The Mystery of Being

But to what degree, and within what limits, is it possible for us to raise ourselves above that condition of being in the world, which is our specific mode of existence? To what degree are we within our rights in turning our glances up towards a higher sphere than this? Where and at what point are we supposed not yet to have received the enlightenment of any special revelation—these floating, glittering, these unfixed lights—that can to some degree throw light into the obscurest depths of our being? These are the formidable problems that will be facing us. I am under no illusion that we are moving forward on a plain and beaten path; may we be granted, during this arduous journey, that help that is rarely refused to those who are animated by the love of truth alone. Of truth alone. That is indeed the first and the last word, alpha, and omega; and lest we seem to be drawing these lectures to a close with too hopeful a flourish, let us say, as our very final word, that every society pronounces sentence of doom or acquittal on itself according to the throne of state which it reserves, both within itself and high above itself, for that Truth which is not a thing but a spirit.