according to the premises from which we proceed, which are made up of our own inward experiences, we are perfectly in the right, and secure from either refutation or conversion, so long as we remain what we are. The excellent doctrines which are taught amongst us with a special authority, concerning freedom, duty, and everlasting life, become to us romantic fables, like those of Tartarus and the Elysian fields; although we do not publish to the world this our secret opinion, because we find it expedient, by means of these figures, to maintain an outward decorum among the populace; or, should we be less reflective, and ourselves bound in the chains of authority, then we sink to the level of the common mind, and believing what, thus understood, would be mere foolish fables, we find in those pure spiritual symbols only the promise of continuing throughout eternity the same miserable existence which we possess here below.
In one word:—only by the fundamental improvement of my will does a new light arise within me concerning my existence and vocation; without this, however much I may speculate, and with what rare intellectual gifts soever I may be endowed, darkness remains within me, and around me. The improvement of the heart alone leads to true wisdom. Let then my whole life be unceasingly devoted to this one purpose.
IV.
My moral will, merely as such, in and through itself, shall certainly and invariably produce consequences; every determination of my will in accordance with
