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MYSTIC KNOWLEDGE
ESSAY
OJE BASES
OF THE
II
Ba<riAfia
MYSTIC KNOWLEDGE
TOU Qeov ttnbs
i>fj.>v
fcrnv.
BY
E.
RECEJAC
DOCTOR OF LETTERS
^Translate!)
BY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
1899
Copyright, 1899,
BY CHARLES SCRIBXER
SONS.
CA?.IP.I:IDOE,
U.S.A.
TRANSLATOR S NOTE.
THE
titles
and
titles or titles of
other
use.
S. C.
U.
CONTENTS
PAGK
INTRODUCTION
JFitat
Part
THE ABSOLUTE
STATEMENT
7
CHAPTER FIRST
CONCERNING THE VARIOUS ATTITUDES OF MIND TOWARD THE ABSOLUTE
I.
I.
EMPIRICISM, DETERMINISM
" "
Simple
to the
"
Absolute."
At
II.
is
an
8
Implicit
Necessity in the sense of Determinism leads to the pure to Non-Being it is One only conceivable in the Ab
:
solute as
III.
10
13
There
is
POSITIVISM
I.
Reason could not have come out of the Unconscious by evolution it transcends the whence it would subject be said to come
"
"
15 17
II.
To
"
"
objectivate
s
is
:
to
III
Spencer
opinion
knowledge
III.
I.
20
CRITICISM
The Kantian
definition of Being.
What Kant
dreaded was
22
VI
CONTENTS
PAGE
II.
(the
"
mind)
calls for
")
another a priori
Absolute
into
which Mysticism
24
III.
Reason without checking the other initiatives of the soul. The postulates of Crit icism give no intellectual standpoint unless some mystic certainty is added
IV.
RATIONALISM.
;
26
I.
II.
its object and Evidence does Thought not come from things alone. How Character influences Knowledge, specially in moral matters Dogmatism is a stiff-mindeduess opposed to the needs of Knowledge
is
28
32
CHAPTER SECOND
THE MYSTIC CONSCIOUSNESS
I.
I.
and
36 38
II.
No
means
of the categories
II.
I.
MYSTIC SYNTHESIS
first
princi
ples
II.
Known
"
of the
Heart,"
I,
me
"
40 43
Relations between the mystic Experience and Knowledge II. The mystic method
I.
46 53
IV.
I.
Philosophical mysticism
ness, having in
it
62
CONTENTS
II.
Vll
PAGE
There
is nothing of a supernatural character in Mysticism, except that it brings the realizing Sense of the Good to such a high point that a power is developed to effect in the consciousness the synthesis of Determinism and
Freedom
III.
64 68
MYSTIC PLEASURE
I.
II.
The na iveness of Art and moral pleasure is the result of appre hension of the Absolute in its various relations with our
called
"
"
...
71
consciousness
III.
73
mystic
is
Love
TIIE LIMITS OF MYSTICISM
77
VI.
I.
II.
Pessimism and mystic Optimism The sure and middle ground of Mysticism
Scientific
79 81
Seconti
SYMBOLS
STATEMENT
85
CHAPTER FIRST
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
I.
I.
Reason alone
verified
is
a priori
Inspiration
is
only a fact to be 86
II.
Autonomy
III.
Mystic Esotericism
is
87 88
.
IV. Inspiration
II.
I.
90
Common-Sense, Genius,
92
Prophecy
Viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
Concerning Poetic Inspiration III. The aberrations of Mysticism in search of its own tran scendence IV. Reason can be determined by nothing but itself: Unity is
II.
its
93
95 98 100
act
V.
III.
I.
II.
III.
Paul Inspiration according to Saint Theological obscurity regarding the nature of Inspiration Unanimous sentiment which attributes Inspiration to a
.
101 102
by
illumination
of
the
101
10G
IV.
I.
WORD
II.
Identity of human Reason and the Divine Mystical conditions of the consciousness of Christ
Word
....
. .
III.
spiritual fact
CHAPTER SECOND
SYMBOLISM
I.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
consists in the mental production
I.
and
119
but
even science
itself
121
III.
Symbolism
mystical when it claims to effect communication of the ego and the non-ego in the totality of the con
sciousness
124.
IV. Wherein mysticism claims too much and what it really accomplishes V. Qualities of mystic symbolism simplicity and vivacity VI. Concerning verbal expression its inadequacy for the mystic
:
consciousness
CONTENTS
II.
I.
IX
MYSTIC INTUITION
PAGE
II.
Mystic Intuition enables us to perceive the facts of Free dom through and above the empirical consciousness, in a manner the inverse of Abstraction The mystic consciousness sees only itself covered over with
the symbols which the Infinite
138
make apparent
its
tendencies towards
III.
The mystic
act
is
incommunicable.
Mystic privilege
IV.
MYSTIC ALIENATION
150
II.
phenomena
153
155
III.
Non-objectiveness of mystic phenomena IV. The various mystic phenomena: the prophetic Voices, the Stigmata, Ecstasy
Dream,
164
IV.
I.
II.
THE
STATEMENT
"HEART"
183
CHAPTER FIRST
THE ABSOLUTE AND FREEDOM
I.
I.
Heart
"
184
II.
Good
187
X
III.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Reconciliation of Determinism and the Necessity of choice through a positive conception of Freedom
" "
191 195
ego
II.
I.
199
OF THE ABSOLUTE
IN
MORALS
204
II.
III.
The
"
"
of Reason and
Freedom
.
IV. Determination of moral Good, divine and human together V. Twofold error of Asceticism its attempt to establish itself without reference to Experience, even the mystic ; and its
;
tendency to isolate
III.
man
in the Absolute
218
I.
II.
III.
Honor
is
IV. Reverence
227 228
Love
sensible of the
.
230
CHAPTER SECOND
THE ETHICAL FUNCTION OF SYMBOLS
I.
I.
The unpremeditated nature of the Good moral Inspiration. The influence of symbols is supplementary to rational
II.
The
evidence and representative of the moral object moral reconciliation of universal divine Vision
.
. .
"
235
"
and Positivism.
The Mysticism
240
accompany
245
CONTENTS
LV.
XI
PAGE
Absolute verity of the symbols given to the moral conscious ness. Their esotericism
V. The function of Grace VI. The Relations of moral and esthetic symbolism Eloquence
Concerning
II.
I.
II.
The social function of Disinterestedness Peace Power and Kindness the Heart the unity of the two con
:
258
cepts
III.
260
Freedom can have no other mystic object than itself. tic and social Ideal "the Free-Man IV. The Mystic City and the World. The man who can never be damned V. The integration of Souls in the Absolute VL The mystic confidence of Hope
"
Mys
261
is
free
263 264
267 270
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
MUST we
the
believe that Mysticism
"
is
like
"
empire of illusion
is it
astray, or
may be
claimed by
The question
either
Scepticism, or
If
it
is
be that Mysticism
know
conclusion.
of
the impossible
perverts
Mys
prove
to
be an experience
distinct
it
from what we
understand
by the word
if
"knowing,"
would be worth
introduced into
something new
is
Reason
is
in possession of too
much
light to be able to
enough
this
to
know
first
In
where the
i.
p.
304.
INTRODUCTION
Many
systems, under
more
any
ingenious
The work
of
knowing
is
forever recommencing.
disability,
and
Throughout the
impatience
centuries,
despair
and moral
have
provoked
The Absolute
will not
in
some
God)
is
clearly manifested,
"the
effort
which desires
better"
new,"
we
shall only
cies.
There
man
than by Freedom.
ble limitations,
On
no impassa
be
and on
can
infinite progress
Thought must not look on it and separate activity, but it must hold close
trust in
to
Freedom and
is
Freedom, the
sole creative
power
that
ours
not otherwise
may we apprehend
is
the Infinite.
an intense feeling
Freedom, as though
it
Shall
we
see the idea of the past, the mystic idea, give place
to the
forceful energies
all
which
this
sense of
Freedom has
brought into
orders of tilings,
INTRODUCTION
3
to a
The Christian
life
idea, it is said,
hopes in
itself,
Freedom
shall find
its
kingdom, which
is
the
true heaven.
Had
would have
in itself a mysticism
is
which noth
disinterestedness.
We
shall
boundless, homogeneous
What
of the
is
"
moral alienation
"
self, this
me?
Can the
The empirical school is working to construct a Logic of the under the name of Altruism. In our opinion no
"heart,"
such Logic
is
possible,
heart
"
will still
beyond laws.
There
in us an
"immanent"
act or energy,
it is
which we can
the mystics
not
know
scientifically
left to
it.
good use of
We
"
return to
idea,
"Love
excels
understanding."
First princi
Heart
"
under
Mysticism
tation
lives
4.
INTRODUCTION
It
is
experience.
most
logically
will
But
sal
any survive?
as
univer
all
We
these
forms part
Would
it
be the
part of
man?
make
or
it
of our undertaking of
"
is
to
a purely
mystic
knowledge,"
might be
a host of
better to say
mystic
experience."
From among
drian ecstasy
down
we have
touch
had to
select that
1
form
of pure Reason.
Few
of
books
(the
all
Were we
to
name
of Mysticism
we should be
shall
in the subject.
We
Fact, leaving
to
one side
Unknowable
into
The mystic fact is a naive and nonmethodical attempt to apprehend the Absolute it is a symbolic and not a dialectic mode of The course of this work will lead us to make the thought.
the consciousness in dialectical form.
;
distinction
still
plainer.
INTRODUCTION
Christianity),
little
When
it
opinion,
Saint
we
all
transcendental methods
which
transcendence
depends
first
of
all
upon Freedom
its
Freedom
determining
principles and
inspiration.
Afterwards
sentations.
it rises
by means of mental
"
"
symbolic
repre
We can
"Symbols"
and the
compare
Heart/
Mysticism
determine
we
shall
endeavor,
other
as
preliminary, to
with
its
the
methods of
knowing, and to
place in Philosophy.
FIRST PART
THE ABSOLUTE
THE
understanding
in
all
the
facts
of
consciousness
the
of
its
discursive
work.
to
And
widen
our comprehension of
as
"Unknowable"
whatever has
Can
this
be
done
know
per
Unknowable without help from dialectics, and suaded that, by means of love and will, it reaches
to
is
a point there in
"
attain.
What
is
"
common between
and
mystic
definite consciousness or
knowledge?
CHAPTER FIRST
CONCEENING THE VARIOUS ATTITUDES OF MIND TOWAKD THE ABSOLUTE
I.
EMPIRICISM, DETERMINISM
"
" "
I.
to the In vain do we oppose the Simple basis of existence aud of knowledge there
Absolute."
At
the
is
an Implicit.
II.
to Necessity in the sense of Determinism leads to the pure One the Absolute it is in as Good and conceivable Non-Being only
:
Act pure.
III.
There
is
no law
moral law.
I.
ACCORDING
we oppose
(he
"
analysis until
they maintain
<s
P le
tothe"Abso-
of
first
we should begin
gab-diyjcljn
j tl
This
itself.
