grieve me. They can only touch the nature with which, in a wonderful manner, I am united, — not myself, the being exalted above all Nature. The sure end of all pain, and of all sensibility to pain, is death; and of all things which the mere natural man is wont to regard as evils, this is to me the least. I shall not die to myself, but only to others; to those who remain behind, from whose fellowship I am torn: — for myself the hour of Death is the hour of Birth to a new, more excellent life.
Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes clothed in a more glorious form. The dead heavy mass, which only filled up space, has vanished; and in its place there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action, which issues from the original Source of all life — from Thy Life, O Infinite One; for all life is Thy Life, and only the religious eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty.
I am related to Thee, and what I behold around me is related to me; all is life and blessedness, and regards me with bright spirit-eyes, and speaks with spirit-voices to my heart. In all the forms that surround me, I behold the reflection of my own being, broken up into countless diversified shapes, as the morning sun, broken in a thousand dewdrops, sparkles towards itself.
Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-manifesting Will: — this Life, Clothed to the eye of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of Nature. Here it streams as selfcreating and self-forming matter through my veins and muscles, and pours its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life flows forth in one continuous stream, drop on drop, through all forms and into all places where my eye can follow it; and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various corner of the universe, as the same power by which in secret darkness my own frame was formed. There, in free play, it leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and manifests itself in each new BOOK III FAITH. 173 BOOK III FAITH. 173 form as a new, peculiar, self-subsisting world: — the same power which, invisibly to me, moves and animates my own frame. Everything that lives and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle of all motion, which, from one end of the universe to the other, guides the harmonious movement; — in the animal without freedom; in me, from whom in the visible world the motion proceeds although it has not its source in me, with freedom.
But pure and holy, and as near to Thine own nature as aught can be to mortal eye, does this Thy Life flow forth as the bond which unites spirit with spirit, as the breath and atmosphere of a rational world, unimaginable arid incomprehensible, and yet there, clearly visible to the spiritual eye. Borne onward in this stream of light, thought floats from soul to soul, without pause or variation, and returns purer and brighter from each kindred mind. Through this mysterious union does each individual perceive, understand, and love himself only in another; every soul develops itself only by means of other souls, and there are no longer individual men, but only one humanity; no individual thought, or love, or hate, but only thought, love, and hate, in and through each other. Through this wondrous influence the affinity of spirits in the invisible world permeates even their physical nature; — manifests itself in two sexes, which, even if that spiritual bond could be torn asunder, would, simply as creatures of nature, be compelled to love each other; — flows forth in the tenderness of parents and children, brothers and sisters, as if the souls were of one blood like the bodies, and their minds were branches and blossoms of the same stem; — and from these, embraces, in narrower or wider circles, the whole sentient world. Even at the root of their hate, there lies a secret thirst after love; and no enmity springs up but from friendship denied.