hat I have to do
in that situation, is that by means of which it, in turn, flows
in upon me. That voice is the oracle from the eternal world, made
sensible by my environment, and translated, by my reception of it,
into my language; which announces to me how I must fit myself to my
part in the order of the spiritual world, or to the infinite Will,
which itself is the order of that spiritual world. I cannot oversee or
see through this spiritual order; nor need I. I am only a link in its
chain, and can no more judge of the whole than a single tone in a song
can judge of the harmony of the whole. But what I myself should be, in
the harmony of Spirits, I must know; for only I myself can make myself
that, and it is immediately revealed to me by a voice which sounds
over to me from that world. Thus I stand in connection with the only
being that _exists_, and partake of its being. There is nothing truly
real, permanent, imperishable in me, but these two--the voice of my
conscience and my free obedience. By means of the first, the spiritual
world bows down to me and embraces me, as one of its members. By means
of the second, I raise myself into this world, lay hold of it, and
work in it. But that infinite Will is the mediator between it and me;
for, of it and me, that Will is the primal fountain. This is the only
true and imperishable reality, toward which my soul moves from its
inmost depth. All else is only phenomenon, and vanishes and returns
again, with new seeming.

This Will connects me with itself. The same connects me with all
finite beings of my species, and is the universal mediator between
us all. That is the great mystery of the invisible world, and
its fundamental law, so far as it is a world or system of several
individual wills: _Union and direct reciprocal action of several
self-subsisting and independent wills among one another_--a mystery
which, even in the present life, lies clear before all eyes, without
any one's noticing it or thinking it worthy his admiration! The voice
of Conscience, which enjoins upon each one his proper duty, is the ray
by which we proceed from the Infinite and are set forth as individual
particular beings. It defines the boundaries of our personality; it
is, therefore, our true original constituent, the foundation and the
stuff of all the life which we live.

* * * * *

That eternal Will, then, is indeed world-creator, as he alone can
be--in the finit