The mind
in each
by
itself.
mind
there
all
and
all
judgment and
intuition
would be
at
an end.
an inner and
invisible
to
put
together terms
this
proposed
call
the faculty
of knowing,
and
to
faculty I
if it
my
Reason.
separate
is
be one,
and
which
is
And what
is
does
it
mean
to
far
as
may be
Therefore,
whether I perform
which
separates
or
the
act
is
The
difference
seeking for
siring to
when I analyze and separate I am pure One, and when I put together I am de
is
that
find
the complete
whole.
are
By
the
first
process
eliminate
the
elements
that
foreign,
and
by
the
second I bring
to obtain perfect
together those
that are
common,
in order
Unity/
clearly
enough by these
last
"
words that
"
mind
there
is
perfect unity
At
an
implicit,
an inex
If
we go
its
to Mathematics,
we
mind has
to
base
logic
on an original
their
intuition.
When we
doing
construct
laws,
we
are
much more
science of
other."
The
Mechanics
crete,
is
seen to be
less
pure than in
are inclined to
Mathematics.
1
we
De
Ordine,
xi.,
ch. xviii.
Oper.,
t. i.,
p.
10
understand
minism.
we
stop ?
What
ontological
principle in
simplicity shall
we oppose
to the Absolute,
whether
it
The one
is
than
all
others to Deter-
minists
Necessity
the idea of
Law."
"Widcl
spontaneity
Determinism
leads to the
from Being
contradictory terms?
When
ce L pt of
"
Determinism reaches
this
essential con
Law
"
it
begun
to
confuse two
things
which
it
desires
absolutely to distinguish,
necessity and
contingency.
The
"
"
possible
this,
nor,
This
is
an impor
we
again in Freedom.
The
"
same,"
that
is,
we quickly
perfect Unity
true,
the
would remain
would be
"
The
action
which we suppose
physics."
psychic
en morale.
460.
EMPIRICISM, DETERMINISM
without practical application.
11
that
But how
is
it
we may
?
is
How
are
we
to present the
"
Im
to
Reason
Which
equivalent to saying,
"
How
From
the
of Reason which
puts
"
consciousness
possession
of
the
"
substantive
(the organic
bond
of
is
presupposed.
it
There
is
nothing in
that which
whereby
becomes Being
is
no longer in logical
:
order
it is
it is
life
The point
is
at
which
all
analysis,
is
or logical, ends
:
for copula
identity
is
The
truly sub
copula
motion,
in
"
life,
"
fiat
There
1
is
this.
The
sense.
cal
To speak only of the modern world, Galileo strengthened the mechani interpretation when he identified motion and rest in a single fact, inertia.
since the time
minimum, hut
when Newton
is
by the
it
conceivable.
12
whether the
"fiat"
for
it
principle
and immo
bility of Being,
or whether
it is
separated therefrom.
to admit,
is
neither
metaphysical
the
word
Force."
The Absolute
is
not manifested in a
definition.
which does
not detach
Words
are only
is
a feeble attempt.
Our
first
which comes to
grows
dawn
of Reason
this impression
last
which we
call
"duty,"
truly
remarkable power of
changing
Freedom and
Autonomy.
But, however
it
may
dominates the mind and the world, and accounts, at the same
time, for things and for us
Necessity, therefore,
is
purely
all
metaphysical.
It resides in
on this
definition
"
Force
is
velocity,"
tut
it
though
it
may
be wise to accept
EMPIRICISM, DETERMINISM
13
implicit
is
"
fiat."
This
so far
in
Absolute
as
in us
things
of
it
it is
spirit
and
:
life
in ourselves
it is
God
that
effects infinitely
concedes that
this
"
approximations."
Yet even in
say
Thereisno
true sense ex cept the moral
judgment there
"
a contradiction.
To
"
law
is
to say
invariable determination
and
consequently,
tion
"
"necessity,"
but to say
law
"approxima-
is
Thus we
must perish
When we
ism,
we
But
there
is
no necessity in
In addition to the
we may
might take
place,
known
Science
to
change
all its
and
But, as we
when
it
appears to us as applied
alone, in
Three cen
language of
itself
in the
scholars,
14-
been preserved.
"moral
laws."
its
At
that
moment
consciousness, and
it is
present
is
finality,
and
still
of dialectics.
to the idea of
But when
there
God
its
We
shall
go on to show that
Science,
Pleasure,
in
any
common
experience.
This
is
experience.
POSITIVISM
15
II.
POSITIVISM
the Unconscious
I.
it
transcends the
"
"
subject
whence
it
come.
II.
"
To
"
objectivate
s
is
:
III.
Spencer
opinion
conclusion that
Mysticism
underlies
all
knowledge.
I.
The evolutionary
dangers
the
field
it
is.
of to
the
natural
sciences.
In
psychology,
application.
If
we take away
the opposition of
is
transcends the
at the
bottom
evolutionary thesis) do
means
to
our
consciousness
We
men, seeing
their shadow, or
seeing their
own image
Whatever the
historic data
on
this subject
may
Reason
we
are of
"sight"
and
"touch,"
is
number
up things
in themselves
it
and
to objectivate
phenomena
our psy
and possibly
is
own
16
sensations
and
in perceptions
is
of ourselves.
From
the
mo
ment
that
man
will-to-
live/
this
Between
which a
which
is
wholly subjective,
and that
in
man
is
and
"
call
Inspiration.
The
first
mount
the
subjectivity
of
representatives
is
the
first
Nothing
by
all
and
in
advance of
perceptions.
Because
is
itself as a sort of
life.
Absolute, Reason
ries
is
Life car
its
with
it
identity
only a
"fact."
cally to
it
under
mechanical laws.
posited as a
inevitability
which the
It
is
of
posited
at the
it
ap
peared in Time.
we have
just seen,
from the
moment
it
appeared, something
as great
and
as original as
Being began.
than
in
There
idea of
is
more Mysticism
in this
affirmation
the
been
discarded
that
only through
fear of Mysticism.
If any one
believes
POSITIVISM
17
has no right to inter
contradictory
is
Eeason
pret
is
immanent
in
things, he
such immanence
in
manner
There
to
the
therefore a dominat
it
is
impossible for
all
us to
reject
the
logical
sequence
or
of
the
others,
"inner"
"outer"
selves.
It
may be
also
that
the
positivist
theory
of
the
and the
spiritual has
is
been too
To O bj ec ti.
vate
"
generally
accepted.
The Absolute
not
first
is
to
present in the
consciousness as an
it
ulterior
act.
first
is
Taking
the
position,
we
are not
:
essence
of
the
mental fact
whether
it
in subjectifying
phenomena,
it
contains always
some strange
Are we
justified in interpreting
an animistic belief?
Was
man
1
first
sought in thing?,
"just
We
1 An experience related by some missionaries tends to show that this pre occupation with the essence of things is at least quite as constitutive of Reason as is the animist prepossession. The Cochinchinese think that the
"
spirits of the
dead take their place at table and eat. The missionaries tried The Cochinchinese answered There are
:
two things
one part contains the essence and the other, the The immate quantity, quality, perfume, taste, and a host of other things. rial souls of the dead consume the essence, and find in it the immaterial
in
the food
so that
what appears
to the cor
left
no
(Borri,
p. 208.)
Relatione delta
nova missions
ddla comp. di
Gesii.
Rome, 1631,
18
as soon
man
the
lie
began to
merely
a
believe
as
that
was
the
more
truly he
thinks"
Can
it
May
not
the
mode
which
our mental
evolution,
be
the
most
naive
and
ever-
the
intellectual
it
act
is
begins
upon us by things,
not
com
"Thought,"
Kant,
"is
the
act
of
referring
given intuition to
an
l
object."
Positivists
go so
far
as
to recount,
with more
or
less
historic accuracy,
how
in
generalization
re
mained
"theological,"
"forest"
di
vinities
of wider range as
their
at
last
reached
the
"
point
which
metaphysical
leave out of
thought, namely,
monotheism."
Even
we
must,
we
think,
be held
is
that
this
logical
recurrence
t.
i.
p.
313.
POSITIVISM
intellectual
19
arrives
constitution. 1
Hamilton himself
at
the
"When
we
to conceive
anything beyond
revelation inspires us
"
all
comprehensible reality
"
He
might
marvellous
a simple
revelation/
make such
"relative"
statement of
"
It is true
that
the
and the
in
"
finite
prehistoric
but
although
their
boundary
lines
are
how
are
we
to
mysticism?
in
a stone,
an animal
others
stages
marks of
thing to
establish
at every
is
that
man
Absolute
1
moment
"
of his intellectual
"Thus,"
says Berkeley,
when the
greatest
men
are compelled to
make
We
still
this passage
proves that
when
the civilized
metaphysician
(Tylor,
Prim
p. 66.
First
Principles,"
donment of some of these mythological terms, but new ones spring up at once. By the term molecular vibrations we suppose the ether. Ether is a
myth."
(Max
Muller,
New
t.
ii.
pp.
344, 345.)
20
III.
"From
man
. .
supernatural cause.
.
The
...
is
that the
knowledge.
power manifested
as consciousness.
By means
now comprehensible
its
only in parts
totality
all
We may
ask
cism)
will
evolution"
when we
ceive
things.
we are to-day,
energy"
to con
"that
eternal
it
and
infinite
source
of
all
Will
seem to us any
it
less
marvellous as
we
from the
"
is
word
"scien
tific is
) ?
We
It
alloy,
will
ex
pand as much
Positivism
"
and with
it.
contains
"
the contradiction
it
of preserving
the
:
Unknowable
while excluding
it
of considering
as
"question"
taking away be
presented
all
the
terms
in
which
the
question
could
to
thought.
stration,
itself
to agnostic
demon
respect to the
Unknowable merely
1
Unknowable
it
seeks
Rev.
pliil.,
CRITICISM
to
21
sym
bols,
and
of reverence
and
all
sentiments.
of the
Unknowable
"
or under the
name
"Absolute,"
God
Reason
illu
as a Light, or if
you choose,
as
some unconquerable
Perhaps
it
sion inciting
it
to
is
true
moves
ing to
itself,
mind and
Is
a means of life?
not Love
like
Illusion to
is
knowable or
unknowable,
the
it
is
bottom of
all
things,
and act?
III.
CRITICISM
What Kant
dreaded was
I.
The Kantian
Fanaticism,
II.
Absolute
"
),
III.
The work
no
of Criticism
Reason without checking the The postulates of Criticism give standpoint unless some mystic certainty is
is
to correct
added.
I.
It
is
not
for
us
to
inquire
Absolute.
He
22
not to have
known.
Nevertheless,
in
it is
well to acquaint
way
In Kant
relative
The Kantian
10I
opinion
it is
existence from
discards this
or
rather,
all
he
and
collects
Be!ing!
what
way
that Spinoza
attributes
it
to substance.
Lsm
tism for
substance and
finite
To
his
mind
existence
"
is
one,
"
and
"
all
the distinction
"
between
finite
and
infinite
is
that
power to think
the
distinctly
all
the
unknowable,
lies
bottom
of
phenomena, although
"
Being
in
this is
Being which
is
both
divine
and univer
sal
ditions
but in no
often
wise
objective
conditions
"
of existence.
Kant
uses
such expressions as
The
supra-sensible substratum of
as in us or outside of
us."
Whence
anything exists
exists
as
space
1
and
it
also
Crit.
2 Crit.
8
du Juyement,
I say
t.
i.,
p. 58.
"When
consider
them
of beings of the sensible world that they are created I as noumena. It would be quite otherwise if the beings of the
themselves."
(Crit.
Raison prat.,
p.
295.)
CRITICISM
follows that our whole substance belongs to the
reason, where
it
23
world of
has
its
roots in
Freedom.
left
incomplete, will
so far as to give
body
tions of Mysticism.
