your soul. You have been awakened from the slumber in which you were
rocked by the slavery of others' opinions; but you would never reach the
degree of grandeur to which you are called if you dissipated your
strength in the pursuit of an unattainable end. This course was all
proper up to the present time; it was the natural consequence of your
recently acquired freedom. It was necessary that the ideas which had
most engaged you previously should give the first impulse to the activity
of your mind.. Among all possible directions that your mind could take,
is its present course the most fertile in results? The answer would be
given, sooner or later, by your own experience. My part was confined to
hastening, if possible, this crisis.

It is a common prejudice to take as a measure of the greatness of man
that matter on which he works, and not the manner of his work. But it is
certain that a superior Being honors the stamp of perfection even in the
most limited sphere, whilst He casts an eye of pity on the vain attempts
of the insect which seeks to overlook the universe. It follows from this
that I am especially unwilling to agree to the proposition in your
papers, which assumes that the high destiny of man is to detect the
spirit of the Divine Artist in the work of creation. To express the
activity of infinite perfection, I admit that I do not know any sublimer
image than art; but you appear to have overlooked an important
distinction. The universe is not the pure expression of an ideal, like
the accomplished work of a human artist. The latter governs despotically
the inanimate matter which he uses to give a body to his ideas. But in
the divine work the proper value of each one of its parts is respected,
and this conservative respect with which the Great Architect honors every
germ of activity, even in the lowliest creature, glorifies it as much as
the harmony of the immeasurable whole. Life and liberty to all possible
extent are the seal of divine creation; nowhere is it more sublime than