At this point in human experience analysis is exhausted, Working inward and backward through all fleshy veils, we come at last to the "Divine substance," fixed, imperishable, eternal, whose light has been the illumination of all dark valleys, the strength in all hours of weakness, the purpose as well as the beginning and end of time and existence. From the animal or sensuous quality to the human or intellectual, and from the intellectual through the spiritual to the divine, the soul has journeyed toward that Divine substance to which it belongs, leaving behind one by one the experiences and relationships pertaining to each, till the "last enemy" is overcome by the strength of its realized kinship with the Infinite. And this is the end and aim of human existence, the "return to origin" of the only species capable of a conscious return; the established "dominion over all" which is potential in every soul clothed with human flesh; the destiny awaiting every son of man as he is born into the world.

Wonderful as is the continuity of meaning in these three books, masterly as is the manner in which it is wrought out, it is in Seraphita alone that the grander chords are struck to which our very inmost vibrates in unison. The book is noble in its conception and execution, but the last chapter -- "The Assumption" -- is sublime. All the way we have been before the gates of heaven, but here we are carried through them to the celestial sphere.