“May 3.—­We all look upon this world as suits our moods, assimilating only such food as suits our dispositions—­and no doubt there is sufficient variety to suit all. . . .  Every personality individualizes the world to himself not subjectively but truly objectively. . . .  Every individual ought, perhaps, to be satisfied with his own character.  For it is an important truth of Fourier’s that attractions are in proportion to destinies.  Fear in proportion to hope, pain in proportion to pleasure, strength in proportion to destiny, etc.  But it is mysterious that we know all this.  ’Man has become as one of us.’  We are all dead.

“Ah, mystic! dost thou show thyself in this shape?  But now, being dead, shall we receive life and immortality (for I imagine immortality the solidarity of life—­i.e., the union of the two lives, here and heaven) through Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and so lose ‘the knowledge of good and evil.’  For as in Adam all died, so shall ye all be made alive through Jesus Christ.’  The effect of the fall was literally the knowledge of good and evil.  God knows no evil, and when we become one with Him, through the Mediator, we shall regain our previous state.  Knowledge is the effect of sin, and is perhaps destined to correct itself.  Consciousness and knowledge go together.  Spontaneity and life are one.  Knowledge is no gain, for it gives nothing.  I can only know what has been given through spontaneity.  Spontaneity is unity, one; knowledge is division of being.  If Adam had not been separated he would doubtless not have sinned.  ’The woman that Thou gavest me said unto me, Eat, and I did eat.’  Still, through the seed of the woman, which will be the union restored, is the serpent to be bruised.”

“May 4.—­The real effect of the theory of the Church is to isolate men from the outward world, withdraw them from its enjoyments, and make them live a life of sacrifice of the passions.  This is one statement.  Another would be this:  all these things can and should be enjoyed, but in a higher, purer, more exalted state of being than is the present ordinary condition of our minds.  The only opposition to them arises when the soul becomes sensual, falls into their arms, and becomes lost to higher and more spiritual objects. . . .

“All is dark before me, impenetrable darkness.  I appear to live in the centre.  Nothing seems to take hold of my soul, or else it seeks nothing.  Where it is I know not.  I meet with no one else around me.  I would that I could feel that some one lived in the same world that I now do.  Something cloudy separates us.  I cannot speak from my real being to others.  There is no mutual recognition.  When I speak, it is as if a burden accumulated round me.  I long to throw it off, but I cannot utter my thoughts and feelings in their presence; if I do, they return to me unrecognized.  Shall I ever meet with one the windows of whose soul will open simultaneously with mine?”