The philosopher, indeed, in studying the soul, has not only discerned that it is distinguished from the fluctuating forms of matter, by its power of apprehending immutable principles, but he has often been led to question whether anything really exists in the universe beyond Mind and Spirit; whether matter and the body have any substantial being; whether apparently external nature be not an actual creation of our own thought; or, in other words, whether, in believing in an outward world, we do anything more than ascribe reality to our own conceptions.
Thus, from the very dawn of philosophy, there have been schools which have held that the material universe has no existence but in the mind that thinks it I am far from assenting to these speculations; but I recur to them with pleasure, as indicating how readily the soul passes above matter, and as manifesting man's consciousness of the grandeur of his spiritual nature. Let me add that, whilst rejecting this doctrine as a whole, I receive an important part of it as undoubtedly true. I do not say that the world exists in our thoughts only; but I do say that it derives its most interesting properties from the mind which contemplates it.
For example, the forms of outward objects have doubtless actual existence; but they owe their beauty—that mysterious charm—to thoughts and feelings we blend with them, and of which they are but the reflected image. The very spot which is to one man a paradise, from the holy and happy thoughts which he has associated with it, may be to another a desert.