Kant
must be
"some
negative
sense of
noumena
to the
positive
sense."
Absolute
is
if
they find
it
there
the thought of
God
will be
on a firm foundation.
It
is
to
of Ethics
Why
which
does he not
demand from
Theology explanations
would
have
Duty than
the instincts,
?
of an
un
knowable Being
He knew how
Unknown, and
God
with concepts
from the
or
relativity of
it
the ego
to
(which he
calls
superstition},
else
claims
be a
supra-sensible
1
intuition,
Critique de
la
of
equal
value
t.
with
319.
experience
Eaison pure,
i.,
p.
24
(which he
fanaticism).^
He would
God
in
the concept of
Supreme Good/
is
and
is
not
we
believe,
mind, but
to
it
may be
obtained.
all
Conscious
:
ness
common
experiences tend
as too
subjective to be
positively explained.
But what
are
we
to
do with
it
this
a priori which
is
itself?
If
at
is
to
of
Mysticism,
to
least,
we cannot
ourselves
its
every J
is
folly J
committed rashly J
name.
*n ri (the Noumenon
or Absolute),
There
mto which
Mone daregto
penetrate.
experience
it
Nevertheless,
tions,
when we come
to final generaliza
we ought
consciousness has
ing.
Should there
remain, out
real,
of us,
is
or
in
us,
which
not included in
of
this
1
ideal
construction,
the
mind
will
be
CRITICISM
invincibly impelled to seek
25
of
new means
in
subsuming
itself,
and with
experience.
itself
all
things,
We
we
suffer a portion of
our
reservation that no
to
be shut up
in
noumenon.
Not only
of intellectual vision,
they occupy
is
called science.
total
vision."
is
but a small
is
"portion
of
Clear consciousness
1
of total
consciousness."
and
feels
no certitude unless
it
rests
on
its
sense of the
Absolute.
Science, too,
is
only one
way
of harmonizing our
mind
is
Esthetics itself
Kant saw
this
which he
tries to establish
"reflective"
between the
"determining"
judgment.
still
Duty.
and perfect
life
many
modes of Being.
26
They
Duty
is
by embracing
the other
that they
of con
all
modes
Whether
Mysticism
is
to
profit
or
not
that
by the
the two
conclusions of Criticism,
The work
to correct
we must recognize
of
On
"*
Reason with1
Soother
initiatives of the soul.
nom
es
.
step,
as
though
,
it
11
were
The postu-
impossible
* ue
to
arrive
is
at
pure
intellection
all
is
dsm
[veno"
um ess
"
imagination
withdrawn from
the
its
in-
fluences
of desire.
On
in
all
other
side
the
er
ia
"
tafnt
greatest
is
confidence
influences.
Truth
left
to form
itself in
the
totality of
the con
consciousness.
intellectual
which
that
it
aims at rendering
of
intention
est.
the
it
belief
is
purity
:
will
bring
with
intellectual
clarity
amare videre
But
:
Criticism
proposes
itself
only
and Ethics
seems to
Criticism to depend
It
is
upon
its
sifting.
way
that
Freedom combine,
directing force
good
is
of the State.
in
fact
an
intelligence which
rules,
purely
administrative,
with
is
inflexible
chiefly
pro
hibitory,
whose
first
care
to
ward
off
the initiatives of
CRITICISM
27
is
folly
nothing
of
in
this
feed
upon
for
the nourishment
our
lives.
Our
lives
are fed
and
regulate.
:
thought take
its life
from Criticism
sort
it
only admonitions
and a
of experimental constitution
which
it
is
But
keep
if
there
is
any
intellectual
initiatives
to
alive the
soul s
can reach us
it
is
it
to be, true
"
faculty of
and above
and
disinterested.
should
Dog
would
is
matism,
Who
its
There
is
another side,
(at least it
"intellectual
sup
is
not enough.
2 8
xviii.
him
is as
The hypotheses have no intrinsic valve as opinion, but only as relating to contrary transcendent assertions." (Crit. R.
pure,
t. ii.,
p. 245.)
28
value, the
to
possess
means of going
relations
further.
When
once
it
begins to
"postulates."
It claims then to
"
express
to itself,
"
in
the
inmost tribunal,
lates of
truth."
truths
"
postu
We
shall
is
true,
but one
itself
with merely
putting a stop to
assertions."
IV.
I.
EATIONALISM
;
Thought is not in equation with its object and Evidence does not come from things only. How Character influences Knowledge,
specially in moral matters.
II.
Dogmatism
is
a stiff-mindedness which
is
Knowledge.
I.
We
come now
to
witH s
and
et
intellects.
-,
The value
i
-\
of knowledge, to the
/
object;
i-
-n
when-
Ho^ciiar^
fluences
ever ness
it
coming
from
the
inevitable
Knowledge,
mm oral
by
"
All
Perhaps for
this
reason and
intellectualist principle
to assume,
it
is
RATIONALISM
Neither can mysticism do
intellectual standpoint
this,
29
it
but
offers nevertheless
an
where there
is
is
not abandoned.
cogito,"
and on
;
same glance, that he did not yet hold the final assurance, and
that he would have to go farther and higher than the fact of
consciousness.
He
and seeks
dence.
At
this point
dogmatism
is left
behind
Eeason has
says)
depending upon,
itself
to
the
idea of Infinity
postulate
The
must be modified
it
may
be, con
is
susceptible
of
proof:
but, as
may be
said that
and in certain
go very
far.
The mind
in such a
of
man
that
is
it
in direct
way
receives
30
intervene.
"
receives
"
by
this
com
that
munication, but
puts
itself
into things
so quickly
imperceptible.
The
will
comes in
at
consequent
subjectivity
1
introduced
eludes
has
the
been
too
often
unrecognized.
cause
it
The
sensible
metaphysical be
knowledge.
reason
When we
the
subject
cease
cares
to
chief
life
why
them,
about things
in
to
get
from
we
are no longer
"
"
the
way
of truth.
The
and
sensible is
something
given
for
it,
in relation
What
is,
if
moment
there
as
it
penetration
subject
into
the
object,
and that an
first
repre
sciousness, therefore, of
may have
already
subject
mind
to
in motion, and
may have
of
decided
according
it
the
moral
its
qualities
the
whether
will
follow or take
The
lished. 2
Although
assent
this
unconscious willing
as
has
as
yet
"
The
is
necessity,
essentially practical
in nature.
We
are obliged
always to put into it a little willingness." (Brochard, De la croyance. Rev. phil., t. xviii. p. 12.) There could nothing hotter be said. * See Preyer, L dme de / enfant, pp. 190, 191.
RATIONALISM
nothing more of
its
31
than a
"
true
"
name
is
"
motion
"
it
is
posited as an activity
its
first
it
of
all.
Thus
which
will
it
be to the end of
evolution, and
is this
By
this
in relation to knowledge.
When
is
fore
we might
"all
to
doubt," if
we mean by
"will"
not the
state of
all
our intellectual
a moral at
differences,
titude,
which we find
But,
above
all,
when
the question
light to spring
from these
In that
logical
them
alone.
drawn between
As
"
Phsedms (245
2
B.)
8e
Brj
1
dirdSei^is
Be
o-o</>ot9
Trio-T?;,"
It is not possible
in practice, as
we
see, to
And
the proof shall he one which the wise will receive and the witling
disbelieve.
2
JOWETT.
32
tainty
we
arrive
at
through
dialectics
certain
questions
name
of
We
The nature of
this
all
will to believe is
we might return
believe."
it
in these
words
"
all
No
contradictory as
may have
de
ne^which
S
is~
But here
the
method that
is
in question,
and we think
that,
lectics are
beyond the
limits of exact
knowledge, Dia
consciousness.
Nothing
be usurped by the
the Soul, Freedom,
it
will, it
etc.,
seems to us,
if,
in questions of
left
undecided,
tion,
better.
Be
allowed to
it.
fill
this part,
s
opinion.
whichever
it
devotes itself:
it
and
it
1
hardens
itself
against
chooses."
art. xxiv., 5.
RATIONALISM
33
scientific
When we
exhausted,
reach
the
is
point
far
where
knowing
:
is
knowledge
but
all
that remains to be
Our whole
power
of penetration henceforth
from Freedom.
Not
but the
now has
must go on
to create the
good
may
look within,
be
expressed
in
concepts.
see
things,
we must
ego
which com
it
produces them.
Dogmatism
being whence
is
all
capable of
uniting
all
minds.
No
seemed to touch
Spinoza, and
"simple"
in
illusion
of the
and the
live
upon
illusion,
come back
we
Those
which
quickly
of
Freedom,
Causality,
Pleasure,
as
"
etc.,
"
necessity
resume their
rights,
34
We
must
either give
it
it,
or
we must
not press
through
"
all
We
human
and
nature
death,
always in
itself
state
midway between
an
birth
knowing
only
as
and
if
his
less
neither
more nor
:
though he
tried
to
hold
a handful of water
that which
all
the
more
The Absolute
tures of
will not
Freedom than by
good
thing to
augment our
intellectual satisfaction
trust
Love even a
little
not composed of a
:
fixed
it
eludes
mind and
we hope
to realize
Chiefly shall
we succeed when
Freedom
when we
them
as
and
to
make us good
life.
Montaigne, Essais,
RATIONALISM
There
is
35
lute than
first
it
has
in
it
ourselves.
The
scientific
scholastic,
seems to
A larger
anywhere
else,
in
the
No
"Progress
in its
march has
regret,
which we
in
Tylor,
"La
civilisation
"primitive,
t. i.,
p.
139.
CHAPTER SECOND
THE MYSTIC CONSCIOUSNESS
I.
I.
II.
No
the categories.
I.
Is
it
the
Absolute
May
there not
to
The universal
brought back to the Neces-
^eason
of
J
whereby
cognize
The
synthesis
the world
ec ^ e l u des dialectics,
alone
is
dares
even
effect that
sired to-day
Reason, in
its
aspirations
versal
it
is
concern
possess,
separately,
we
outside
of
some
basis
for the
unification of
may
exist
not
the
act of
37
subsume
the
to
it
senses,
but to create,
without
aid
of
experience,
character
dominating
enough
should
gather
into
the
some manner.
The
is
universal, which
ordinary
Empiricism.
is
Necessity,
however, as
we
have
already seen,
of the understanding.
est
The universal and substantive copula has but one logical use, and introduces nothing new
the
into
consciousness
there
to
We
find
it
in fiat,
which expresses
"
pure
act,"
and enables
being.
But
at this point
we touch on
dence of empirical
with
them
will be
"
the Possible
or the
the Act
"
and of being.
left as
definitive basis,
namely
Act, which
is
outer"
or the non-ego.
willed to think
Or we might
say that to
for
what
is
Matter,
38
at that place
the possible to
the dignity of
It
is
Good
tion,
"
what
is,
nothing new into the consciousness. By the aid of the categories we can think only things empirically given; but
how, then,
shall
we
find
schema whereby
it
to think the
Good,
?
to fix
in
We
to supply this
that
The
stand
against
is
the
antinomies
of
the
Critique.
The
rational
Absolute
nothing
we
arbitrarily
Rationalism
The method
of Reflection, which
is
par
excellence the
severely criticised.
Have
persons
who
accuse
.
morphism
other any *
principles to use
by mewisof
physical explanations than the original and unverifiable affirmations of the consciousness ?
What
cludes,
have the
in his
strictest
Dogmatists done?
