interesting. "Imagination" is for him ("Miscellaneous Sonnets," xxxv.)
a "glorious faculty," whose function it is to elevate the
more-than-reasoning mind; "'tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
of Faith," and "colour life's dark cloud with orient rays." This
faculty is at once "more than reason," and identical with "Reason in
her most exalted mood." I have said (p.21) that "Mysticism is reason
applied to a sphere above rationalism" and this appears to be exactly
Wordsworth's doctrine.]
[Footnote 383: "Sonnets on the River Duddon," xxxiv.]
[Footnote 384: "Lines composed above Tintern Abbey," 95-102.]
[Footnote 385: "Miscell. Sonnets," xxxiii.]
[Footnote 386: "Prelude," xiv. 112-129.]
[Footnote 387: "Prelude," ii. 396-418.]
[Footnote 388: "Lines composed above Tintern Abbey," 35-48.]
[Footnote 389: Wordsworth's Mysticism contains a few subordinate
elements which are of more questionable value. The "echoes from beyond
the grave," which "the inward ear" sometimes catches, are dear to most
of us; but we must not be too confident that they always come from
God. Still less can we be sure that presentiments are "heaven-born
instincts." Again, when the lonely thinker feels himself surrounded by
"huge and mighty forms, that do not move like living men," it is a
sign that the "dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being"
has begun to work not quite healthily upon his imagination. And the
doctrine of pre-existence, which appears in the famous Ode, is one
which it has been hitherto impossible to admit into the scheme of
Christian beliefs, though many Christian thinkers have dallied with
it. Perhaps the true lesson of the Ode is that the childish love of
nature, beautiful and innocent as it is, has to die and be born again
in the consciousness of the grown man. That Wordsworth himself passed
through this experience, we know from other passages in his writings.
In his case, at any rate, the "light of common day" was, for a time at
least, more splendid than the roseate hues of his childish imagination
can possibly have been; and there seems to be no reason for holding
the gloomy view that spiritual insight necessarily becomes dimmer as
we travel farther from our cradles, and nearer to our graves. What
fails us as we get older is only that kind of vision which is
analogous to the "consolations" often spoken of by monkish mystics as
the privilege of beginners. Amiel expresses exactly the same regret as
Wordsworth: "Shall I ever enjoy again those marvellous reveries of
past days?..." See the whole paragraph on p. 32 of Mrs. Humphry Ward's
translation.]
[Footnote 390: These objections are pressed by Lotze, and not only by
avowed Pessimists. Lotze abhors what he calls "sentimental symbolism"
because it interferes with his monadistic doctrines. I venture to say
that any philosophy which divides man, as a being _sui generis_, from
the rest of Nature, is inevitably landed either in Acosmism or in
Manichean Dualism.]
[Footnote 391: This is perhaps the best place to notice the mystical
treatise of James Hinton, entitled _Man and his Dwelling-place_, which
is chiefly remarkable for its attempt to solve the problem of evil.
This writer pushes to an extremity the favourite mystical doctrine
that we surround ourselves with a world after our own likeness, and
considers that all the evil which we see in Nature is the "projection
of our own deadness." Apart from the unlikelihood of a theory which
makes man--"the roof and crown of things"--the only diseased and
discordant element in the universe, the writer lays himself open to
the fatal rejoinder, "Did Christ, then, see no sin or evil in the
world?" The doctrines of sacrifice (vicarious suffering) as a blessed
law of Nature ("the secret of the universe is learnt on Calvary"), and
of the necessity of annihilating "the self" as the principle of evil,
are pressed with a harsh and unnatural rigour. Our blessed Lord laid
no such yoke upon us, nor will human nature consent to bear it. The
"atonement" of the world by love is much better delineated by R.L.
Nettleship, in a passage which seems to me to exhibit the very kernel
of Christian Mysticism in its social aspect. "Suppose that all human
beings felt permanently to each other as they now do occasionally to
those they love best. All the pain of the world would be swallowed up
in doing good. So far as we can conceive of such a state, it would be
one in which there would be no 'individuals' at all, but an universal
being in and for another; where being took the form of consciousness,
it would be the consciousness of 'another' which was also 'oneself'--a
_common_ consciousness. Such would be the 'atonement' of the world."]
[Footnote 392: Charles Kingsley is another mystic of the same school.]
