Excerpt from The Greatness of the Human Soul: An Address Delivered at the Seventh Anniversary of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, South Hadley, Mass
Certain phenomena of the mind are very mysterious, and seem to indicate a mysterious connection with worlds and beings unseen. Philosophy indeed has ventured to account for them, by asserting the existence of a previous state, of which the soul still retains vague, but delightful remembrances. This misty theory, however, has now given place to the clear announcements of revelation. The theory we reject. The facts we deem worthy of close observation. There are in man sentiments, faculties, and aspirings which reveal, as by glimpses, a hidden world superior to any thing that we know through the senses. These sentiments, functions and exercises of the soul are of very opposite kinds; some, pure and lofty; others, terrible perversions, illusions and wanderings, equally revealing the grandeur of its functions and of its destiny. I allude for example, to the prevalent discontent of the world, which, although sinful in itself, is an indication and perversion of that which is most ennobling. We pity and condemn, while we admire the soul's dissatisfaction, its insatiable longings that no possession of earth, no worldly success can gratify. The richest man feels himself poor, and wants more; the mightiest conqueror weeps to find the world circumscribing the field of his enterprise and triumphs. Michael Angelo dies with forms of beauty and grandeur in his mind, unchisselled and unpainted.
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