Spinoza ex
definition of
God,
39
it
substantial
at the
Thought
basis of
with Extension.
all
may be
that
it
is
it
is
none the
science
commences with an
analogy, and implies this passage from the ego to the nonego, which,
we
guilelessly abused.
When we
themselves,
we
are
confining
ourselves
to
within
a real
the
empirical
make
act of reflection.
in our mind,
The mind
carries
mind
itself.
By
to
reflection
we
when we begin
interior acts as
identity.
/ will, I ought,
I am,
that
we touch immaterial
asserts
with as
much
persistence as
it
do the sensations.
For
express
fare.
its
This
is
poor war
elementary sensations?
himself the
first
one can
tell
em-
40
pirical or moral,
compared so
depth
as to be expressed analogically.
inmost
all
the
source of
mystic experiences.
signs,
sciousness to enable
which
11.
MYSTIC SYNTHESIS
I.
Mysticism declares God to be the assemblage of first principles Known of the Heart," whose synthesis can only be made
"
symbolically.
II.
The formula
I.
"
live,
yet not
I,
but God in
me."
The concept
of the Absolute, as
it
exists in the
is
con
the poor
Not
only
is
the idea of
it
God
fu ll er
appears to
hnjtprmci"
pies of the
Known
Heart,"
whose synthe-
man d
special attention.
is
work
and we
standing
much apparent
that
we remember
thing.
The mental
synthesis which
it
is
make
MYSTIC SYNTHESIS
does not
41
make
said
sufficient distinction
Kant has
on
this
"
subject
It is
word symbolic
is is
to designate the
mode
:
of
for
representation which
opposed
to the intuitive
mode
:
the symbolic
latter, in fact,
mode
The
may be
If
mode and
is,
Both
of
knowledge may
mode
knowledge of God
it
is
simply
falls
as schematic
of intuitive
mode
falls
ing to which
we know
Why
should
we
?
insist
The two
of
is
made up
given by
the senses.
Is there also
?
mystic consciousness
as
much
s
to reveal as
empirical intuition,
the
Only, Pascal
idea hovers
He
between the
all
Heart
"
the thing
334-336.
we need
Critique
42
The Heart/ he
"
says,
feels first
principles."
It is
sible to
know
meta
Freedom
In very truth,
first
God
is
another, of these
principles,
is,
them
all.
minds.
venture,
how
is
for the
we
It is
the spontaneities,
object."
We
shall
the
Heart
feels"
No
common
at the dis
;
The
intuitions
only
structions
been mystically
stable
aroused.
and com
it
mon
tom
to all
men, although
;
men
in
and
it is
of all symbols.
To go over
and
tive consciousness,
let ourselves
be guided by analogy to
activity in
which
itself will
Naivete
is
as
much an element
of Mysticism as Eeason,
reflective
and
from the
wisdom
MYSTIC SYNTHESIS
43
We
may
of
Freedom
When,
after
long processes
of reasoning,
ligible in
we seem
be careful not to mistake such rational appearance for the mystic fact.
To
give an example.
No
some
God.
At
when he reached by
reflec
tion the
"
arbitral
and in confusion
fell
by
we must
Saint
Augus
I got
.
.
he says,
"
which
is
myself
sinking I
backward I
?
"
Shall
seek visions
Many
2
is
sciousness
principles.
impelled to effect in
itself
first
To be
sure, it has
no other
The formula
than
"the
Heart,"
and belongs
the
specially to the
LV
interior
J
kingdom
of
1.
x. ch. vi. 4.
x. ch. xl.-xlii.
44
"
moral
good in the
rationalist sense
would be capable of
It is useless for us
which
is
for
God.
we
have once
felt
"
ought-to-be/
it
we expe
must be in nature.
"
Indeed,
be,"
how could we
is
ought-to-
which
by representing
by making, -more or
the synthe
Reason
and
it
fails
when
it
tries to
make
which,
but,
if
we
uplifted,
is
to render the
Heart."
Good
subjectively
present or
born.
known
of the
What,
then,
is
sciousness
enriched
with
symbolic
representations ?
The
manifests a particular
activity
"
Inspiration."
man
ordinarily feels
and very
MYSTIC SYNTHESIS
imagination for more light on these things, as there
to be expected
is
45
none
pos
How
far
is it
in this direction ?
Will the
it is
but
?
and
is
upon the
belief.
It
may
be alleged that
all it
it is
does
to
more
possessed
by
it,
the less
it
is
able to define.
"I
live,
God
in
me."
In the
initial
As
of which
different
we
it is
altogether
continuous greatness.
reached
its
Finally,
when
it
to be
me.
The
excessivity."
We
Augustine
"
as subject of meditation
Nee ego ipse capio totum quod sum. Ergo animus ad habendum seipsum angustus est ? Quomodo ergo non
.
. .
capit ?
quis est
ille
46
Quid
est illud
quod
meum
sine Isesione; et
dissimilis
inhorresco et inardesco.
ei
Inliorresco in
similis ei
quantum
sum.
"
sum ;
inardesco in
quantum
III.
I.
II.
I.
We
that
it
.
consciousness in
its
restless
demand
for the
Unthe
its
:
knowable.
opinion:
Nevertheless
"Religious
Spencer
expresses
establishes
following
sentiment
its
may
may
it
It has to
remember
conceptions."
The
materials which
"
the high
serve
scientific conceptions,"
may
No
one
refers
Conf.
1.
x. ch. viii.
&
vii. 1
i.
xi. ix. 1.
p.
kxvii.
47
"
filling
respect called
"
religious
merely
because
is
Unknowable.
is
Not
advice,
excellent
no doubt, but
it is
not
meet
any point.
make
No
supreme
presented to the
which
it
sciousness
centred
on forming symbols
in order to
of
"
the
utmost
of the
power of suggestion,
heart/
science.
make God
known
The mystic consciousness is in no wise inferior to Indeed, were we to compare them, the former
to be
would seem
mind.
ciples.
activity
of the
prin
of
knowing
first
Heart
feels
first
principles/
ideally
Extension,
Matter,
Time, have
is
their
origin
in
Motion, and
as
Motion
There
is
actually
in
the
consciousness
only
Force.
activity.
In this
way we
find Metaphysics
rejected
The
categories
but as
no longer belong
mind.
48
ness ?
Must
other
intuitions,
other
?
new experience
In
own
way.
Without ceasing
keeps for
but
it
science uses.
The
required to
make
them manifest.
read them.
2
And
only
subjectivity in mysticism.
But
of us
and
to identical intuitions,
But our
inquiries
we cannot
use for
them
is
On
when we wish
to
more or
less
is
evidently
1
of
consciousness.
It
Liard,
La
capicmus,
si
desiderium,
in
quantum possumus,
tract,
xi.
extendamus.
finem.
Evang. Joan.,
ad
49
to bring out
one which
it
is
it
diverges
into Fanaticism or
Indeed,
world,
would seem
discipline
is
scientific
spirit
and
"
methods,"
it
of
its free
and na ive
relations
God, and
its
aspirations
The ambition
They
of mystics
desire to
is
for
moral
and
their desire
is
God, who
is
the
sum
of
them
nor
for
all, is
neither
curiosity
its efforts
self-interest.
The mystic
soul loves,
and
all
As
soon
sufficiently present, as
God
is felt,
the search
is at
an end.
To go
further would
to lose that
pure
its
own sake
being has
desire
to feel
to
to master
it.
Whatever we may
50
of the
will
never cease.
Nature,
and no noble
intelligence,
We
and
much
in Nature, the
is
Mystic believes, to
know
her,
her; since to
know
to master,
we
are in vid. 1
Mysticism
is
of agnosticism.
by
it,
states
nary
means
of
dialectics
and
experience,
to
are
accounted
possible.
"
We
"
must be willing
make
It
is,
a careful study of
in fact,
Inspiration
properly so called.
under
this
name
closest
attention
precisely to
manifestations
of
more or
less accuracy,
we
call
super
natural.
If any one should ask,
What
is
there, after
all,
in
common
between that
knowledge
itself objects
and
it
rather
is
For now we
12.
51
of symbolism.
without
human
or general bearing ?
It
would
first
have to
subsumed otherwise
that
is
its
superfluous activity.
is
All
the appreciable
The
is
material, however, is
human and
mystics
initial
expe
had by means of
direct knowledge.
The word
according as
the mystic
"
know
"
may be understood
Science
in a triple sense,
it is
Consciousness.
:
from
the outside
its
"
aim
is
to
grasp things as
its
objects,"
that
imaginations and
to
this
its desires.
To know
is
responds
ideal.
own
creation, to the
na
"Unity."
called
it
to
think.
But
Science,
assimilates nothing,
52
the intelligence.
stamp of
relativity
and
of
it
is
first
But
make
another,
To
knowledge of
plied.
word
may be ap
intel
No
set
special
lectual
activity
comprehend."
Mystics
and there
to
positive, it
is
whatever
it
is,
The con
its
relative de
sires,
and joined
to
the "Kingdom of
is
ends,"
but
it
is
is
a
to
man and
But
facts,
we
see in
it
it
an order of irregular
study and in
It is natu
at all in the
human
soul ?
Far from
it.
Freedom
and to create
sane visions
in the
consciousness,
as
it
is
natural to the
understanding to
define
the
consciousness
and
to
fix
it
53
Reason
itself
we
"
call
Freedom employs
the
itself.
The mystical
faculty
in reality the
moral conIts
The
gtic
sciousness confided to
its
own
sole initiative.
will,
or
the
its
in
other
terms, in
for
assurance
even
of
intellectual
guidance.
After
all
its
It
owes to
lute
itself
a rational account of
Abso
it
upon analogy
only, that is
God
other
Real mystics
therefore will never be heard to say that they have found what
all
first
principles
do not appear to them under schemata to be used objectively ; yet on another side, if they are forced to express their expe
riences dialectically, they are able to defend the content of
those
experiences
his vision
"I
against
every
attack
of
contradiction.
From
proposition
am
that I
am."
Isaiah wakens
"
from
an
is
the
Lord."
filled
with
all
manner of animals
axiom of
"
universal
54
salvation."
pure
it
sees in
life
God
In the end
it
is
Reason
In
results
from the
Good
Is
it
"mystic
Evidence"?
The same
principles
to
but
it
Consciousness
ture
it
:
it
receives sensations
feels
within itself
material or objective.
life
this
com
constructions
whose
elements
we
draw from
in
our
Freedom.
It does not
may
be logical or esthetiaccording as
"empirical"
or mathematical, but
that
it
varies
the
or
intuitions
"
moral."
For example,
in the
matical sciences
less, like Pascal,
may be reduced
we
prefer to refer
them
as
mystical facts
must be considered
moral affirmations of
the consciousness.
55
but
it
aspires, neverthe
is
which
contained in
to be
Freedom, and
it
succeeds,
by
certain
new
certainties as well
grounded
The evidence
any authority
specifically distinct
be a basis of intuitions of
senses
is
and the
Divine evidence
its
nothing more
influence
of
symbols
and
This
will
be
believe that
man
it
moral
is
removed from
ciples as
its
sovereignty.
The
prin
made
clearer
ence than
the reve
our Freedom.
Anywhere
outside of this,
It
it
is
has
been
difficult
Mysticism,
which
is
perhaps
mind by
By
56
barring out
its
observation.
objec
tive signification
would be to turn
Eeason
itself
would be
imperilled.
