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THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET
293

and mystical, rather than philosophical lecture, from which, I confess, that I myself can derive no conclusion which permanently satisfies those peculiar motions in my soul, to which that lecture seems more particularly addressed. For to me it seems more the excellently illustrated re-statement of a problem, than the solution of the problem itself. But as such mere illustrations are almost universally taken for solutions (and perhaps they are the only possible human solutions), therefore it may help to the temporary quiet of some inquiring mind; and so not be wholly without use. At the worst, each person can now skip, or read and rail for himself.

III

'EI'

by

PLOTINUS PLINLIMMON,

(In Three Hundred and Thirty-three Lectures).
—————
LECTURE FIRST.

CHRONOMETRICALS AND HOROLOGICALS,

(Being not so much the Portal, as part of the temporary Scaffold to the Portal of this New Philosophy).

'Few of us doubt, gentlemen, that human life on this earth is but a state of probation; which among other things implies, that here below, we mortals have only to do with things provisional. Accordingly, I hold that all our so-called wisdom is likewise but provisional.

'This preamble laid down, I begin.

'It seems to me, in my visions, that there is a certain most rare order of human souls, which if carefully carried in the body will almost always and everywhere give