.

Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general
law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to
disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no
circumference to us. The man finishes his story,--how good! how final!
how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo, on the
other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we
had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our
first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is
forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by
themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be
escaped will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that
seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a
bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to
upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the
nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet
depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a
suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next
age.

Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the steps are actions,
the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and
judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by
the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always
hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an
abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye
and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit
appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles
before the revelation of the new hour.

Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass[698] and
material, threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not;
it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much.

There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man
supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth
in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can
be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was
never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That
is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility.

Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts
and can write what I please. I see no