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172 and perfect shape; I cannot, and dare not add anything whatever to it; I have only to expound and interpret it distinctly. It is obviously not such as I may suppose the principle of my own, or any other possible sensuous world, to be,—a fixed, inert existence, from which, by the encounter of a will, some internal power may be evolved,—something altogether different from a mere will: For,—and this is the substance of my belief,—my will, absolutely by itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its expression, shall act in a perfectly congenial sphere,—reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit;—in a sphere to which nevertheless it does not give the law of life, activity, and progress, but which has that law in itself;—therefore, upon self-active reason. But self-active reason is will. The law of the super-sensual world must, therefore, be a Will:—A Will which operates purely as will; by itself, and absolutely without any instrument or sensible material of its activity; which is, at the same time, both act and product; with whom to will is to do, to command is to execute; in which, therefore, the instinctive demand of reason for absolute freedom and independence is realized:—A Will, which in itself is law; determined by no fancy or caprice, through no previous reflection, hesitation, or doubt;—but eternal, unchangeable, on which we may securely and infallibly rely, as the physical man relies with certainty on the laws of his world:—A Will in which the moral will of finite beings, and this alone, has sure and unfailing results; since for it all else is unavailing, all else is as if it were not.

That sublime Will thus pursues no solitary path withdrawn from the other parts of the world of reason.