speaks to me this through His works, and thus I understand the doctrine
of the omnipresence of God.


IDEA.

All spirits are attracted by perfection. There may be deviations, but
there is no exception to this, for all strive after the condition of the
highest and freest exercise of their powers; all possess the common
instinct of extending their sphere of action; of drawing all, and
centring all in themselves; of appropriating all that is good, all that
is acknowledged as charming and excellent. When the beautiful, the true,
and the excellent are once seen, they are immediately grasped at. A
condition once perceived by us, we enter into it immediately. At the
moment when we think of them, we become possessors of a virtue, authors
of an action, discoverers of a truth, possessors of a happiness. We
ourselves become the object perceived. Let no ambiguous smile from you,
dear Raphael, disconcert me here,--this assumption is the basis on which
I found all that follows, and we must be agreed before I take courage to
complete the structure.

His inner feeling or innate consciousness tells every man almost the same
thing. For example, when we admire an act of magnanimity, of bravery and
wisdom, does not a secret feeling spring up in our heart that we are
capable of doing the same? Does not the rush of blood coloring our
cheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim that our modesty
trembles at the admiration called forth by such acts? that we are
confused at the praise which this ennobling of our nature must call down
upon us? Even our body at such moments agrees with the attitude of the
man, and shows clearly that our soul has passed into the state we admire.