then will it never, on that account, meet with any considerable obstacle or opposition. On the contrary, by pursuing this course it will the more surely arouse and awaken these universal feelings from their slumber in the human mind, and gradually shape and convert them into fixed and stable points from which to carry on the further progress and development of the principle of faith. And it is even herein that philosophy will most display its art, or, rather, its intellectual power over the minds of men. It is in this, pre-eminently, that lies its vocation. But if, on the contrary, it makes this mission to consist rather in demonstrating, in a strictly scientific form, the existence of a Deity, with its natural train of those eternal verities--the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, then at the very first outset it will lose sight of its true aim, and set up a false one. For, were such a demonstration possible, still nothing essential would be gained by its actual attainment. For, in such a case, the existence of God, and God himself, would naturally become dependent, in thought at least, on that from and by means of which the proof was established, and would, consequently, appear to us no longer as the first cause of all, but, rather, a secondary and derivative being. In such the primal essence would be made to depend on our human knowledge and science of reasoning, so to speak; the latter must, in the plenitude of its power, first confer upon and guaranty to the former its existence. This would, indeed, be a complete inversion of the true and natural order of things, such as, alas, has but too often occurred and manifested itself in actual experience. These remarks, however, must be understood as applying to a strict demonstration of this great verity, or at least to all attempts of the kind. To point to this truth, to trace every indication of it, to elucidate it, to confirm it by analogy or other corroborative evidences, is quite a different matter. All this is perfectly allowable. But God does not allow his existence to be proved. By force of reasoning such a belief is not to be impressed on the mind of that man who is unwilling spontaneously to admit it. As life generally, so also this supreme life must be learned and concluded from every man’s own experience; it must be adopted with the vividness of a feeling.