“I know all these temptations, and others that you cannot surmise,” exclaimed Vannelle, “and I will conquer them,—­if not through spiritual grace, then by some bodily penance of lasting effect.  I discern in you certain qualities of mind that may serve to regulate the equipoise of mine.  I have the means to provide for us both during the high speculations in which we shall engage.  Let us be comrades in this undertaking.  I seek to bridge the great gulf that separates the natural from the spiritual.  My father firmly believed in the possibility of obtaining an absolute ground for the philosophy which should include all things human and divine.  He passed onward before the inestimable gift he seemed to have won could be set forth in the symbols of the world.  To see is not difficult, but only to contrive a popular adaptation through which others may discern the thought.  I seek the means to express the truth which he saw, and of which I can catch some glimpses through such colored mythologies as represent the higher religions of the world.  Man has found out the knowledge by which a universe was evoked from chaos:  shall he not perfect that knowledge in the Law which includes the divine element by which the universe is informed?  How can we love with our whole heart what we do not know with our whole mind?  Clifton, I declare to you that knowledge of the Law by which the Creator is and acts is possible to man!”

I shall seem to you weak and unstable in no common degree to have been moved by utterance like this.  Remember that I can reproduce only the words, not the wild power of that persuasive voice, not the aspiring courage that struck me from his eye.  Almost against my will there was produced in me a plasticity of mind that seemed to demand the impress of some foreign mould.  The tree of knowledge was set in the midst of the garden, and again were audible the seductive serpent-tones:  “Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

I found Vannelle so far my superior in the knowledge of all earthly lores, that I at length came to think it possible he might be the appointed instrument of communicating the singular intelligence that he sought.  He proposed to review the different systems built by human thought before applying himself to the problem of finding a system of philosophy which should include them all.  His idea was, that from the extreme negation of the so-called transcendental position—­when that position had been legitimately attained by a thoroughly conscientious thinker—­some new light must break upon the mind.  His was no shrinking from the conflict with real things to indulge in vague yearnings after the inaccessible, but a definite effort so to place the soul and discipline the understanding that wisdom could be realized without process or media.  Unlike most inquirers of that time, he had no love for the abstract and the controversial, but entertained them freely as finally discovering some path to the