bility of this theoretic and very actual truth: if, therefore, the idea, here briefly suggested, of the universalised consciousness being attainable by man in ecstatic relationship and collapsed personality, serve in some degree to clear the imagination and present to any mind, a less objectionable image than that which the Unconscious Intuition, or Conditioned Intelligence may have afforded, it is all that is aspired to or at present desired.* Increased belief may be obtained through contemplation, in that free perspicacity of thought, which reflects the original in every intelligence. Conviction belongs alone to that acme of vital conversion which is, and by its own will and necessity, ever must be, incommunicable and arcane.

"For the knowledge of it is a most Divine Silence, and a rest of all the senses; for neither can he that understands That, understand any thing else, nor he that sees That, see any thing else, nor hear any other thing, nor, in sum, move the body.

* If, from the natural personality of its acceptation, the term consciousness be yet found inapplicable to the Infinite Idea ; it may be taken merely as intended to convey the closest image of it, which our ordinary mental condition affords: the imagination must be cleared, by abstraction, from all duplicity in its conceptive shadow of universal being.

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"For, shining steadfastly up, and round about the whole mind, it enlighteneth all the soul, and loosing it from the bodily senses and motions, it draweth it from the body and changeth it wholly into the essence of God."

O marvellous, miraculous consummation ! and thou, that by the strange necessity of fate, and undue balance of thy self-born nature, art fallen from the first image in which thou wast created! O man! who, with thyself, hast lost all other things, save one-Behold again the beatific vision, remember, know the Beautythe true Good—the Heaven of which, thou wast thyself the living type and manifested temple ! and after this manner contemplate God; having the whole world to Himself, as it were, all thoughts and intellections. If, therefore, thou wilt not equal thyself to God, thou canst not understand God, for the like is intelligible by the like.*

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* It has occurred since writing the above extract, that this passage might possibly suggest a presumptuous or otherwise erroneous idea to minds unfamiliarised to this sacred subject, and be consequently destructive of the whole tenor and object of these remarks; for nothing is so calculated, or more eminently tends to humble man, as he is, than even a small insight into what he might and ought to be; but it is impossible really to profane the Divine Idea, for it cannot be reached by a profane or unprepared mind; and as the fear of God is the begin

Increase thyself into an immense greatness, leaping beyond every body, and transcending Time, become Eternity, and thou shalt understand God. If thou art able to believe in thyself, that nothing is impossible, but accountest thyself immortal, and that thou canst understand all things, every art, every science, and the manner and custom of every living thing.

"Become higher than all Height, lower than all Depth, comprehend in thyself, the qualities of all the creatures, of the fire, the water, the dry, and the moist, and conceive likewise that thou canst at once be every where, in the sea and in the earth. Thou shalt at once understand thyself not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, to be dead and the things after death, and all these together; as also all times, places, deeds, quantities, qualities, or else thou canst not yet understand God. But if thou shut up thy soul in the body, and abuse it, and say, I understand nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of the sea, I cannot climb up into heaven, I know not

ning of wisdom, so is presumption the end of ignorance: not then by prematurely and irreverently drawing down the Idea, but by piously aspiring, and raising the Conception through graduated links and intellectual media can we ever hope to draw the spectacle of our adoration: by pride man fell, in humility, he will rise, to make manifest all Truth.

who I am, I cannot tell what I shall be; what hast thou to do with God?" for thou canst understand none of these fair and good things; be then a lover of the body and evil.

"For it is the greatest evil not to know God: but to be able to know, and to will, and to hope, is the straight way, and the divine way proper to the Good: and it will every where meet thee, every where be seen of thee, plain and easy, when thou dost not expect or look for it. For there is nothing which is not the image of God. And yet thou sayest, God is invisible, but be advised-for who is more manifest than He? For, therefore, hath he made all things, that by all things, thou mayest see Him.

"This is the good of God, this is his virtue, to appear; there is nothing invisible, no not of such things as are incorporeal;

"For the sleep of the senses is the sober watchfulness of the Mind, and the shutting of the eyes, the true Sight. Let these things, thus far forth, be made manifest unto thee;

"Understand in like manner all other things by Thyself, and thou shalt not be deceived." "We awaken, from the Intellectual Intuition," says Schelling," as from a state of death ;" and we awaken by reflection into that created personality, wherein, it is impossible any longer to

know Him. The vision, graven in hallowed memory, is all that remains to us; for the object of human reason is the limit of its power; and the pure zero of all relative conception waits before the throne of God.

Nothing is truly imaged in this world any more than we are ourselves, who do but look and dream on its falsified circumference; or like the people in Plato's book of laws, who lived satisfied in a city underground, furnished only through certain apertures with small portions of dim light. But when some of these fortunately emerged from their subterranean darkness, and beheld the beauties of the broad and glorious day, although they were at first uncomfortably dazzled by its superior light, they disdained the fancied felicities of their former dark abode, and lamented the miseries of their yet imprisoned friends. And we too, so long immured, are we not about to emerge into the sunlight? The Spirit is full wearied of the long Sabbath which she has kept in silence, through so many circles of ages, with the assurance of a great purpose through her to be wrought out; the inner mind struggles for a new birth, to redeem philosophy,