For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even before I had met with the CRITIQUE OF THE PURE REASON, a certain guiding light. If the mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and intelligent first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no legitimate argument could be drawn from the intellect against its truth. And what is this more than St. Paul’s assertion, that by wisdom,--(more properly translated by the powers of reasoning)--no man ever arrived at the knowledge of God? What more than the sublimest, and probably the oldest, book on earth has taught us, Silver and gold man searcheth out: Bringeth the ore out of the earth, and darkness into light. But where findeth he wisdom? Where is the place of understanding? The abyss crieth; it is not in me! Ocean echoeth back; not in me! Whence then cometh wisdom? Where dwelleth understanding? Hidden from the eyes of the living Kept secret from the fowls of heaven! Hell and death answer; We have heard the rumour thereof from afar! GOD marketh out the road to it; GOD knoweth its abiding place! He beholdeth the ends of the earth; He surveyeth what is beneath the heavens! And as he weighed out the winds, and measured the sea, And appointed laws to the rain, And a path to the thunder, A path to the flashes of the lightning! Then did he see it, And he counted it; He searched into the depth thereof, And with a line did he compass it round! But to man he said, The fear of the Lord is wisdom for thee! And to avoid evil, That is thy understanding. [36] I become convinced, that religion, as both the cornerstone and the key-stone of morality, must have a moral origin; so far at least, that the evidence of its doctrines could not, like the truths of abstract science, be wholly independent of the will. It were therefore to be expected, that its fundamental truth would be such as might be denied; though only, by the fool, and even by the fool from the madness of the heart alone!