rse, sets forth from every world
a consoling ray and strikes his upward gaze, announcing to him that
between that measureless space and himself there exists a close
relation, and that he is allied to eternity."[158]

And are these sublime _pressentiments_ only dreams after all? Dreams!
Know you not that our dreams create nothing, and that they are never
anything else than confused reminiscences and fantastic combinations of
the realities of our waking consciousness? What then is that mysterious
waking during which we have seen the eternal, the infinite, the
perfection of goodness, the fulness of joy, all those sublime images
which come to haunt our spirit during the dream of life? Recollections
of our origin! foreshadowings of our destinies! While then all below is
transitory, and is escaping from us in a ceaseless flight, let us
abandon ourselves without fear to these instincts of the soul--

As a bird, if it light on a sprig too slight
The feathery freight to bear,
Yet, conscious of wings, tosses fearless, and sings,
Then drops--on the buoyant air.[159]

FOOTNOTES:

[131] _Systeme de la Nature_, published under the pseudonyme of
Mirabaud.

[132] _Systeme de la Nature_, Part I. chap. 1.

[133] _Ibid._ Part II. chap. 14.

[134] _Vie de Jesus._ Dedication.

[135] _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of 15 January, 1860.

[136] Plebeii philosophi qui a Platone et Socrate et ab ea familia
dissident.

[137] _Les philosophes francais du XIXe siecle_, chap. XIV.

[138] _Hegel et l'Hegelianisme_ par M. Ed. Scherer.

[139] Page 854.

[140] Page 852.

[141] Page 856.

[142] Isa. xx. 20.

[143] _Essais de critique et d'histoire_, pp. 8 and 9.

[144] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 15 Feb. 1861, page 855.

[145] Page 853.

[146] Page 854.

[147] _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of the 15th Feb. 1861, page 854.

[148] _Introduction a l'histoire de la philosophie_. Neuvieme lecon.

[149]

Il repondit, baissant un oeil humide:
Jamais ce nom n'attristera mes vers.

[150] _Introduction a l'histoire de la philosophie._ Treizieme lecon.

[151]

Je prends tout doucement les hommes comme ils sont,
J'accoutume mon ame a souffrir ce qu'ils font.

[152] _Nihil nefas ducere, hanc summam inter eos religionem esse._ (Tit.
Liv. lib. xxxix. c. 13.)

[153]

. . . . . . Ces haines vigoureuses
Que doit donner le vice aux ames vertueuses.

[154] _Melanges de Toepffer.