intellectual adoption of general propositions, capable of
distinct statement but incapable of proofs, which we term Belief.

He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems,
maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of
equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the
world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own
opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to
be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and
virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed
matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that
many of these jarring families, especially those of the same
blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and
reflection; that in the business of the visible working world
they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas
in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and
sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and
immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.

Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all
right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences;
will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will
anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted
development; this, too, by a process, not negative and
distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and
constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of
judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt
succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not
limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive
as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal. Meanwhile he