[Footnote 393: Browning, _Paracelsus_, Act i.]
[Footnote 394: Browning, "Saul," xvii.]
[Footnote 395: Browning, "Cristina."]
[Footnote 396: Browning, "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," xxx.,
xxxiii.]
[Footnote 397: Browning, "_Any Wife to any Husband._"]
[Footnote 398: Compare Plato's well-known sentence: [Greek: di
algêdonôn kai odynôn gignetai hê ôpheleia, ou gar oion te
allôs adikias apallattesthai].]
[Footnote 399: Browning, _Paracelsus_.]
[Footnote 400: Compare Pascal: "No one is discontented at not being a
king, except a discrowned king."]
[Footnote 401: It is almost as prominent in Tennyson as in Browning:
"Give her the wages of going on, and not to die," is his wish for the
human soul.]
[Footnote 402: I had written these words before the publication of
Principal Caird's _Sermons_, which contain, in my judgment, the most
powerful defence of what I have called Christian Mysticism that has
appeared since William Law. On p. 14 he says: "Of all things good and
fair and holy there is a spiritual cognisance which precedes and is
independent of that knowledge which the understanding conveys." He
shows how in the contemplation of nature it is "by an organ deeper
than intellectual thought" that "the revelation of material beauty
flows in upon the soul." "And in like manner there is an apprehension
of God and Divine things which comes upon the spirit as a living
reality which it immediately and intuitively perceives." ... "There is
a capacity of the soul, by which the truths of religion may be
apprehended and appropriated." See the whole sermon, entitled, _What
is Religion?_ and many other parts of the book.]
[Footnote 403: Cf. Hegel (_Philosophy of Religion_, vol. ii. p. 8):
"The Beautiful is essentially the Spiritual making itself known
sensuously, presenting itself in sensuous concrete existence, but in
such a manner that that existence is wholly and entirely permeated by
the Spiritual, so that the sensuous is not independent, but has its
meaning solely and exclusively in the Spiritual and through the
Spiritual, and exhibits not itself, but the Spiritual."]
[Footnote 404: Some reference ought perhaps to be made to Drummond's
_Natural Law in the Spiritual World_. But Mysticism seeks rather to
find spiritual law in the natural world--and some better law than
Drummond's Calvinism. (And I cannot help thinking that, though
Evolution explains much and contradicts nothing in Christianity, it is
in danger of proving an _ignis fatuus_ to many, especially to those
who are inclined to idealistic pantheism. There can be no progress or
development in God, and the cosmic process as we know it cannot have a
higher degree of reality than the categories of time and place under
which it appears. As for the millennium of perfected humanity on this
earth, which some Positivists and others dream of,--Christianity has
nothing to say against it, but science has a great deal.) See below,
p. 328.]
[Footnote 405: In the Life of Charles Darwin there is an interesting
letter, in which he laments the gradual decay of his taste for poetry,
as his mind became a mere "machine for grinding out general laws" from
a mass of observations. The decay of religious _feeling_ in many men
of high character may be accounted for in the same way. The really
great man is conscious of the sacrifice which he is making. "It is an
accursed evil to a man," Darwin wrote to Hooker, "to become so
absorbed in any subject as I am in mine." The common-place man is
_not_ conscious of it: he obtains his heart's desire, if he works hard
enough, and God sends leanness withal into his soul.]
[Footnote 406: The metaphysical problem about the reality of time in
relation to evolution is so closely bound up with speculative
Mysticism, that I have been obliged to state my own opinion upon it.
It is, of course, one of the vexed questions of philosophy at the
present time; and I could not afford the space, even if I had the
requisite knowledge and ability, to argue it. The best discussion of
it that I know is in M'Taggart's _Studies in Hegelian Dialectic_, pp.
159-202. Cf. note on p. 23.]
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Definitions Of "Mysticism" And "Mystical Theology"
The following definitions are given only as specimens. The list might
be made much longer by quoting from other Roman Catholic theologians,
but their definitions for the most part agree closely enough with
those which I have transcribed from Corderius, John a Jesu Maria, and
Gerson.
1. _Corderius_. "Theologia mystica est sapientia experimentalis, Dei
affectiva, divinitus infusa, quæ mentem ab omni inordinatione puram
per actus supernaturales fidei spei et caritatis cum Deo intime
coniungit.... Mystica theologia, si vim nominis attendas, designat
quandam sacram et arcanam de Deo divinisque rebus notitiam."
