We see into the life of things."—Vol. ii. p. 181.
This is perfect Quakerism; the grand demand of which is, that you shall put down "this meddling intellect, which misshapes the beauteous forms of things;" shall lay at rest the actions and motions of your own minds, and subdue the impatience of the body, till, as Wordsworth has most clearly stated it,
"The breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood.
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul."
It was this very doctrine of the non-necessity of human interference between us and all knowledge, of the all-sufficiency of this invisible and "great teacher," as Wordsworth calls him, which led George Fox and the Quakers to abandon all forms of worship, to strip divine service of all music, singing, formal prayers, written sermons, and to sit down in a perfectly passive state of silence, to gather some of
"All this mighty sum
Of things forever speaking,"
into