Thus the individual who is more inclined to
cherish a religious connection between himself and nature, is yet by
no means opposed, in the essentials of religion, to him who prefers to
trace the footsteps of the Godhead in history; and there will never be
wanting those who can pursue both paths with equal facility. Thus in
whatever manner you divide the vast province of religion, you will
always come back to the same point.
If unbounded universality of insight be the first and original
supposition of religion, and hence also, most naturally, its fairest
and ripest fruit, you perceive that it cannot be otherwise than that,
in proportion as an individual advances in religion and the character
of his piety becomes more pure, the whole religious world will
more and more appear to him as an indivisible whole. The spirit of
separation, in proportion as it insists upon a rigid division, is a
proof of imperfection; the highest and most cultivated minds always
perceive a universal connection, and, for the very reason that they
perceive it, they also establish it. Since every one comes in contact
only with his immediate neighbor, but, at the same time, has an
immediate neighbor on all sides and in every direction, he is, in
fact, indissolubly linked in with the whole. Mystics and Naturalists
in religion, they to whom the Godhead is a personal Being, and they
to whom it is not, they who have arrived at a systematic view of
the Universe, and they who behold it only in its elements or only in
obscure chaos--all, notwithstanding, should be only one, for one band
surrounds them all and they can be totally separated only by a violent
and arbitrary force; every specific combination is nothing but an
integral part of the whole; its peculiar characteristics are almost
evanescent, and are gradually lost in outlines that become more and
more indistinct; and at least those who feel themselves thus united
will always be the superior portion.
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