How then could the spirit of discord and division--which you regard as the inevitable consequence of all religious combinations--find a congenial home within this sphere? I see nothing but that All is One, and that all the differences which actually exist in religion, by means of this very union of the pious, are gently blended with one another. I have directed your attention to the different degrees of religiousness, I have pointed out to you the different modes of insight and the different directions in which the soul seeks for itself the supreme object of its pursuit. Do you imagine that this must needs give birth to sects, and thus destroy all free and reciprocal intercourse in religion? It is true, indeed, in contemplation, that everything which is separated into various parts and embraced in different divisions, must be opposed and contradictory to itself; but consider, I pray you, how Life is manifested in a great variety of forms, how the most hostile elements seek out one another here, and, for this very reason, what we separate in contemplation all flows together in life. They, to be sure, who on one of these points bear the greatest resemblance to one another, will present the strongest mutual attraction, but they cannot, on that account, compose an independent whole; for the degrees of this affinity imperceptibly diminish and increase, and in the midst of so many transitions there is no absolute repulsion, no total separation, even between the most discordant elements. Take which you will of these masses which have assumed an organic form according to their own inherent energy; if you do not forcibly divide them by a mechanical operation, no one will exhibit an absolutely distinct and homogeneous character, but the extreme points of each will be connected at the same time with those which display different properties and properly belong to another mass.