Instead, however, of turning aside to applications, let us push forward the central statement in the interest of applications to be made by every reader for himself,—­since he says too much who does not leave much more unsaid.  Observe, then, that objects which so utterly submit themselves to man as to become testimonies and publications of his inward conceptions serve even these most exacting and monarchical purposes only by opposition to them, and, to a certain extent, in the very measure of that opposition.  The stone which the sculptor carves becomes a fit vehicle for his thought through its resistance to his chisel; it sustains the impress of his imagination solely through its unwillingness to receive the same.  Not chalk, not any loose and friable material, does Phidias or Michel Angelo choose, but ivory, bronze, basalt, marble.  It is quite the same whether we seek expression or uses.  The stream must be dammed before it will drive wheels; the steam compressed ere it will compel the piston.  In fine, Potentiality combines with Hindrance to constitute active Power.  Man, in order to obtain instrumentalities and uses, blends his will and intelligence with a force that vigorously seeks to pursue its own separate free course; and while this resists him, it becomes his servant.

But why not look at this fact in its largest light?  For do we not here touch upon the probable reason why God must, as it were, be offset by World, Spirit by Matter, Soul by Body?  The Maker must needs, if it be lawful so to speak, heap up in the balance against His own pure, eternal freedom these numberless globes of cold, inert matter.  Matter is, indeed, movable by no fine persuasions:  brutely faithful to its own law, it cares no more for AEschylus than for the tortoise that breaks his crown; the purpose of a cross for the sweetest saint it serves no less willingly than any other purpose,—­stiffly holding out its arms there, about its own wooden business, neither more nor less, centred utterly upon itself.  But is it not this stolid self-centration which makes it needful to Divinity?  An infinite energy required a resisting or doggedly indifferent material, itself quasi infinite, to take the impression of its life, and render potentiality into power.  So by the encountering of body with soul is the product, man, evolved.  Philosophers and saints have perceived that the spiritual element of man is hampered and hindered by his physical part:  have they also perceived that it is the very collision between these which strikes out the spark of thought and kindles the sense of law?  As the tables of stone to the finger of Jehovah on Sinai, so is the firm marble of man’s material nature to the recording soul.  But even Plato, when he arrives at these provinces of thought, begins to limp a little, and to go upon Egyptian crutches.  In the incomparable apologues of the “Phaedrus” he represents our inward charioteer as driving toward the empyrean two steeds,