464 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
A fondness for philosophy is, then, fit cause for rejoicing, provided the spirit of inquiry 
is rightly guided. It is easy to show that no dictum of reason can be depended on as 
true, unless it can be traced to an infallible source, and that source can be none other 
than a Perfect Intelligence. All knowledge must, therefore, ultimately rest on revelation ; 
the general knowledge of the race on a general revelation, and the special knowledge that 
may be adapted to newly arising needs of human liberty, on a special revelation. The 
question of faith, therefore, should not be, “Is this teaching perfectly comprehensible 2?” 
or “Is it such as unaided reason could have demonstrated for itself?” but “Is it such as 
the teacher knew to be true ?” 
Although all knowledge rests ultimately on direct revelation, it is modified and ex- 
tended by faculties whose proper use may be regarded as a secondary or mediate revela- 
tion, and no satisfactory pursuit of knowledge is possible, without determining the extent, 
validity, and limitation of those faculties. On this account, Philosophy should begin with 
the study of Consciousness, and that study, like any other, may be most satisfactorily pur- 
sued, if it is pursued systematically. All system rests on laws of thought, and all laws 
imply relation. Relation may, therefore, be reasonably assumed as the natural basis of 
mental classification, and in the following pages I have attempted to show that a broad 
and comprehensive system may be developed from the necessary sequences of relation. 
That the system as yet is far from complete, and that its present crude deductions will 
prove in many respects unsatisfactory, I am fully aware. One of the first teachings of 
faith is, as has been intimated, that the human Consciousness is not on the highest plane, 
but that the validity of its dicta rests on the infallibility of a higher Divine Consciousness, 
of which it is a faint and imperfect reflection. It is the instrument of philosophical in- 
vestigation, but it can give us no information, except of that which is modified by its own 
relations. Parallel with it there may, perhaps, be always an accompanying Moral Inspi- 
ration, and an Active Genius, which bear to it relations similar to those of Motivity and 
Spontaneity to Rationality, but the province of these hypothetical parallel faculties we can 
never hope to investigate except through Analogy. 
Generalization is always necessarily superficial, yet it often leads to the most satisfactory 
results. The very fact of its superficiality relieves memory from a heavy burden, and 
facilitates the use of symbols, by which the labors of reasoning and investigation are greatly 
abbreviated. 
Whatever originality there may be in the symbolism by which I have endeavored to 
indicate the broadest of all possible generalizations, will naturally excite some degree of 
interest, but the final verdict as to its merits will rest on the answer to the old question,— 
Cui bono? ‘To that question I dare not yet attempt to give or to seek a full response. 
If the system is, as I most fully believe, grounded on the eternal necessities of truth, it 