2. _John a Jesu Maria_. "[Theologia mystica] est cælestis quædam Dei
notitia per unionem voluntatis Deo inhærentis elicita vel lumine
cælitus immisso producta."
3. _Bonaventura_ (adopted also by Gerson). "Est animi extensio in Deum
per amoris desiderium."
4. _Gerson_. "Theologia mystica est motio anagogica in Deum per amorem
fervidum et purum. Aliter sic: Theologia mystica est experimentalis
cognitio habita de Deo per amoris unitivi complexum. Aliter sic: est
sapientia, id est sapida notio habita de Deo, dum ei supremus apex
affectivæ potentiæ rationalis per amorem iungitur et unitur."
5. _Scaramelli_. "La theologia mistica esperimentale, secondo il suo
atto principale e più proprio, è una notizia pura di Dio che l' anima
d'ordinario riceve nella caligine luminosa, o per di meglio nel chiaro
oscuro d' un' alta contemplazione, insieme con un amore esperimentale
si intimo, che la fa perdere tutta a sè stessa per unirla e
transformarla in Dio."
6. _Ribet_. "La théologie mystique, au point de vue subjectif et
expérimental, nous semble pouvoir être définie: une attraction
surnaturelle et passive de l'âme vers Dieu, provenant d'une
illumination et d'un embrasement intérieurs, qui préviennent la
réflexion, surpassent l'effort humain, et pouvent avoir sur le corps
un retentissement merveilleux et irrésistible.... Au point de vue
doctrinal objectif, la mystique peut se définir: la science qui traite
des phénomènes surnaturels, qui préparent, accompagnent, et suivent
l'attraction passive des âmes vers Dieu et par Dieu, c'est à dire la
contemplation divine; qui les coordonne et les justifie par l'autorité
de l'Écriture, des docteurs et de la raison; les distingue des
phénomènes parallèles dus a l'action de Satan, et des faits analogues
purement naturels; enfin, qui trace des règles pratiques pour la
conduite des âmes dans ces ascensions sublimes mais périlleuses."
7. _L'Abbé Migne_. "La mystique est la science d'état sur naturel de
l'âme humaine manifesté dans le corps et dans l'ordre des choses
visibles par des effets également surnaturels."
In these scholastic and modern Roman Catholic definitions we may
observe (a) that the earlier definitions supplement without
contradicting each other, representing different aspects of Mysticism,
as an experimental science, as a living sacrifice of the will, as an
illumination from above, and as an exercise of ardent devotion; (b)
that symbolic or objective Mysticism is not recognised; (c) that the
sharp distinction between natural and supernatural, which is set up by
the scholastic mystics, carries with it a craving for physical
"mystical phenomena" to support the belief in supernatural
interventions. These miracles, though not mentioned in the earlier
definitions, have come to be considered an integral part of Mysticism,
so that Migne and Ribet include them in their definitions; (d)
lastly, that those who take this view of "la mystique divine" are
constrained to admit by the side of true mystical facts a parallel
class of "contrefaçons diaboliques."
8. _Von Hartmann_. "Mysticism is the filling of the consciousness with
a content (feeling, thought, desire), by an involuntary emergence of
the same out of the unconscious."
Von Hartmann's hypostasis of the Unconscious has been often and
justly criticised. But his chapter on Mysticism is of great value. He
begins by asking, "What is the _Wesen_ of Mysticism?" and shows that
it is not quietism (disproved by mystics like Böhme, and by many
active reformers), nor ecstasy (which is generally pathological), nor
asceticism, nor allegorism, nor fantastic symbolism, nor obscurity of
expression, nor religion generally, nor superstition, nor the sum of
these things. It is healthy in itself, and has been of high value to
individuals and to the race. It prepared for the Gospel of St. John,
for the revolt against arid scholasticism in the Middle Ages, for the
Reformation, and for modern German philosophy. He shows the mystical
element in Hamann, Jacobi, Fichte, and Schelling; and quotes with
approval the description of "intellectual intuition" given by the last
named. We must not speak of thought as an antithesis to experience,
"for thought (including immediate or mystical knowledge) is itself
experience." This knowledge is not derived from sense-perception,--the
conscious will has nothing to do with it,--"it can only have arisen
through inspiration from the Unconscious." He would extend the name of
mystic to "eminent art-geniuses who owe their productions to
inspirations of genius, and not to the work of their consciousness
(e.g. Phidias, Æeschylus, Raphael, Beethoven)", and even to every
"truly original" philosopher, for every high thought has been first
apprehended by the glance of genius. Moreover, the relation of the
individual to the Absolute, an essential theme of philosophy, can
_only_ be mystically apprehended. "This feeling is the content of
Mysticism [Greek: kat exochên], because it finds its existence _only_
in it." He then shows with great force how religious and philosophical
systems have full probative force only for the few who are able to
reproduce mystically in themselves their underlying suppositions, the
truth of which can only be mystically apprehended. "Hence it is that
those systems which rejoice in most adherents are just the poorest of
all and most unphilosophical (e.g. materialism and rationalistic
Theism)."
