can not have been the original constitution of man’s mind to be thus a prey to manifold dissension, and split, as it were, into pieces and quartered. This discord is, undoubtedly, in the true meaning of the word, a fact, the only one which every individual can without hesitation vouch for on the immediate and independent testimony of his own experience. For the cause of this well-authenticated fact we have only to look to that event which revelation has made known, of which each man must perceive the sad traces within his own heart. It began with that eclipse of the soul which preceded and commenced the present state of man, and was occasioned by the intervention of a foreign body between it and the sun which gave it light. But if the soul, the thinking as well as the loving soul, be the center of consciousness, then, in this great and general darkening of the center, the entire sphere, in its whole essence and structure, must have been altered. And, consequently, in its philosophical aspect, and apart from all special moral depravity in the independent actions, evil habits and passions of individuals, the soul is no longer what it was originally, as created and designed by the Almighty. Thus, then, the whole human consciousness is filled with unmitigated discord and division, not merely in its mixed rational and sensuous or terrestrial and spiritual nature, but thought itself is at issue with life. And, moreover, while in the thought the internal and the external, faith and science, are involved in a hostile contrariety, disturbing and destroying each other, so is it also in life with the finite and the infinite, the transitory and the imperishable. In such a state of things, therefore, and from this point of view, the problem of philosophy, as already remarked, can not well be any other than the restoration of the consciousness to its primary and true unity, so far as this is humanly possible. Now that this true and permanent unity, if it be at all attainable, must be looked for in God, is at all events an allowable hypothesis. For it will not be disputed, except by one who holds both this unity itself and its restitution to be absolutely impossible. But this is a point on which much may be advanced on both sides, and which, therefore, since mere disputing can avail nothing either one way or the other, can only be decided by the fact--the issue of the attempt. On this hypothesis, then, even philosophy must in every case take God for the basis of its speculations--set out from Him, and draw in every instance from this divine source. But then, considered from this point of view, and pursuing this route, it is no idle speculation and simple contemplation of the inner existence and thought alone--no dead science--but a vital effort and an effectual working of the thought for the restoration of a corrupt and degraded consciousness to its natural simplicity and original unity. And this is the way which