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The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies
him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his body; life above
life, in infinite degrees. The sentiment from which it sprung determines the
dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not what you have done or
forborne, but at whose command you have done or forborne it.
Fortune, Minerva, Muse, Holy Ghost, — these are quaint names,
too narrow to cover this unbounded substance. The baffled intellect must still kneel
before this cause, which refuses to be named, — ineffable cause, which every
fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic symbol, as, Thales by
water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Noûs) thought, Zoroaster by fire,
Jesus and the moderns by love; and the metaphor of each has become a national
religion.
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