We
have gone
logic is
and that
its
first
step
is
and thus
Hugo
1
de
Saint- Victor,
in
De
Contemplatione
et
is
ejus
led
speciebus
sets forth
the
to pure verity
to
God.
The
first
and judgment,
Of
Job
calls
it
suspense,
John
silence,
and Solomon
sleep.
Of
and the
silence of reason.
When
the soul
is
completely
are
withdrawn
thought,
ineffable
is
into
its
inner
kingdom, the
lips
mute
comprehend
in
any way
the
condemned
1
to silence, for
when
ii., iii.
57
reason
inundated
with
divine
unction
human
has no
it
and sinks
light.
all,
by
the
same ravishing
of
power.
Then while
repose,
forgetful
the
world, forgetful of
throne,
self,
upon
The soul
reason sleeps,
it
because, ignorant
incapable of
its
such a happiness,
is
conceiving
origin, its
end.
The
memory
what
sleeps
because
completely
ineffable satisfaction
and
nothing
it
of
it
has suffered.
that
it is
The
will
sleeps
because
know
experiencing the
This
is
why
the
Apostle says
He who
joins himself
to
God
becomes one
The
and
the
most
didactic
of
3
the
mystics,
six,
or even seven4
all
is
mystic knowledge,
the
but through
thus
:
:
changes
of
expression
thought
the
runs
there
no
knowl
in
edge
except
of
universal
but
the
universal
re
(Nature)
2 8 *
De
(Euvres de Saint-Victor, trad, par Haureau, pp. 140, 141. reductione artium ad Theologiam, Oper., t. vi.
Itinerarium mentis ad
Deum,
cap.
i.
De septem
gradibus contemplationis.
58
reflections of
the soul
every
regular
is.
which
It
first
traverse
all
that
1
men
call "thought/
sense
Saint
Bonaventure
this
mystic
identification
of
the
to
express
something of
descriptions
it
in
comprehensible
terms,
his
psychological
contain
uplifted
nothing
to
more
positive
than
love/
"the
joy
of being
a super -intellectual
greater
even
than
Eeason.
is
claim to
fixed, irrefra
"
reasoning
is
as follows
Since
nothing except
to hold
God can
in
me back
my
progress towards
We
which at
of absolute naivete.
The following
who begin
to pray
may be compared
.
to persons
.
.
who draw
i.
Extasis
est,
deserto
ipsius supra
se
voluptuosa
"queedam
fontem."
(De sept em
ipsum."
59
see
And
with
all this
and
distaste will be
is
The second
way
... In
memory contribute towards rendering the but it often happens that they enjoying God
;
hamper the
it,
and then
it
must not
their
them from
.
. .
wan
goes
The under
memory
more,
to
none
So do these two
in the
hope that the Will may give them some share in the
it
favors
receives from
God.
the
happiness
it
enjoys, but
.
.
it
The
like a
In that
.
.
no longer
is silent
:
knows what
it is
it
is
doing,
whether
speaks or
...
I have often
it
was
He
was then
in
that
bols
it is
it
sym
and reaching, at last, a state of unconsciousness in which nothing subsists but Desire coupled with an assurance of moral purity which is equivalent to
the possession of the Absolute.
60 an abundant
there
is
it
...
if
would be
an end.
I do not well
know what
spirit
is
spirit,
:
nor what
the difference
may be between
and soul
it
seems to
me
it
appears to
me
that the
way
and
rises
impetuously above
we cannot
say that
fire
that
what the
makes
into
distinct.
Hardly an instant
The
will is the
itself
the longest.
strict
...
I acknowledge that
all
corporeal objects as
though we were
standing
is
angels.
in
capable of meditating.
And
this in
my
God,
itself
found him,
it
tries to
accustom
him
own
it
This
it
stages, because
61
.
has pleased
is
God
my
to
opinion there
deception
in all that/
It
has
been
our
object
show,
once for
all,
what
If
when they
we
in
tries to
we
find everywhere
state
of
rapture
which
it
delights.
perfection
under the
action
of
intense Desire
2d
The
etc.
what Pascal
said
"
God known
of the
Heart."
Kantian sense of
the outcome.
"
practical
Beason,"
aberration would be
of evident
morals,
it
may
Then
it
may hap
to endure
may
power of a good
will,
"understanding
hardly necessary to remark that the naive author means by the word the whole mental activity, and every association of images or
"
of concepts.
2
Le Chdteau
de
dme, passim.
62
IV.
I.
Philosophical mysticism
state of consciousness,
II.
There
is
that
it
nothing of a supernatural character in Mysticism, except brings the realizing sense of the Good to such a high
point that a power is developed to effect in the consciousness the synthesis of Determinism and Freedom.
III.
I.
There
is
hardly anything in
state
common between
phil
ftJS$?"
conscious-
are
n
.n 8 c
nT
all
way
to Jacobi s Revelations
"
of the Heart,
The
psychology of the
religious fact
"
is
our attention.
Christianity,
greatest
it
intensity in
as
follows
tendency to
consciousness
of
the
Absolute by
Less strongly
love.
marked forms
be included
might
all
the
well-known
definition
"
Mysticism
How
are
we
to
distinguish
this
spontaneity of the
intelligence
etc.,
initiatives ?
Does
it
exceed reason,
tunately,
is
engages
He
calls
"
it
the claim
it
of
knowing God,
face,"
were, face to
and
comes be
1
tween
God and
ourselves
him from
us."
Then
"
"
feeling
first as
"reason."
He
considers the
sensibility, a
which
reacts
upon the
guide.
intelligence
without
allowing the
intelligence
to
Towards
science, the
mystic heart
way of
access to
the infinite.
is
He
is
right, however,
"
when
not to be trusted
Mysticism rests
of
reason,
.
on
sentiment,
and
makes
little
attacking
Freedom, and
prescribing
self-renuncia
which
infinity
separates
us."
The
second
form,
the
Alexandrian phi
for a
of abstractions
by the power of
it
mysticism breaks
mount
to
essence,"
is
when
it
The
expect
1
sanities of
it
mysticism
le^on.
seen what must be thought of the relations of the Absolute and Freedom.
64
we need only
sensibility
and
produced.
testimony
"
Here
of a
we give the
direct
and instructive
de
Sales
:
Francis
mind
to
is
high things.
The sign
of a
than the
will,
which
it
fills
with
a
:
profound
affection
for
is
God,
full
of
but
if
the ecstasy
more beautiful
emo
subject
to great
doubt and
suspicion."
Having disposed
Mysticism
is
the tendency to
means."
draw near
II.
to
The
"supernatural"
idea
is
fact
ticism, or at least,
is
we must
..
.
supernatural character in
ig
US ^ aS g rave an J
,
illusion to attribute
,-,
moral-
bri
na tural in
is
-l
,.
velopeu to
consciousness the synthesis
is^anT"""
nesg
It
is
true that
theologians distinguish
tne
lom
m d us
essendi,
the
latter
the
presence of
1
God
in us
1
by way
Amour de
of grace, but
Dieu,
1.
we do
viii.,
ch. vi.
65
know
really
is
that which
in accordance
esse.
God can
itself
:
supernatural
On
if it
and
God
is
remains
exactly
Here, then,
Supernatural
is
a word full of
difficulties.
sound
in
or scientific,
must know
place
for anything
in Nature.
rational vigor is in
a stable
and things.
the
consciousness
within
is
itself
that
Duty and
These two
Freedom have a
rule
which
no
less
:
stable.
it
Freedom
as
carries
Freedom over
to Nature.
so unfortu
its
forms.
We
are
Good
The
essential difference
66
naturalism
that in naturalism,
value,
Freedom
is
retains
no proper
but
and
distinct
nothing therein
another bit of nature, just like the elements and the cosmic
forces.
The
illusion
first
gave
itself
doomed
to disap
be perfect when
just as
finally
we
that there
much
no more sacredness
however wonderful
may
According to the
naturalist,
the only
standpoint,
religious
and
scientific
at
once,
the good
that
the soul
vital
is
identical
with
all
the other
manifestations
of
The place of
the
Mysticism
is
between
of
contrary
all
all
exaggerations
anthropomorphism, which
having
first
considers
it
nature under a
curse, after
deprived
of
We
substantializing
would be
:
is
The
itself in
final result of speculation is ... that the power which manifests the material universe is the same power which in ourselves is mani
fested as consciousness.
SPENCER, Rev.
philos.,
t. xviii.,
p.
114.
by the
artificialities
same
and which
also appears
self-determined in us as Freedom.
But
it is
make
But
Fichte,
coming
after
Kant, was
led,
leap over this and to treat the world and the consciousness
as
in
any
way,
things.
In
this
way Philosophy
ceaselessly
oscillates
ject
intelligence.
That there
more consistency
in the mystic
we
may
say at once,
is
a passage possible
Determinism
altogether
of
contingency;
there
is
Force
"
and
"
Desire."
The mystic
1
"
which appears to us
human ignorance of that sur being and which transcends our perception." So be it. The (Pouillee, Rev. philos. mai, 1875, p. 466.) mystic has no ambition to clear up the Source of being. Only agree that it is
Contingency
is
at the source of
is all
he asks.
68
as
not
different
in
in his
it
own
consciousness, and
is
by an act which
will.
at
The
link
which
feeling,
it
When
upon
the
imagination
that the con
means of
is
it
direct expression
and then
it is
sciousness
III.
Is
we
find
among
cer
come
into a
;
own
fashion
but
how
far apart is
Book
of
Job,"
or Francis of Assisi,
of the soul,
1
life,
We
life
of that purest
of mystics, Saint Francis of Assisi, too naive not to shrink from the thought
some idea of
We are able, however, to form and his most remarkable state of con
"
sciousness from a little book called Fioretti in which a contemporary has handed down some of his actions and discourses for the contemplation of the centuries. We need only to read the headings of the narrations in order to
be convinced that such mystic actions are not to be confounded with anything
expressly invented for the purpose of poetic
How
Saint Francis preached to the birds, and how the swallows were still when he tpoke. Of Saint Francis s holy miracle in converting a ferocious wolf who
(.f
Gubio,
etc.
We
see
how
"
very different
it all
when we have
Dear
birds,
my
little
object in a
reflect
When we
get the feelings of love, joy, being, from within, and then
picture them as belonging to
all sorts
of things
but in the
mystic
state, the
God, who
at
once
them and
highest point.
Spirit
It is this
life
life
of the
esthetic
Without
through symbols.
it
the presence,
itself,
becomes
of
no longer
itself,
itself,
has communication
life,
in the Absolute.
outworn
civilization
is
tempted to
class
them
as aberrations. 1
brothers,
you owe a great debt of gratitude to your Creator : it is he who You can neither spin nor sew, and it is God who clothes
little ones.
It
must
you
your
all in
your power
to give
tribute of
words,
it
Whatever estimate any one may make of such reflect a state of Soul which has no exam
faith can
Abbe Riche,
1
Paris
call
Bray
show.
(Fioretti
We
would
Revue des
us,
seems to
any other, perhaps, this state of consciousness of which Saint Francis of Assisi is the most complete type. Into his feelings for Nature,
entered," mingled admiration and tenderness for the universal life which produces both humanity and the blade of grass. He would stand in contemplation before a flower, ^an insect, or a bird, but the
there
"a
70
Christian
:
this
but we
may
a
we
define
common
form of Mysticism.
