It behooves us to separate with care this chimera, that is not without danger, from the cause that we defend. It behooves us so much the more to openly break with mysticism, as it seems to touch us more nearly, as it pretends to be the last word of philosophy, and as by an appearance of greatness it is able to seduce many a noble soul, especially at one of those epochs of lassitude, when, after the cruel disappointment of excessive hopes, human reason, having lost faith in its own power without having lost the need of God, in order to satisfy this immortal need, addresses itself to every thing except itself, and in fault of knowing how to go to God by the way that is open to it, throws itself out of common sense, and tries the new, the chimerical, even the absurd, in order to attain the impossible. Mysticism contains a pusillanimous skepticism in the place of reason, and, at the same time, a faith blind and carried even to the oblivion of all the conditions imposed upon human nature. To conceive God under the transparent veil of the universe and above the highest truths, is at once too much and too little for mysticism. It does not believe that it knows God, if it knows him only in his manifestations and by the signs of his existence: it wishes to perceive him directly, it wishes to be united to him, sometimes by sentiment, sometimes by some other extraordinary process. Sentiment plays so important a part in mysticism, that our first care must be to investigate the nature and proper function of this interesting and hitherto ill-studied part of human nature. It is necessary to distinguish sentiment well from sensation. There are, in some sort, two sensibilities: one is directed to the external world, and is charged with transmitting to the soul the impressions that it sees; the other is wholly interior, and is related to the soul as the other is to nature,--its function is to receive the impression, and, as it were, the rebound of what passes in the soul. Have we discovered any truth? there is something in us which feels joy on account of it. Have we performed a good action? we receive our reward in a feeling of satisfaction less vivid, but more delicate and more durable than all the agreeable sensations that come from the body. It seems as if intelligence also had its intimate organ, which suffers or enjoys, according to the state of the intelligence. We bear in ourselves a profound source of emotion, at once physical and moral, which expresses the union of our two natures. The animal does not go beyond sensation, and pure thought belongs only to the angelic nature. The sentiment that partakes of sensation and thought is the portion of humanity. Sentiment is, it is true, only an echo of reason; but this echo is sometimes better understood than reason itself, because it resounds in the most intimate, the most delicate portions of the soul, and moves the entire man.