they themselves, in accordance with the form of that law which is applicable to finite wills, bring themselves under its conditions, and within the sphere of its activity, by moral obedience;—by moral obedience, I say, the only tie which unites them to that higher world, the only nerve that descends from it to them, and the only organ through which they can re-act upon it. As the universal power of attraction embraces all bodies, and holds them together in themselves and with each other, and the movement of each separate body is only possible on the supposition of this power, so does that super-sensual law unite, hold together, and embrace all finite reasonable beings. My will, and the will of all finite beings, may be regarded from a double point of view:—partly as a mere volition, an internal act directed upon itself alone, and, in so far, the will is complete in itself, concluded in this act of volition;—partly as something beyond this, a fact. It assumes the latter form to me, as soon as I regard it as completed; but it must also become so beyond me;—in the world of sense, as the moving principle, for instance, of my hand, from the movement of which, again, other movements follow,—in the super-sensual world, as the principle of a series of spiritual consequences of which I have no conception. In the first point of view, as a mere act of volition, it stands wholly in my own power; its assumption of the latter character, that of an active first principle, depends not upon me, but on a law to which I myself am subject;—on the law of nature in the world of sense, on a super-sensual law in the world of pure thought.
What, then, is this law of the spiritual world which I conceive? This idea now stands before me, in fixed