Nothing
is
The
fear,
we
see
Nature with
its terrible
forces
and in
its
man
is
inevitably crushed,
we
the
feel,
more than we
work of a
What
is this
but
a synthesis of Determinism
to the
antique
conception of
Fate
"
and
its
synonym
in
"
Justice,"
had not
It
human
consciousness.
was not
of Love,
still
and which
He
plant had
and that the very humblest of the manifestations of the creative force should possess in uncon
its
scious
happiness
everything to which
t.
it
might
aspire."
(Rev. des
Deux
v.
p.
761.)
MYSTIC PLEASURE
71
V.
I.
MYSTIC PLEASURE
The naiveness
of Art.
II.
and moral pleasure is of the Absolute in its various relations with our consciousness.
"
III.
called
"
mystic
is
I The
is
"
"
or
"
human
pleasure/
is
of too
ontoiogicai value of
.
its
conditions.
inalit y-
Ihe naiveness
beautiful of its
be
con
of the
consciousness.
Man
the
things
Mundus from
the
subjective
causes.
So we see that
own
be persistently
maintained.
Were
"
it
not in things,
the
"
system/
"
but merely
1 Nam quern Cosmos Grjeci, Equidem et consensu gentium moveor." nomine ornamenti appellavere, eum nos a perfecta absolutaque elegantia Mundum."
(Pliny, Hist.
fiat.
i. ii.
iii.
4.)
72
"
series
as
an hypothesis.
The deeper the mind penetrates into the facts of esthetics, the more they are perceived to be based upon an ideal
identity between the
mind
itself
and things.
At a
certain
point the
close that
harmony becomes
it
so complete
and the
finality so
It is
out feeling
lifted
up by
it
in an ontological vision
same
as
the
Absolute
the
mystics.
Empiricism has
under the head
ele
of
"
"
adaptations
"
of
self-interest
appertaining to the
"
mentary
life.
These
phenomena,"
says Maudsley,
wit
it,
whence
it
is
it
No
feeling,
word
ity,"
"
adaptation
is
final
is
and
that,
mind and
things.
original
essence could
not
it
have
it is
"
should
be what we
call
our
consciousness,"
which
is
merely a
Cf. Lachelier,
Fondements de
I
Physiologie de
MYSTIC PLEASURE
Absolute, the Uncreate, define
it
73
may, in his
"
as each of us
own
fashion, if
some
The
life
conception of Esthetics.
Art, emptied of
to create,
its
infinite object,
faith
into
We
could
make
naive
for a
Unless we are
"
willing
to
fall
into
let
ways
Posi
liberal,"
we must not
the
sion can be
had only
at the price of
devout
effort, is
more
Artists of
them."
esthetics
would have to
find
definition in
out.
We
is.
define as
esthetic
pleasure
-i
"
arising
from
that
representations which
SJSJlw
result of apprehension of
are
disinterested,
1-11
ele-
the Absolute
ments of
self-interest
is
In
not
rei adonTwkh
no
r
:
esthetic
finality
is
our Consdousness.
Man cannot help feeling dimly, through these instincts of self, something of which no interrogation of self-consciousness will ever suffice to give an ade MAUDSLEY, id. quate account to him: something which cometh from afar.
p.
368.
2
Von Hartmann,
Philos. de
Inconscient,
t. ii.
p.
469.
74
free in a state
con
fined to
In us
to say,
"
disinterested
"
to
mean
all
that does
curiosity
seeks
out natural
free
when
from
has
it
Were
how
"
Scientific
Ideal,"
desires ?
The pleasure
common
and
for both
all
it
is
religious.
What
is
there at the
bottom of
the
"
Scientific Eeligion
"
of the future ?
fill
Not
as an
"
un
knowable
us with reverence
and religious
ways as
difficult for
conquests of to-day
times.
stition,
men
of former
The
and
is
scientific Infinite
its
own
prestige of super
own mysticism,
There
besides another
MYSTIC PLEASUEE
75
feel that, infinitely
subject.
The
artist
nevertheless
retained within
fact
the
limits
of a
their
essence;
now,
this
reveals
the
call
presence
"
of
force
which
outside
of
is
ourselves
we
Necessity,"
present
otherwise.
Necessity in
subjective form
"
is
Order/
a primal sen
communion
The same
Freedom
"
changing forms of
Ideal which
"
character
are also
dominated by an
less
all
our actions
and
all
our desires.
intimate effect
upon
us, because
we
of
its
production,
but
contributors
towards
it.
Moral
pleasure
esthetics
:
has
in
Finality.
Morality, more personal to us than the pleasures of the divine joys only intelligence and taste, brings to us
"
"
because
that all
it
we
feel
them
It
is
must be acknowledged,
the most the
secure,
it
though,
also
pleasure
is
the
This
is
for
reason
that
we
scarcely
it,
76
activity
among which
life,
the
sum
of oar pleasures
is
divided,
the sensible
has been
named
for the
body euphoria.
an habitual
state of well-being.
feel
it.
It
:
is
of
equal mood,
itself
noticed
are strongly
moved
to acts of goodness
we become more
experience
that
actively
conscious
of
of
and then we
"
true
is
pleasure
the
gods,
Peace in
"
Freedom/
ness"
There
Happi
l
being,
notion of
is
"
"
pleasure
"finality."
Joy
the
the
division of
One.
I
Out
of
much
material
con
struct a house.
am
not
better
am
conscious
am
producing.
My
it
soul passes
finds
it
...
does
out of
In
this
world of sense,
in
it
if
anything
it
shocks us
fail
the
dispersion of
space,
is
is
because we
Phil. iv. 7.
MYSTIC PLEASURE
related.
77
Wisdom 1 According to the words of the book of Wisdom sJiall show herself in joy and shall come before
the uncreate
natural
wisdom shows us
traces
even in
the
to
joys,
corporeal forms,
bring
us
back
It
makes us
is
see that
in
that which
delights
and
;
the
sense
only
the
number of
things
it
makes us look
for the
ourselves by the
thought
we have within us
nothing beautiful or
we
shall
find
ugly in matter.
human
artist
and
will
Number.
Wisdom
this
Should
sight
it
again upon
the paths
you with
smiles,
;
here
is
the same
wisdom
only beginning
the Absolute.
There
it
is,
however, one
effect,
sui
The pleasure
properly
called
"
is
mys"
the
name
.
"
mystic
pleasure."
.
6 suit of direct
union with
we have
is still
something
still
more.
far
away
Ch.
xvii.
De
78
from that
it still
"
called Love,
all
and
remains for us to
a transformation of
these
is
God.
This
what mystic
"pleasure"
and we
shall learn,
we
must not
fear to call
The sense
self,
of emptiness
this
withdrawal from
or moral alienation,
it
when
carried
far
not
The
attractions of
human
it is
There
is
a strange
he received the
himself
"
"
stigmata."
Meanwhile the
much weakened by
and
his strug
gles with
nourishment to strengthen
itate
So he began
to
med
on the
life,
eternal
of
it.
When
praying, there
Lost in
who
drew
his
bow once
79
it
were,
and he seemed
above
all
bodily sensation.
He
said to
bow
once more across the strings, his soul would surely have
broken
its
bonds and
left
the
1
body."
Ecstatic
facts
Such
we have
just read
to
it
was necessary
from
all
itself.
is
this series of
mystic
is
experienced in a portion of
man
nature which
no longer distinguishable.
VI.
I.
Scientific
II.
I.
"
divine
It
Scientific Pes-
mystfcOptl-
embrace.
Reason, which
has had
its
Fioretti, p. 170.
80
liberations
consciousness altogether
the
opposite.
its
Shall
the
as
?
mystic
to
consciousness be so cramped in
aspirations
be
come deadened
Should we desire
is
this to
be so
In our
opinion a harmony
possible.
No
doubt we
shall
have to encounter
all
scientific
pessimism,
mony which
things.
make
"
a science
"
day by day into the rank of pure chimeras, and has nothing
to put in their place. of this kind.
ideal
it
But
He makes no
his
Freedom
all
he does
is to
make
his
satisfaction.
The
objective-
In
may come
a
may be indeed
him enough
to
After
all,
his desire
is
to
dom
by
uniting himself, in a
union of freedom, to
the Absolute, far above all the baseness of the world and the
failures of
life.
That which
is
not true in
itself is
81
may be
asserted
science,
wrong.
But
not be.
intelligence
knows
be brought to the
to
form.
We
as
may
will
;
analyze
know,
as
much
we
we can
still
re
only are
all
our
tastes,
our heart.
Metaphysics
it
unless
it
For
it
may be good
"
to oppose
the term
scientific
subjective,"
;
and to
but
man
can
all
by
this
method.
it
If
science
lays claim
to
the
of
"knowledge,"
must
be quick to bring
back the
Idea, the Life, the Ego, into the elements which analysis has
it
must
come
soul.
II.
to
know them
is
can
of accomplishment.
But
if
man
lack
both, he
mystic,
for
82
it
said,
the
man who
him
"
get Eeligion
Too
we had
to
remark the
mysticism.
special
absence
in
comprehensiveness in
Once lodged
it
see
which
it
has
taken for
God
Ritualism,
etc.,
and
long
still
more
of
recently,
terrible
Spiritualism
and
of
Palladism,
list
the
degradations
we
to
come
May
it
the
list
soon be closed
Mysticism ought
admirably adapted to
never to
by
Aristotle,
dvOpwTrevecrOai.
alto
Organic
life,
man"
we who
perfection
actualize
must consist
it
in learning to
to
in the species.
Man
Good
unless
all
he endeavors to
harmonize
all
his
acts,
to
bring
his
Most
To
83
some one idea
of
an
activity
to
from that
side,
bound up with the ensemble of natural causes by organic life: we must not seek to depart from
character.
We
are
them
We
calls
have,
it
is
true, a singular
:
autonomy
in
Freedom which
us to special destinies
our sense of these destinies, we must remember that an atom can prevent our mind from
fulfilling
its
highest functions,
effects
which we
few grains of
coffee
Freedom.
Up
to
this point
we have
Un
By
thus naming
it
we have put
is
ourselves on
not only in
this
"ex
name.
reason
No
it
one can
"
know
"
the
to call mysticism
an
perience"
knowledge."
experience
Not an
The
"
truest expression
we can
use
seems to be Pascal
phrase,
God known
of the
Heart."
84
It
is
is
by means of the
sensibility
(senses
lute
;
of the
Abso
This
yet
we
shall call
"
mental symbolism
heart
"
and we
shall see
that, al
though the
those of
so called.
common
experience,
"
The word
heart
SECOND PART
SYMBOLS
THE
facts
all
its
if
own, bear
name
of Inspiration.
Now,
"
we can succeed
spiration/
some precision
in
to the idea
In
of
which
itself,
participates
the
indetermination
Freedom
we
Therefore
is
the
only
thing
the
that
remains
to be
ex
plained
the presence, in
mystical
consciousness, of
the symbols.
CHAPTER FIRST
CONCEENING INSPIRATION
L
I.
Reason alone
a posteriori.
a priori : Inspiration
is
II.
Autonomy
IV. Inspiration
I.
is
INSPIRATION
notion of
critical
it,
Reason alone
sciousness
of
rationalist,
believer,
or
positivist.
oniyatct
posteriori,
to
no such thing
as Inspiration.
