Might I ask one question? On every subject, however small and unimportant, you would most willingly be taught by those who have devoted to it their lives and their powers. In your desire for knowledge you do not avoid the cottages of the peasant or the workshops of the humble artisans. How then does it come about that, in matters of religion alone, you hold every thing the more dubious when it comes from those who are experts, not only according to their own profession, but by recognition from the state, and from the people?. . . .

With the cry of distress . . . over the [alleged] downfall of religion I have no sympathy, [however,] for I know no age that has given religion a better reception than the present [one]. . . . As a man I speak to you of the sacred secrets of mankind . . . of the innermost springs of my being which shall for ever remain for me the highest, however I be moved by the changes of time and mankind. I do not speak from any reasoned resolve, nor from hope, nor from fear. . . . Rather it is the pure necessity of my nature; it is a divine call; it is that which determines my position in the world and makes me what I am. . . .

The whole corporeal world, insight into which is the highest aim of your researches, appears to the best instructed and most contemplative among you, simply a never-ending play of opposing forces. . . . Wherefore the spirit also, in so far as it manifests itself in finite life, must be subject to the same law. The human soul, as is shown by both its passing actions and its inward characteristics, has its existence chiefly in two opposing impulses. Following the one impulse, it strives to establish itself as an individual. . . . The other impulse . . . is the dread fear to stand alone over against the Whole, the longing to surrender oneself and be absorbed in a greater [whole], to be taken hold of and determined. . . . At the extremes one impulse may preponderate almost to the exclusion of the other, but the perfection of the living world consists in this, that between these opposite ends all combinations are actually present in humanity.

And not only so, but a common band of consciousness embraces them all. . . .

Wherefore the Deity at all times sends some here and there, who in a fruitful manner are imbued with both impulses . . . [i.e.,] with wonderful gifts. . . . They are the interpreters of the Deity and His works, and reconcilers of things that otherwise would be eternally divided. . . . They interpret . . . the misunderstood voice of God, and reconcile him to the earth and to his place thereon. . . .

Acknowledge, then, with me, what a priceless gift the appearance of such a person must be. . . . The heavenly and eternal he exhibits as an object of enjoyment and agreement, as the sole exhaustless source of the things towards which . . . [all] endeavor is directed. In this way he strives to awaken the slumbering germ of a better humanity. . . .

[R]eligion is as far removed, by its whole nature, from all that is systematic as philosophy is naturally disposed to it.

I ask, therefore, that you turn from everything usually reckoned religion, and fix your regard on the inward emotions and dispositions, as all utterances and acts of inspired men direct.

[I]n my opinion, it is . . . impossible to be moral or scientific without being religious. . . . [T]rue religion is [the] taste and sense for the Infinite. . . . What can man accomplish that is worth speaking of, either in life or in art, that does not arise in his own self from the influence of his sense for the Infinite?