"On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of imagery before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; And I am conscious of affecting thoughts And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh The good and evil of our mortal state. --To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, Whether from breath of outward circumstance, Or from the Soul--an impulse to herself,-- I would give utterance in numerous verse. Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; Of blessed consolations in distress; Of moral strength, and intellectual Power; Of joy in widest commonalty spread; Of the individual Mind that keeps her own Inviolate retirement, subject there To Conscience only, and the law supreme Of that Intelligence which governs all-- I sing."[131] This intelligence, the only holy part of man, is holy in all stages; for this, Wordsworth selects as his characters a peddler, a parson, villagers; in his eyes rank, education, habits, all the worldly envelope of a man, is without interest; what constitutes our worth is the integrity of our conscience; science itself is only profound when it penetrates moral life; for this life fails nowhere; "To every Form of being is assigned... An active principle:--howe'er removed From sense and observation, it subsists In all things, in all natures; in the stars Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, In flow'r and tree, in every pebbly stone That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, The moving waters, and the invisible air. Whate'er exists hath properties that spread Beyond itself, communicating good, A simple blessing, or with evil mixed; Spirit that knows no insulated spot, No chasm, no solitude; from link to link It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds."[132] Reject, then, with disdain this arid science: "Where Knowledge, ill begun in cold remarks On outward things, with formal inference ends; Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils, At once--or not recoiling, is perplexed--[133] Lost in a gloom of uninspired research.... Viewing all objects unremittingly In disconnexion dead and spiritless; And still dividing, and dividing still, Breaks down all grandeur."[134] Beyond the vanities of science and the pride of the world, there is the soul, whereby all are equal, and the broad and inner Christian life opens at once its gates to all who would enter: "The sun is fixed, And the infinite magnificence of heaven Fixed within reach of every human eye. The sleepless Ocean murmurs for all ears, The vernal field infuses fresh delight Into all hearts.... The primal duties shine aloft like stars, The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of man--like flowers." So, at the end of all agitation and all search appears the great truth, which is the abstract of the rest: