SECT.  LVIII.  It is the Primitive Truth, that Lights all Minds, by communicating itself to them.

Where is that wisdom?  Where is that reason, at once both common and superior to all limited and imperfect reasons of mankind?  Where is that oracle, which is never silent, and against which all the vain prejudices of men cannot prevail?  Where is that reason which we have ever occasion to consult, and which prevents us to create in us the desire of hearing its voice?  Where is that lively light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world?  Where is that pure and soft light, which not only lights those eyes that are open, but which opens eyes that are shut; cures sore eyes; gives eyes to those that have none to see it; in short, which raises the desire of being lighted by it, and gains even their love, who were afraid to see it?  Every eye sees it; nor would it see anything, unless it saw it; since it is by that light and its pure rays that the eye sees everything.  As the sensibler sun in the firmament lights all bodies, so the sun of intelligence lights all minds.  The substance of a man’s eye is not the light: on the contrary, the eye borrows, every moment, the light from the rays of the sun.  Just in the same manner, my mind is not the primitive reason, or universal and immutable truth; but only the organ through which that original light passes, and which is lighted by it.  There is a sun of spirits that lights them far better than the visible sun lights bodies.  This sun of spirits gives us, at once, both its light, and the love of it, in order to seek it.  That sun of truth leaves no manner of darkness, and shines at the same time in the two hemispheres.  It lights us as much by night as by day; nor does it spread its rays outwardly; but inhabits in every one of us.  A man can never deprive another man of its beams.  One sees it equally, in whatever corner of the universe he may lurk.  A man never needs say to another, step aside, to let me see that sun; you rob me of its rays; you take away my share of it.  That sun never sets: nor suffers any cloud, but such as are raised by our passions.  It is a day without shadow.  It lights the savages even in the deepest and darkest caves; none but sore eyes wink against its light; nor is there indeed any man so distempered and so blind, but who still walks by the glimpse of some duskish light he retains from that inward sun of consciences.  That universal light discovers and represents all objects to our minds; nor can we judge of anything but by it; just as we cannot discern anybody but by the rays of the sun.