It may probably be felt by those to whom the ideas on which I have thus briefly dwelt are presented for the first time, that what I have said amounts merely to suggestion, and that of a doubtful character. I may say, therefore, that I have designed my remarks merely as suggestions; and have sought only to present an outline of certain methods of regarding the great problems of our life, which seem to me to possess a good foundation, and to promise results of a different character from those which the methods hitherto in use have yielded, at least in recent times. To suggest, ever so imperfectly, ideas of this order, if they should be found to have a real value, seems to me a task worthy of my highest efforts. Nor do I believe that they will be entirely in vain; because the ideas themselves seem to me to be not the hasty speculations of any individual, but the legitimate fruit of time. In so far as they are true, they are a boon which our dead fathers have won for us—the inheritance with which they have enriched us.

Can we believe that the long inquiries of men into the facts and laws that are presented to their senses should fail to give them an increased power of dealing with other facts and laws, of which not the senses but the heart and soul take cognizance?