Just
as truly
that
greyhound cannot
find
leap
over
his
own
to
shadow,
Eeason
cannot
support
outside
herself
We
but
if
we wish
confusion, we must not distinguish it at all essentially from the Reason of which we are humanly conscious it would
:
a priori.
facts,
Thus mystic
"proved"
like
all
other
facts,
can
only be
87
we simply have
human
"
will alone.
"
This
is
"
all
we can look
for
Inspiration
and
Grace."
We
shall
The mystic
an
"
aliena
tion
"
we must
word
a perfect whole,
in the acts or
II.
"
its
consideration.
Faith,"
the
is
ordinary sense
of
"
acceptance
of
the
mind
of
others,"
Any
of
interest
because
it
Autonomy
consciousness;
without derogation
to
it
all
that
bears
the
offers
itself
to us as
in
of
the most
besides, has
perfect
its
dependence.
The word
authority,"
deriva
In the sense
"
of
is
"
"
or
"
inhibiting thought
there
As
and
in
It
is
The
means of protection, of
many
initiatives,
Life, Genius,
88
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
Noth
of
ing
is
autonomy
clearly
"
how
altogether relative
is
word
authority."
Mystic activity
activity,
is
is
Every
positive acquisition
made
in
whatever,
comes from the eternal principles where things are true and
good in
Time.
essence, before
According to Pascal
we
really
antiquity to these
ciently tried,
and not
may
be,
III.
make an
effect
upon us that
Mystic Eso-
special
fall
am
every
and
psychological
is,
fact.
But
there
is
that less
their
esotericism,
how could
ed. class, de
E. Havet, p. 597.
89
To
which has given to certain men power for such distinction among all others in character and in life, requires an assem
blage of mental and moral conditions more rare than Genius
itself.
it
must be
"that
exists.
It
for,
if,
is
vain
to
argue
more subjective/
is
The mystic sense is nearest to the soul, no doubt, and makes less demand for expression in words than the poetic
value. 1
mind
and though
this
we
shall
sub
jectivity,
that all
lacking.
And
critical
examination no
Perhaps there
no tendency which has so wide a psychological dominion over the whole world. Mysticism has its adepts everywhere.
Besides actual mystics,
into Art, Literature,
how many
who
carry
itself that
pursuit
human,
as universal,
Reason
itself?
Much
less
justify
1
a middle
Let a man read a chapter of Isaiah, whatever opinion he may have of it from a purely intellectual point of view, he cannot fail, if he have any harmony of soul in him, to be stirred to a high emotional tone by its lofty strain of feel ing and grandeur of conception. MAUDSLEY, Physiologic de I Esprit, trad,
par Herzen,
p.
341.
90
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
all
things
IV.
It
to lay
down
positive
rules of mystic
inspiration
is
Who
tal
tensified state
of the
mind
What
of conscious
ness,
critical signs
can be given of
inspired?
that
On
this question
we take
ground opposed to
of the
towards occultism.
The transcendency
shown
characteristics of
originality in
universality."
no
From
and
which
but
it
all
judg
all
times.
of sects
fallen, there is
nothing
The reason why mystic books have out because they show to man things in him
word of
God,"
says
Saint Paul,
"is
quick
and
91
asunder of soul
even
to
the
dividing
and
l
body."
Under ordinary
conditions,
man
call
we
reflection
"
But
let
mo
and which
knows
it
as a
workman knows
whose
ele
By an
"
one would
know
himself
"
eminently
details
alive
and spiritual; he
to bring unity
them
"
ideas,"
pleas
all
ures,"
needs,"
etc.
the
possibilities of
Freedom, and at
that
indefinite
"
Let us
if
call it
"
Inspiration,"
Faith,"
Suggestion,"
such a thing
is
possible,
if
the
consciousness
is
able to reach
such an alienation,
itself
and things
in such a representative
made.
i
Heb.
iv.
12.
92
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
II.
I.
Continuous
Prophecy.
Reason:
Common-Sense,
Genius,
II.
III.
The
its
own
transcendence.
is its act.
itself;
Unity
However
it
may be
is
as to the
autonomy
of the mystic
consciousness, there
Continuous
progress
1
common"
Prophecy?
with the
other."
real
opposition
spiration
is
it
itself,
Whether
the thought
spirit,
capable on
if
its
highest side of
will,
you
but the
law of whose
life
is
to be constant to itself,
off its
and
not, under
own
principles.
is
The mind
is
one
in
it
alone
From
Common-Sense
to Ecstasy
itself, all
way
:
is
same essence
same."
always
same
"
adding
itself
"
to
the
Common-Sense
existence.
is
Season applying
itself to
purposes of
Nevertheless,
is
among
of
all
the attributes of
Com
mon-Sense there
seeing infinite
possibilities
93
itself
and
its
humble prac
tical functions.
On
etc.,
renders
all
in
All
other,
yet the
barriers
which
us
intellectually
are
only
made
to disappear
by
training.
We
to
it
man which
Freedom.
Of
all
the
kinds
of mental
greater
activity
which exceed
interest
concerning
Poetic In-
Common-Sense, none
than the one we
offers
psychological
call Poetry.
relations of
8 P iratiou -
resemblance to Inspiration.
it
Vates
"
declares that
also is
"
full of
God
"
it
because poetic
toil,
more than
effort, lifts
Poetry also
its
moral sustenance
like Religion,
into its
Works.
It too has
"
to be
that
is,
to
the
first
cause, although in a
manner
different
from that of
Time
but
94
his
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
imagination returns thence so heightened that he sees
the universe and the soul, under the glowing colors which
reality
Taine quotes
the opinion
of
Flaubert the
donment which we
"
In hallucination
:
you
your personality escapes you, you think that you are dying. In the poetic vision, on the contrary, there is
something enters in and takes possession of
it
always a joy:
you.
But
in both
is
conscious where
you
are."
it is
by the
effort to
Yet that
state
the
"
vates
"
also
Still,
the
differences
first
states
remain
essential,
and the
and chief
makes
in search of the
Absolute to obtain
fear of
some
universal, in
and becomes
60.
union
De V Intelligence,
t. ii., p.
The psychological resemblances of Poetry and Mysticism and that which separates them, perhaps all that separates them,
The
poet is far from identifying himself with his creations as the mystic identifies himself with his symbols. may add that both states of consciousness are
We
found together in the case of the greatest mystics. Francis of Assisi loved nothing so much as the songs of the troubadours, and Theresa of Avila was
absorbed in the romances of Spanish chivalry, before either of them had entered upon the contemplative life.
95
When
its
is
in its
Freedom, and
side.
ceases
all
at
tempt to advance
on any other
and
of
man,
gence, and
all,
towards
is
its
ends.
Love
aspires to
it
God, and
gifts
whatever soul
powerful,
it
moved by Love, be
its
poor in
or
to
original rights.
Not
Love
attribute
"
its
discoveries, but
"
only to
itself.
In the
Infinite the
Heart
interest to
III.
Inspiration
as an experience
real
life.
outside of Eeason
from our
the aberto
/*
lasting of all
The aberra
tions of
inordinate
desire
to
11*11 the
the ^rchTit
own
trans-
fl
fact
of
some
cendence.
God
to
one of the
first
examples of
is
ensues
when an attempt
made
to
to the
There
is
Prolegomenes a
96
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
the
The Gnosis of
principles,
Valentinians
"soul,"
in
Egypt mentions
three
"body/
"spirit,"
as distinctly realized in
men,
whom
reducible
"
among
that
is
themselves. 1
Such men
as
possess
to
" "
the
spirit,"
vowed
Gnosis/
soul
"
to
Perfection.
"
are
suited for
political
The
it
third species
seems to
tinguish
Not
to
itself in
is
religious history
many
forms,
it
much
to be regretted that
many
orthodox writers,
is
should
have
yielded
only restrictive of
of the
times, that thoughts of all kinds can have but one formal
cause, namely, the
called
:
Word, Eeason,
Intellect,
whatever
it
is
enough
to
We
find, therefore, in
of Saint Augustine s
is
when he
about to pro-
le Gnostidsme Egyptien, par E. Amelineau. For example, such terms as the following must be condemned When the soul is wholly withdrawn into its innermost place, Reason is doomed to
Eaaai aur
"
silence.
The Reason
it
is
of the soul
sleeps
such happiness,
and
its purpose."
not capable of conceiving its origin, its present reality, (Hugucs de Saint- Victor, trad, par Haureau, pp. 135-142.)
97
Once he
Holy
Spirit
could
in
the Keason
of the
same man.
"The
prediction
has been
called
Divination.
Powers
whom God
shows
his
Word, and
whom
Perhaps some
out
angelic mediation,
the
causality of future
things, as
down
air
in the
Eor
super-
the powers of
the
understand these
He who
has
things under
of the pro
Him
either
judges best.
phetic
revelation (per
by images impressed
the
on the
memory."
We
men
is
thrown
last
when
it
fails
to conceive its
text,
own
essential unity.
The
words of the
we
desire to
exhibit.
In the
intel
which do
To
De Trinitate, 1. iv. c. xvii.: Oper. t. iii., p. 116, ed. Paris, 1586. the mind of Saint Augustine the distinction per sanctos angelos does not
;
it
is
changed.
98
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
human and
call
"
universal
"
Eeason.
Inspira
Prophecy,"
and so
as
forth,
will,
much
you
and
law.
"What
is it is
that
its
another
if
it
not
power of representation
tous
in
alone, the
way more or
face
less felici
to
face the
objects
Great
If
we may say
that
it is
the
Reason
itself
which
is
exalted
to the state of
Inspiration,
most
difficult of application,
and
it
is
make
The standard
of moral requirements
may
not
experience, and
on
The Abso
"finite,"
but in us
all is
except Freedom.
It
to
intellectual
addition
which mystics
.
him
to so
on
disposal, for
the
extension
of his
knowledge and
his
99
is
only suscep
to
line,
of inner augmentation
by
effects
immanent
their
proper
cause;
call
both
and
what we
"progress,"
of Identity.
The
is
of Reason
madness.
An
not
is
grow
in fulness, that
is
to say, as
it
immutable Unity.
"
Progress, for
consists in
comprehending
there
is
no
same,"
no
"
other,"
In
progress, Rea
moving out
By
constant renewal of
its
own proper
all
act,
is
that
without
mingling anything of
"
itself
or
suffering
"
any change.
the
"
The
"
diverse
"
"
same,"
manifold
to the
one,"
and
which seems to
exist as
much
far as
we
are conscious of
But
is
it
by becoming con
it
we absorb
into our
Has
it
we were
The primordial unity of things both formal and the true Reason of which we bear some reflections
100
sciousness.
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
Could we succeed completely in reducing the
it
there firmly,
be, like
we should
act pure.
and we should
God,
There
is
"
we
call it
natural
"
or
"
divine."
if
We
knowledge
must be
sacrificed,
nor that
all
esotericism
must be condemned.
act,
We
us
but
more or
less
is
capable of making.
most
felicitously
tic consciousness,
we
and he who
the most
believes
it
cannot
fail
to recognize in Mysticism
subjective of
But, at
this
least, let
esotericism, so pure
"
passion, with
that
subtle
self-will called
Fanaticism."
V.
inspiration
At each
step
is
Eeason
lives
is
by Evidence.
.
Where
evidence
lacking there
llie
n common
w fth
101
III.
I.
II.
III.
attributes Inspiration
to a moral
It
would be interesting
tion
The
following, there:
inspiration
God hath
searcheth
all
Absolute.
the things of a
man
with him?
