“The Eastern doctrines are unimous, as also were the ancient doctrines of the West; in asserting that contemplation is superior to action, just as the unchanging is superior to change. Action, being merely a transitory and momentary modification of the being, cannot possibly carry its principle and sufficient reason in itself; if it does not depend on a principle outside its own contingent domain, it is but illusion; and this principle, from which it draws all the reality it is capable of possessing its existence and its very possibility can be found only in contemplation, or, if one will, in knowledge,”