The intellect, exalted by dwelling upon the sublimest subjects of thought, warmed into highest activity by the flames of devotion, spurning as sterile and vain the offers of time and the enticements of sense, may certainly be then in the mood fittest to achieve its greatest victories. But no narrowed heaven must cloud it, no man-made god obstruct its gaze. Free from superstition and prejudice, it must be ready to follow wherever the voice of reason shall lead it. All inspired men have commenced by freeing themselves from inherited forms of Belief in order that with undiverted attention they might listen to the promptings of the divinity within their souls. One of the greatest of them and one the most free from the charge of prejudice, has said that to this end prayer is the means.[151-1] He who believes that the ultimate truth is commensurate with reason, finds no stumbling-block in the doctrine that there may be laws through whose action inspiration is the enlightenment of mind as it exists in man, by mind as it underlies the motions which make up matter. The truth thus reached is not the formulæ of the Calculus, nor the verbiage of the Dialectic, still less the events of history, but that which gives what validity they have to all of these, and moreover imparts to the will and the conscience their power to govern conduct. FOOTNOTES: [119-1] The “silent worship” of the Quakers is defended by the writers of that sect, on the ground that prayer is “often very imperfectly performed and sometimes materially interrupted by the use of words.” Joseph John Gurney, _The Distinguishing Views and Practice of the Society of Friends_, p. 300. (London, 1834.) [119-2] Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker_, Bd. I., s. 162. [119-3] The learned Bishop Butler, author of the _Analogy of Religion_, justly gives prominence to “our expectation of future benefits,” as a reason for gratitude to God. _Sermons_, p. 155. (London, 1841.) [122-1] The expressions of Confucius’ religious views may be found in _The Doctrine of the Mean_, chaps. xiii., xvi., the _Analects_, i., 99, 100, vii., and in a few other passages of the canonical books. [126-1] _An Inquiry into the Theory of Practice_, p. 330. [127-1] _Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker._ Bd. I., ss. 165, sqq. One of the most favorable examples (not mentioned by Creuzer) is the formula with which Apollonius of Tyana closed every prayer and gave as the summary of all: “Give me, ye Gods, what I deserve”--Δοιητε μοι τα οφειλομενα. The Christian’s comment on this would be in the words of Hamlet’s reply to Polonius: “God’s bodkin, man! use every man after his desert and who should ’scape whipping?”