e various sciences is given to every human being in his own nature,
so that they are peculiarly accessible to him. How is it that I get my
ideas of God, of my fellow-creatures, of the deeds, suffering, motives,
which make up universal history? I comprehend all these from the
consciousness of what passes in my own soul. The mind within me is a
type representative of all others, and therefore I can understand all.
Whence come my conceptions of the intelligence, and justice, and
goodness, and power of God? It is because my own spirit contains the
germs of these attributes. The ideas of them are first derived from my
own nature, and therefore I comprehend them in other beings. Thus the
foundation of all the sciences which treat of mind is laid in every man's
breast. The good man is exercising in his business and family faculties
and affections which bear a likeness to the attributes of the Divinity,
and to the energies which have made the greatest men illustrious; so that
in studying himself, in learning the highest principles and laws of his
own soul, he is in truth studying God, studying all human history,
studying the philosophy which has immortalized the sages of ancient and
modern times. In every man's mind and life all other minds and lives are
more or less represented and wrapped up. To study other things, I must
go into the outward world, and perhaps go far. To study the science of
spirit, I must come home and enter my own soul. The profoundest books
that have ever been written do nothing more than bring out, place in
clear light, what is passing in each of your minds. So near you, so
within you, is the grandest truth.

I have, indeed, no expectation that the laborer is to understand in
detail the various sciences which relate to mind. Few men in any
vocation do so understand them. Nor is it necessary; though, where time
can be commanded, the thorough study of some particular branch, in which
the individual has a special interest, will be found of great utility.
What is needed to elevate the soul is, not that a man should know all
that has been thought and written in regard to the spiritual nature, not
that a man should become an encyclopaedia, but that the great ideas, in
which all discoveries terminate, which sum up all sciences, which the
philosopher extracts from infinite details, may be comprehended and felt.
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the
mind's dignity.