Does Butler say all that, sir?
NORTH.
In his own dry way perhaps he may. These, my friends, are Wonders into which Reason looks, astonished; or, more properly speaking, into which she looks not, nor, self-knowing, attempts to look. But, reverent and afraid, she repeats that attitude which the Great Poet has ascribed to "brightest cherubim" before the footstool of the Omnipotent Throne, who
"Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes."
TALBOYS.
For indeed at the next step beyond lies only the mystery of Omnipotence—that mystery which connects the world, open and known to us, to the world withheld and unknown.
NORTH.
The same with regard to Pleasure and Pain. What enjoys Pleasure or suffers Pain?—all that is, to our clearest, sharpest-sighted science, nothing else but darkness—but black unfathomable night. Therefore, since we know not what Death itself is—and since we know not what this Living Mind is, nor what any of its powers and capacities are—what conclusion, taken in the nature of these unknown subjects, can we possibly be warranted in drawing as to the influence which this unknown change, Death, will exert upon this unknown Being—Mind—and upon its unknown faculties and sensibilities?—None.
SEWARD.
Shall unknown Death destroy this unknown Mind and its unknown capacities? It is just as likely, for anything that Reason can see, that it will set them free to a larger and more powerful existence. And if we have any reason upon other grounds to expect this—then by so much the more likely.