We are not all conscious of such a faculty. But if dim to some, is it certainly dim to all? Did Plato see farther than Herschel could when he burst the barriers of the sky? Did Schelling at any time behold what Hamilton pronounced invisible?[90] Or again, if not actually ours now,--if those who have asserted it have spoken in error,--is there a hope that in the Future of Man individual or collective, he will ever grow up to it? The thought is not unknown to physicists as well as moralists. In both camps hopeful minds have conceived the possibility. And, _then_ Mankind will look the secret of the Universe face to face. Meanwhile, thinking men have laid siege to the absolute Truth by aid of such powers as they commonly call into action. For centuries past, the nature of things in themselves,--and along with (or perhaps above) all other natures, the "_Self_" within every man has been among the most fascinating of objects pursued by human thought. Yet, how far do we really know the life throbbing in every pulse? Can we tell the secret of our own individuality? We feel it every day;--it endues us with a separate existence, distinctly several, and apart from others, and so intensely vivid to ourselves, that we seem in our own eyes like small centres of the Universe, with men and women,--nay, worlds and stars,--revolving round us.[91] Yet, strange to say, our bodies are at all times undergoing change, sufficient in a few years to eliminate their present frame, and remould a future compound of gradually assimilated elements. And it seems stranger still, that while the law of Change rules supreme in these fabrics,--(built to be continually dissolved and continually built again),--each rude mark and scar maintains its place; no old wound forgets to ache; no cicatrice even, nor superficial blemish, dies quite away. We are always changing, always being transformed; yet, to each of our bodies continues its one individual configuration; within each of our minds its self-collection, its memories, its expectations, and its individual consciousness.[t] Weighing these inconsistencies together, shall we say that, in any proper sense, we _know_ our own selves? And, if not, can we expect truly to know the _self_ of anything? May we not travel further, and inquire whether we can conceive a _self-ness_ of any kind,--whether the very idea is not to us absolutely inconceivable? And, when this question is answered as it must be answered, need we feel surprised if we fall short of conceiving the self-subsistent God? At what value, therefore, shall we rate sceptical arguments drawn from our failure; and resting on the fallacious consequence, that the inconceivable (or unthinkable as some prefer to call it) is likewise the impossible?[u]