The idea of an all-embracing unity within and behind the seeming
manifoldness of life forms the ground rhythm of all inspired
literature, sacred and profane alike. For clarity and conciseness it
would be difficult to improve upon the formulation of this idea
contained in the following fragment:
"_In the manifold unity of universal life the innumerable
individualities distinguished by their variations are, nevertheless,
united in such a manner that the whole is one, and that everything
proceeds from unity_.
"_For all things depend upon unity, or develop from it, and because
they appear distant from one another it is believed that they are
many, whereas in their collectivity they form but one_."
Now nothing so successfully resolves this paradox of the one and the
many as the concept that the things of this world are embraced and
united in a dimensionally higher world in a manner analogous to that
in which all conic sections are embraced and united within the cone.
A more elaborate and fanciful figure may serve to make this clearer
to the mind.
Conceive of this printed page as a plane world in which every letter
is a person; every word a family; phrases and sentences, larger
communities and groups. These "innumerable individualities,
distinguished by their variations" must needs seem to themselves as
"distant from one another," their very differences of form and
arrangement a barrier to any superior unity. Yet all the while,
solely by reason of this diversity, they are co-operating towards an
end of which they cannot be aware. The mind of the reader unites and
interprets the letters into continuous thought, though they be
voiceless as stones to one another. Even so may our sad and stony
identities spell out a world's word which we know not of, by reason
of our singularity and isolation. Moreover, in the electrotype block,
the solid of which the printed page constitutes a plane presentment,
all the letters are actually "united in such a manner that the whole
is one." The metal that has moulded each into its significant form
amalgamates them into a higher unity. So also the power that makes
us separate is the same power that makes us one.