But if the limits of the finite world are those of human science, they are not those of the human soul. Man contains in himself ideas and ambitious aspirations extending far beyond and rising far above the finite world, ideas of and aspirations towards the Infinite, the Ideal, the Perfect, the Immutable, the Eternal. These ideas and aspirations are themselves realities admitted by the human mind; but even in admitting them man's mind comes to a halt; they give him a presentiment of, or to speak with more precision, a revelation of, an order of things different from the facts and laws of the finite world which lies under his observation; but whilst man has of this superior order the instinct and the perspective, he can have of it no positive knowledge. {123} It proceeds from the sublimity of his nature if he has a glimpse of Infinity--if he aspires to it; whereas it results from the infirmity of his actual condition if his positive knowledge is limited by the world in which he exists. I was born in the south, under the very sun. I have yet, for the most part, lived in regions either of the north, or bordering upon the north, regions so frequently immersed in mists. When under their pale sky we look towards the horizon, a fog of greater or less density limits the view; the vision itself might penetrate much farther, but an external obstacle arrests it; it does not find there the light it needs. Regard now the horizon under the pure and brilliant sky of the south; the plains, distant as well as near, are bathed in light; the human eye can penetrate there as far as its organization permits. If it pierces no farther, it is not for want of light, but because its proper and natural force has attained its limit: the mind knows that there are spaces beyond that which the eye traverses, but the eye penetrates them not. {124} This is an image of what happens to the mind itself when contemplating and studying the universe: it reaches a point where its clear sight, that is to say its positive appreciation, halts, not that it finds there the end of things themselves, but the limit of man's scientific appreciation of them; other realities present themselves to him; he has a glimpse of them; he believes in them spontaneously and naturally; it is not given to him to grasp them and to measure them; but he can neither ignore them, nor know them, neither have positive knowledge of them, nor refrain from having faith in them.