It is not knowledge, but a determination of the will to
let knowledge pass for valid. I hold fast, then, forever to this
expression. It is not a mere difference of terms, but a real
deep-grounded distinction, exercising a very important influence on
my whole mental disposition. All my conviction is only faith, and is
derived from a disposition of the mind, not from the understanding.
* * * * *
There is only one point to which I have to direct incessantly all my
thoughts: What I must do, and how I shall most effectually accomplish
what is required of me. All my thinking must have reference to my
doing--must be considered as means, however remote, to this end.
Otherwise, it is an empty, aimless sport, a waste of time and power,
and perversion of a noble faculty which was given me for a very
different purpose.
I may hope, I may promise myself with certainty, that when I think
after this manner, my thinking shall be attended with practical
results. Nature, in which I am to act, is not a foreign being,
created without regard to me, into which I can never penetrate. It is
fashioned by the laws of my own thought, and must surely coincide with
them. It must be everywhere transparent, cognizable, permeable to
me, in its innermost recesses. Everywhere it expresses nothing but
relations and references of myself to myself; and as certainly as
I may hope to know myself, so certainly I may promise myself that I
shall be able to explore it.
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