9. _Du Prel_. "If the self is not wholly contained in
self-consciousness, if man is a being dualised by the threshold of
sensibility, then is Mysticism possible; and if the threshold of
sensibility is movable, then Mysticism is necessary." "The mystical
phenomena of the soul-life are anticipations of the biological
process." "Soul is our spirit within the self-consciousness, spirit is
the soul beyond the self-consciousness."
This definition, with which should be compared the passage from J.P.
Ritcher, quoted in Lecture I., assumes that Mysticism may be treated
as a branch of experimental psychology. Du Prel attaches great
importance to somnambulism and other kindred psychical phenomena,
which (he thinks) give us glimpses of the inner world of our _Ego_, in
many ways different from our waking consciousness. "As the moon turns
to us only half its orb, so our Ego." He distinguishes between the Ego
and the subject. The former will perish at death. It arises from the
free act of the subject, which enters the time-process as a
discipline. "The self-conscious Ego is a projection of the
transcendental subject, and resembles it." "We should regard this
earthly existence as a transitory phenomenal form in correspondence
with our transcendental interest." "Conscience is transcendental
nature." (This last sentence suggests thoughts of great interest.) Du
Prel shows how Schopenhauer's pessimism may be made the basis of a
higher optimism. "The path of biological advance leads to the merging
of the Ego in the subject." "The biological aim for the race coincides
with the transcendental aim for the individual." "The whole content of
Ethics is that the Ego must subserve the Subject." The disillusions of
experience show that earthly life has no value for its own sake, and
is only a means to an end; it follows that to make pleasure our end is
the one fatal mistake in life. These thoughts are mixed with
speculations of much less value; for I cannot agree with Du Prel that
we shall learn much about higher and deeper modes of life by studying
abnormal and pathological states of the consciousness.
10. _Goethe_. "Mysticism is the scholastic of the heart, the dialectic
of the feelings."
11. _Noack_. "Mysticism is formless speculation."
Noack's definition is, perhaps, not very happily phrased, for the
essence of Mysticism is not speculation but intuition; and when it
begins to speculate, it is obliged at once to take to itself "forms."
Even the ultimate goal of the _via negativa_ is apprehended as "a kind
of form of formlessness." Goethe's definition regards Mysticism as a
system of religion or philosophy, and from this point of view
describes it accurately.
12. _Ewald_. "Mystical theology begins by maintaining that man is
fallen away from God, and craves to be again united with Him."
13. _Canon Overton_. "That we bear the image of God is the
starting-point, one might almost say the postulate, of all Mysticism.
The complete union of the soul with God is the goal of all Mysticism."
14. _Pfleiderer_. "Mysticism is the immediate feeling of the unity of
the self with God; it is nothing, therefore, but the fundamental
feeling of religion, the religious life at its very heart and centre.
But what makes the mystical a special tendency inside religion, is the
endeavour to fix the immediateness of the life in God as such, as
abstracted from all intervening helps and channels whatever, and find
a permanent abode in the abstract inwardness of the life of pious
feeling. In this God-intoxication, in which self and the world are
alike forgotten, the subject knows himself to be in possession of the
highest and fullest truth; but this truth is only possessed in the
quite undeveloped, simple, and bare form of monotonous feeling; what
truth the subject possesses is not filled up by any determination in
which the simple unity might unfold itself, and it lacks therefore the
clearness of knowledge, which is only attained when thought harmonises
differences with unity."
