it cannot be otherwise than that,
in proportion as an individual advances in religion and the character
of his piety becomes more pure, the whole religious world will
more and more appear to him as an indivisible whole. The spirit of
separation, in proportion as it insists upon a rigid division, is a
proof of imperfection; the highest and most cultivated minds always
perceive a universal connection, and, for the very reason that they
perceive it, they also establish it. Since every one comes in contact
only with his immediate neighbor, but, at the same time, has an
immediate neighbor on all sides and in every direction, he is, in
fact, indissolubly linked in with the whole. Mystics and Naturalists
in religion, they to whom the Godhead is a personal Being, and they
to whom it is not, they who have arrived at a systematic view of
the Universe, and they who behold it only in its elements or only in
obscure chaos--all, notwithstanding, should be only one, for one band
surrounds them all and they can be totally separated only by a violent
and arbitrary force; every specific combination is nothing but an
integral part of the whole; its peculiar characteristics are almost
evanescent, and are gradually lost in outlines that become more and
more indistinct; and at least those who feel themselves thus united
will always be the superior portion.

Whence, then, but through a total misunderstanding, have arisen that
wild and disgraceful zeal for proselytism to a separate and peculiar
form of religion, and that horrible expression--"no salvation except
with us." As I have described to you the society of the pious, and as
it must needs be according to its intrinsic nature, it aims merely
at reciprocal communication, and subsists only between those who are
already in possession of religion, of whatever character it may be;
how then can it be its vocation to change the sentiments of those
who now acknowledge a definite system, or to introduce and consecrate
those who are totally destitute of one? The religion of this society,
as such, consists only in the religion of all the pious taken
together, as each one beholds it in the rest--it is Infinite; no
single individual can embrace it entirely, since so far as it is
individual it ceases to be one, and hence no man can attain such
elevation and completeness as to raise himself to its level. If any
one, then, has chosen a part in it for himself, whatever it may be,
were it not an absurd p