Thinkable Therefore Possible

The thought, it was just now shown, rules the possessed world. Well, then, possibility is nothing but thinkableness, and innumerable sacrifices have hitherto been made to hideous thinkableness. It was thinkable that men might become rational; thinkable, that they might know Christ; thinkable, that they might become moral and enthusiastic for the good; thinkable, that they might all take refuge in the Church's lap; thinkable, that they might meditate, speak, and do, nothing dangerous to the State; thinkable, that they might be obedient subjects; but, because it was thinkable, it was -- so ran the inference -- possible, and further, because it was possible to men (right here lies the deceptive point; because it is thinkable to me, it is possible to men), therefore they ought to be so, it was their calling; and finally -- one is to take men only according to this calling, only as called men, "not as they are, but as they ought to be."