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All men are commanded by the saint. The Koran makes a distinct class
of those who are by nature good, and whose goodness has an influence
on others, and pronounces this class to be the aim of creation: the
other classes are admitted to the feast of being, only as following
in the train of this. And the Persian poet exclaims to a soul of this
kind:
"Go boldly forth, and feast on being's banquet;
Thou art the called,--the rest admitted with thee."
The privilege of this caste is an access to the secrets and structure
of nature, by some higher method than by experience. In common parlance,
what one man is said to learn by experience, a man of extraordinary
sagacity is said, without experience, to divine. The Arabians say,
that Abul Khain, the mystic, and Abu Ali Seena, the Philosopher,
conferred together; and, on parting, the philosopher said, "All that
he sees, I know;" and the mystic said, "All that he knows, I see." If
one should ask the reason of this intuition, the solution would lead
us into that property which Plato denoted as Reminiscence, and which
is implied by the Bramins in the tenet of Transmigration.
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