15. _Professor A. Seth_. "Mysticism is a phase of thought, or rather,
perhaps, of feeling, which from its very nature is hardly susceptible
of exact definition. It appears in connexion with the endeavour of the
human mind to grasp the Divine essence or the ultimate reality of
things, and to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the
highest. The first is the philosophic side of Mysticism; the second,
its religious side. The thought that is most intensely present with
the mystic is that of a supreme, all-pervading, and indwelling Power,
in whom all things are one. Hence the speculative utterances of
Mysticism are always more or less pantheistic in character. On the
practical side, Mysticism maintains the possibility of direct
intercourse with this Being of beings. God ceases to be an object, and
becomes an experience."
This carefully-worded statement of the essence of Mysticism is
followed by a hostile criticism. Professor Seth considers quietism the
true conclusion from the mystic's premisses. "It is characteristic of
Mysticism, that it does not distinguish between what is metaphorical
and what is susceptible of a literal interpretation. Hence it is prone
to treat a relation of ethical harmony as if it were one of
substantial identity or chemical fusion; and, taking the sensuous
language of religious feeling literally, it bids the individual aim at
nothing less than an interpenetration of essence. And as this goal is
unattainable while reason and the consciousness of self remain, the
mystic begins to consider these as impediments to be thrown aside....
Hence Mysticism demands a faculty above reason, by which the subject
shall be placed in immediate and complete union with the object of his
desire, a union in which the consciousness of self has disappeared,
and in which, therefore, subject and object are one." To this, I
think, the mystic might answer: "I know well that interpenetration and
absorption are words which belong to the category of space, and are
only metaphors or symbols of the relation of the soul to God; but
separateness, impenetrability, and isolation, which you affirm of the
_ego_, belong to the same category, and are no whit less metaphorical.
The question is, which of the two sets of words best expresses the
relation of the ransomed soul to its Redeemer? In my opinion, your
phrase 'ethical harmony' is altogether inadequate, while the New
Testament expressions, 'membership,' 'union,' 'indwelling,' are as
adequate as words can be." The rest of the criticism is directed
against the "negative road," which I have no wish to defend, since I
cannot admit that it follows logically from the first principles of
Mysticism.
16. _Récéjac_. "Mysticism is the tendency to approach the Absolute
morally, and by means of symbols."
Récéjac's very interesting _Essai sur les Fondements de la
Connaissance mystique_ has the great merit of emphasising the symbolic
character of all mystical phenomena, and of putting all such
experiences in their true place, as neither hallucinations nor
invasions of the natural order, but symbols of a higher reality. "Les
apparitions et autres phénomènes mystiques n'existent que dans
l'esprit du voyant, et ne perdent rien pour cela de leur prix ni de
leur vérité.... Et alors n'y a-t-il pas au fond des symboles autant
_d'être_ que sous les phénomènes? Bien plus encore: car l'être
phénoménal, le réel, se pose dans la conscience par un enchaînement de
faits tellement successif que nous ne tenons jamais 'le même'; tandis
que sous les symboles, si nous tenons quelque chose, c'est l'identique
et le permanent." Récéjac also insists with great force that the
motive power of Mysticism is neither curiosity nor self-interest, but
love: the intrusion of alien motives is at once fatal to it. "Its
logic consists in having confidence in the rationality of the moral
consciousness and its desires." This agrees with what I have
said--that Reason is, or should be, the logic of our entire
personality, and that if Reason is so defined, it does not come into
conflict with Mysticism. Récéjac also has much to say upon Free Will
and Determinism. He says that Mysticism is an alliance between the
Practical Reason (which he identifies with "la Liberté") and
Imagination. "Determinism is the opposite, not of 'Liberty,' but of
'indifference.' Liberty, as Fouillée says, is only a higher form of
Determinism." "The modern idea of liberty, and the mystical conception
of Divine will, may be reconciled in the same way as inspiration and
reason, on condition that both are discovered in the same fact
interior to us, and that, far from being opposed to each other, they
are fused and distinguished together _dans quelque implicite
réellement présent a la conscience_." Récéjac throughout appeals to
Kant instead of to Hegel as his chief philosophical authority, in this
differing from the majority of those who are in sympathy with
Mysticism.
17. _Bonchitté_. "Mysticism consists in giving to the spontaneity of
the intelligence a larger part than to the other faculties."