worth's aim is to
supply an answer worthy not only of a poet, but a man. The same
sentiment again is expressed in the grand 'Ode to Duty,' where the

Stern daughter of the voice of God

is invoked to supply that 'genial sense of youth' which has hitherto
been a sufficient guidance; or in the majestic morality of the 'Happy
Warrior;' or in the noble verses on 'Tintern Abbey;' or, finally, in the
great ode which gives most completely the whole theory of that process
by which our early intuitions are to be transformed into settled
principles of feeling and action.

Wordsworth's philosophical theory, in short, depends upon the asserted
identity between our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The
doctrine of a state of pre-existence, as it appears in other
writers--as, for example, in the Cambridge Platonists[25]--was connected
with an obsolete metaphysical system, and the doctrine--exploded in its
old form--of innate ideas. Wordsworth does not attribute any such
preternatural character to the 'blank misgivings' and 'shadowy
recollections' of which he speaks. They are invaluable data of our
spiritual experience; but they do not entitle us to lay down dogmatic
propositions independently of experience. They are spontaneous products
of a nature in harmony with the universe in which it is placed, and
inestimable as a clear indication that such a harmony exists. To
interpret and regulate them belongs to the reasoning faculty and the
higher imagination of later years. If he does not quite distinguish
between the province of reason and emotion--the most difficult of
philosophical problems--he keeps clear of the cruder mysticism, because
he does not seek to elicit any definite formulae from those admittedly
vague forebodings which lie on the border-land between the two sides of
our nature. With his invariable sanity of mind, he more than once
notices the difficulty of distinguishing between that which nature
teaches us and the interpretations which we impose upon nature.[26] He
carefully refrains from pressing the inference too far.

The teaching, indeed, assumes that view of the universe which is implied
in his pantheistic language. The Divinity really reveals Himself in the
lonely mountains and the starry heavens. By contemplating them we are
able to rise into that 'blessed mood' in which for a time the burden of
the mystery is rolled off our souls, and we can 'see into the life of
things.' And here we must admi