Page:Vocation of Man (1848).djvu/113



Spirit, thy discourse has smitten me to the ground. But thou referrest me to myself, and what were I, could anything out of myself irrecoverably cast me down? I will,—yes, surely I will follow thy counsel.

What seekest thou, then, my complaining heart? What is it that excites thee against a system to which my understanding cannot raise the slightest objection?

This it is:—I demand something beyond a mere presentation or conception; something that is, has been, and will be, even if the presentation were not; and which the presentation only records, without producing it, or in the smallest degree changing it. A mere presentation I now see to be a deceptive show; my presentations must have a meaning beneath them, and if my entire knowledge revealed to me nothing but knowledge, I would be defrauded of my whole life. That there is nothing whatever but my presentations or conceptions, is, to the natural sense of mankind, a silly and ridiculous conceit which no man can seriously entertain, and which requires no refutation. To the better-informed judgment, which knows the deep, and, by mere reasoning, irrefragable grounds for this assertion, it is a prostrating, annihilating thought.