and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in
abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are
precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and
emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not
a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are
not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering
their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been
implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds
to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to
experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the
assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it,
though we could not deduce it by an _a priori_ method.

The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and
may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern
teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy
natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great
primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume.
Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and
endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the
primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights
of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;'
and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for
furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite
treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early
happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief
produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on
petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and
pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing the
noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its
instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature,
and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know
how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised
are the laws of morality.

To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode
of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You
must love him,' as he says of the poet,