What is the underlying principle of reality?

Your journey after wisdom is like your journey through space.

You direct your course to a distant star behind which no others appear.

As you move onward, points of light start out from the dark background, and when you rest on the distant orb, the diamonds of the blue expanse flash out to welcome you there.

Again, you take your flight to a pale, glimmering point of flame―again, the blue arch is redolent with constellations.

When you reach the confines of one system, another is ready to flash out and welcome you.

There is no beginning―

No end―

All is one mighty eternity of systems and forces.

So with wisdom.

March onward in its path forever and forevermore is written before you.

Your past toil but illumines the endless way, exhibiting more clearly its unimaginable length.

Thus was the universe formed.

No finite being can comprehend its vast proportions―or arrive at the grand attributes―the FINAL CAUSES, which lie away far down in the depths of Nature, and underlie and ramify throughout creation.

Scenes in the Spirit World or Life in the Spheres