The manifestation of the soul in the life of the humming-bird is slight in comparison with the manifestation in the life of a man, and the traces which persist forever in the case of the former are probably insignificant compared with the traces which persist in the case of the latter; but traces must persist, else there is no immortality of the individual; at the same time there is not the slightest reason for urging that, whereas traces of the soul's activity in the form of man will persist, traces of the soul's activity in lower forms of life and in things inanimate will not persist.

There is no reason why, when the physical barriers which exist between us and the soul that is within and without us are destroyed, we should not desire to know forever all that the universe contains.

Why should not the sun and the moon and the stars be immortal,--as immortal in their way as we in ours, both immortal in the one all-pervading soul?
"The philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the chambers and the magazine of the soul.

In its experiments there has always remained, in the last analysis, a residuum it could not solve," said Emerson in the lecture he called "Over-Soul." What a pity to use the phrase "Over-Soul," which removes the soul even farther aloof than it is in popular conception, or which fosters the belief of an inner and outer, or an inferior and a superior soul; whereas Emerson meant, as the context shows, the all-pervading soul.
But, then, who knows what any one else thinks or means?
At the most we only know what others say, what words they use, but in what sense they use them and the content of thought back of them we do not know.

So far as the problems of life go we are all groping in the dark, and words are like fireflies leading us hither and thither with glimpses of light only to go out, leaving us in darkness and despair.
It is the sounding phrase that catches the ear.