Great is the faith of the flush of knowledge, and of the investigation
of the depths of qualities and things. Cleaving and circling here
swells the soul of the poet, yet is president of itself always. The
depths are fathomless, and therefore calm. The innocence and nakedness
are resumed--they are neither modest nor immodest. The whole theory of
the supernatural, and all that was twined with it or educed out of
it, departs as a dream. What has ever happen'd--what happens, and
whatever may or shall happen, the vital laws inclose all. They are
sufficient for any case and for all cases--none to be hurried or
retarded--any special miracle of affairs or persons inadmissible in
the vast clear scheme where every motion and every spear of grass, and
the frames and spirits of men and women and all that concerns them,
are unspeakably perfect miracles, all referring to all, and each
distinct and in its place. It is also not consistent with the reality
of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more
divine than men and women.
Men and women, and the earth and all upon it, are to be taken as they
are, and the investigation of their past and present and future shall
be unintermitted, and shall be done with perfect candor. Upon this
basis philosophy speculates, ever looking towards the poet, ever
regarding the eternal tendencies of all toward happiness, never
inconsistent with what is clear to the senses and to the soul. For the
eternal tendencies of all toward happiness make the only point of sane
philosophy.
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