Page:Russian Novelists (1887).djvu/19

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PREFACE.
15

a general formula, which will express both its method and the extent of its creative power. I can find but one, and it is a very old one; but I know of none better, more scientific, or which approaches nearer the secret of all creation:—"And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground."—But, to complete the formula, and account for the dual nature of our humanity, we must add the text: "And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul—"

This divine spark, derived from the source of universal life, is the spirit, the active and mysterious and incomprehensible element of our being, which baffles all our explanations, and without which we are nothing. At the point where life begins, there do we cease to comprehend.

The realist is groping his way, trying his experiments in the creations of his brain, which breathe the spirit of truth, and speak with at least the accent of sincerity and sympathy.