"Certainly," said Sylvester, "Conscience is the innate mediator of every man. It takes the place of God upon earth, and is therefore to many the highest and the final. But how far was the former science, called virtue or morality, from the pure shape of this lofty, comprehensive, personal thought! Conscience is the peculiar essence of man fully glorified, the divine archetypal man (Urmensch.) It is not this thing and that thing; it does not command in a common tongue, it does not consist of distinct virtues. There is but one virtue,--the pure, solemn Will, which, at the moment of decision chooses, resolves instantaneously. In living and peculiar oneness it dwells and inspires that tender emblem, the human body, and can excite all the spiritual members to the truest activity." "O excellent father!" exclaimed Henry, "with what joy fills me the light which flows from your words! Thus the true spirit of Fable is the spirit of virtue in friendly disguise; and the proper spirit of the subordinate art of poetry is the emotion of the loftiest, most personal existence. There is a surprising selfness (Selbstheit) between a genuine song and a noble action. The disfranchised conscience in a smooth, unresisting world, becomes an enchaining conversation, an all-narrating fable. In the fields and halls of this old world lives the poet, and virtue is the spirit of his earthly acts and influences; and as this is the indwelling divinity among men, the marvellous reflex of the higher world, so also is Fable. How safely can the poet now follow the guidance of his inspiration, or if he possesses a lofty, transcendent sense, follow higher essences, and submit to his calling with child-like humility. The higher voice of the universe also speaks within him, and cries with enchanting words to kindlier and more familiar worlds. As religion is related to virtue, so is inspiration to mythology; and as the history of revelation is treasured in sacred writings, so the life of a higher world expresses itself in mythology in manifold ways, in poems of wonderful origin. Fable and history sustain to each other the most intimate relations, through paths the most intricate, and disguises the most extraordinary; and the Bible and mythology are constellations of one orbit." "What you say is perfectly true," said Sylvester; "and now you can probably comprehend that all nature subsists by the spirit of virtue alone, and must ever become more permanent. It is the all-inflaming, the all-quickening light in the embrace of earth. From the firmament, that lofty dome of the starry realm, down to the ruffling carpet of the varied meadow, all things will be sustained by it, united to us and made comprehensible; and by it the unknown course of infinite nature's history will be conducted to its consummation."