Even
Spirit of
is
God.
Now
we
which
is
.
of
.
.
God.
Spiritual things
we
say only to
spiritual souls.
Man
the
is
things
to
of
The
ii.
Spiritual
man
able
judge
(1
Cor.
10-15.)
We
for us
divine."
It is
enough
change from
"the
same"
other."
Indeed,
if this
it
if in
the
102
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
men
could meet in a
common
natural
conscious
"
The terms
"
spiritual
man
"
and
"
man
used
is
at all intend to
spirit itself.
affinity
aware
of, is
not constitutive in
nature.
If any
We
man
must look
soever will
of
to
Freedom
search his
own
God.
it is
Unfortunately
gardingthe nature of In
spiration,
us philosophical satisiaction.
Upon
tins question
telligence
of
such minds as
Saint Augustine
and Saint
Thomas
If
s,
of which
to the
ourselves.
for enlightenment
we go
the
Summa
"
Theologica
upon
Thomas.
all
We
meet here an
along
of
Knowledge; the
naturalistic
much
a part of
it
most marvellous of
revelations.
Sometimes Prophecy
Summa
Theol.,
ii
ii
ae .
"
Q.
ckxi.,
a.
iii.
corp.
a.
Secundus gradus
sicnt dlcltur
Prophetise est
aliqua quse
cum
aliquis
cognoscendum de
Salomone,
(Tb. q. clxxiv. a.
ii.
ad.
3 um et
a. iii.,
corp.)
But
openly
violated.
We
are
told,
for
example,
among
the the
"
"
species
work of
intellection
We
are
also told
(called
by Saint Thomas
divinely pre
sented to the
mind
are
As
if
God had
created abstractions, or
!
It
was
such
But
primo
Alio
et
principaliter consistit
in
cognitione."
(Q. clxxi.,
a. i.
corp. a.
dam
occultissimura quern
humance mentes
(16.
a.
donuin prophetise confertur aliquid humanse menti supra id quod quantum ad utruinque, scilicet, et quantum ad
et
ligibile quandoque quidem imprimitur menti humanse divinitus ad judicandum ea qua ab aliis vim sunt. ... Sic igitur patet quod prophetica revelatio
quandoque quidem fit per solam luminis influentiam (q. species de novo impressas vel aliter ordinatas."
8
"
Prophetica revelatio fit ... secundo secundum immixtionem intelligibilium specierum ... per hoc quod mens prophetse illustratur intelligibile lumine nut format ur intelligibilibus speciebus." (Ib. q. clxxiii., a. iii, corp. a.)
rerum similitudines divinitus menti prophetse quan doque quidem mediante sensu quandoque antem per formas imaginarias . five etiam imprimendo species intelligibiles ipsi menti, sicut patent de his
Reprscsentantur autem
. . .
.
.
qui accipiunt scientiam vel sapientiam infusam sicut Salomon et Apostoli. (15. a. 2, est autem quod manifestatio ventatis quce ft per corp. a. )
Manifestum
rerum."
nudam contemplationem
tudine corporalium
quam
ilia
simili-
a. 2,
corp. a.)
104
it
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
only necessary to consult the Theological
first
is
Christianity
of the
tine
s,
Augus
to
ascertain
how very
rested
traditional
moral which appear only under the concentrated rays of the whole conscience could be reduced to a science, and they
"
"
to be
remembered
is
that
when
unanimous
sentiment
of Exegesis,
it
Le
and
_,
the Ircute
ttieoloqico
politico
or
Spinoza, upon
fmSnation.
We
may
derive
from them a
1st, the
by the oak of
three.
Mamre
(Gen.
xviii.).
In the
literal
who
several times
We
It
how
this
how much
sense.
pains and trouble he would take to explain this passage in its literal would have been so simple could he have recognized in it a purely and (V. Lib. contr. Maxim., i., vi., 2 B. Oper., symbolical vision. subjective
t.
vi. p.
319, 320.) In this connection we cite the following passage from Spinoza
divine
faculty
revelations
"
Since the
it
through
their
far
is
imagination,
would
of perception
went
it
beyond the
possible to
limits of the
understanding
greater
for,
form
much
all
number of
105
the
mystical symbols in
Imagination.
Every mystical
fact
worthy of attention
"
is
divisible into
"
rational,"
is
anterior to the
at least logically.
faculty,
and causes
it to pass to
faculty the
the true
This
is
conception
of
Prophecy."
Had
this
principle
been recognized,
much
and
so forth,
Christian minds,
among them
Saint
of
this
"effusion"
of the
divine
which
is
Saint
He
blames either
but did he
really believe
the
human
the
life ?
minimum
the
signification the
words of
Saint
John
"
That
Word which
our Chris
lighteneth every
tian
man
world"
Doctor might
human
to
transcendence
when applied
naturally
own
object,
which
1
is
to
know
Munk
ii
298.
106
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
exist, to
anything
less
than
affini
of
origin.
The
increate Light
would necessarily
properly
"
re
main
is,
distinct
all
from
is
all
that
is
not
thought, that
either
from
that
thought by means of
it
species:"
in
at
an extreme point of
to
con
are
for it
we
concerned.
IV.
There
is
in
more
clearly
than
any one
else,
of the
power."
The
theories of the
(and of
all
Intellectualism
their
original
form,
are
only
variations
on the theme of
is
Transcendence.
In
all
For
acts of natural
knowledge, the
in things
;
intelligible is at
its
our
disposition hidden
away
we draw from
all
sources
by a
series of operations,
which range
ideas.
sation to the
relieve us
most general
In fact only
the intellect;
:
God
in
Him
but in
intelli
made; that
is
to say,
our
state of undefined
possibility,
107
by
"this"
or
"
that."
Mystic knowledge
differs
from experience by
its
it
conditions of inwardness;
withdrawn from
life
phenomena,
our mind
is
The
reads in
itself,
that
it
with God." its communings Not merely pure Eeason, nor the imagination by
itself,
but
mind
is
state.
it
How
ever
much
may grow,
alone
will never
make an
"Inspired"
"Prophet"
out of a scholar or
a philosopher.
The
When
the
imaginative
it
power dominates in
very good results
an intellectual temperament,
for
may produce
Knowing, even
;
if
capacity
it
ceeds in
making
The mind
man
of strong
imagination sees
much more
is
the intermediary of the active Intellect, upon the rational Faculty first and then upon the imaginative Faculty it is the highest degree of a man, and the term of perfection to which the species may aspire anil this state is the
; ;
highest
perfection
of
the
imaginative
Faculty.
MAIMONIDE,
Livre des
108
ition of
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
them, at least with regard to certain subjects which
strict
Perhaps there
intellectual
is
actual
opposition
temperaments, and in
together.
mental
life,
fulfilment
in
the
mystic
fact.
Reason,
When we direct
them
most
becomes
light to
all activity
is
flooded with
unknown
nothing escapes.
ness
"
In
and sure-
of
"
Seer
life
knowl
which
edge of
science
"
or
life,
"
poetry/
they are
truths
If the emanation
if
the
structure or
from
diviners.
derful visions
similar to
prophetic
men called men of the State, when they are awake, won visions. They delight much in
of
.
them, helieving that they have acquired des Egares, ch. xxxvii.)
all
sciences
without
study."
(Livre
109
"
without
for
passing
through
the
side
paths of
that in
that
is
to forget
representative,"
God
were.
It is a
momentum
to the whole
mind;
as a consequence of this
(which we
shall
phenomena
of
im
IV.
I.
Identity of
Word.
II.
III.
The
"
hypostatic
spiritual
fact."
In
this
study of the
"
Word
incarnate,"
no encroach
is
involved.
we
reflect
with what
itself
word.
began by draw
"
De
iv.
videndo Deo
St.
;"
Tract, de Genesi
ad
ii
xii.
Tract, de Trinitate,
1.
Th. Aquinas,
Summa
Theol.,
a
,
ii
e
,
q. clxxi-clxxiv.
110
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
reflect that it
owes
it
to
"
science."
"incarnate
"
Word"
may be compared
"
Creation."
The
Absolute to phenomena/
to the
Absolute,"
or, inversely,
"from
phenomena
is
The word
"
Creation
"
answers to the
fact,
the Christ,
The
first
would explain
how
the
Could we comprehend
to
this recip
Being
is
divided
in
in
Space, but by an op
and
to
instability of
subsisting
all
is
the
answer at once
these
questions.
Thomas thus
Word and
human
of
the
consciousness
There
is
Incarnation of the
. . .
Word/
and body,
and
this
re
if
Theology consists of two elements, the one rational and derived from psy
human
mystical and taken from the special and symbolical experiences of Revealers and
Prophets.
111
If
we accept
this hypothesis
Quod
pra
It
is
sense that
we
repeat
in
the creed
of
Saint
Athanasius
as
The
sole Christ,
one sole
man/
:
But never
could unite
incomplete
the
Word
Word
II.
in
an eminent
is
1
identity"
There
the
mystic
fact
Reason with
our consciousness
than
the
words of
is
Saint
^g
3
ofthe"
"
John,
"He
who hath
the Bride
the Bride-
of Christ,
groom
rejoiceth
that
he
hears
"the
the
bridegroom
voice/
Bride,"
has consummated
spirit of
man
the Christ,
life
life.
All
Word, heard
St.
1.
iv., c. xli.
stabilera
cum stamus
et
audimus eum
et
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
Next
the
"
let
hypostatic
1 psychology of Christ.
with
all
s
instant of
Christ
constitute or
accompany
Inspiration
properly so called,
But
nary as well as
chief
right,
union;
"alienation"
transcendence. 2
Christ
call
"
Theology
;
distinguishes in Christ
first,
divine science
third,
"acquired"
knowledge
(St.
Th. 3 e
p. q. ix.
The last only comes in the order of our inquiry. Moreover, Theology does not seem any less attentive to the distinction of natures in Christ than to the unity of Person, and, no doubt, does not desire to see these different sorts
of
dogma
of the distinction.
Our
comprises all which could have entered into the human nitely appointed, consciousness of Christ; we shut out by these words even those attributes which lie half way between the divinity and man and which are suited only
and
it
if
these exegeti-
113
the incalculable
Word. 2
omnia
ilia
"Anima
Christi
Our
intellectual progress
"
himself,
true
man,"
The
"
"
surplus
of
could not
utilize,
man
it
more ardently
to
reunite himself to
"
utterly
and
If
rejoice that I
. .
."
go to the Father,
"Father,
because
thou
glorify
of the
"
incarnate
Word
"
is
That
to
it
should be possible
define itself
and
disengage
jections
distinct
:
that
spiritual fact
-"
and dominating
fact
"
it
ought
whole matter.
if it
How
with
exists, exist in
Time,
would seem more possible that originally they are the same Reason, and that they really
It
1
man
Reason?
S.
Th. 3 e
p. q. x., a. 1.
4 5
3.
Th.
q. x., a. 2, 3.
2 S.
Th.
q. ix., a. 3,
q. xii., a. 1, 2.
John
xiv.
28;
xvii. 5.
8 16. q. xii., a. 1.
114
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
the
world
of
ideas/
in
it
the
"
intelligible/
in
the
kingdom
seem
Spirit
of ends/
however
may
be called.
This would
"
to be the
"
"
meaning
is
God
"I
is
That which
"
"
and
my
etc.
The
genesis of Reason
is
logi
It is true
"
Per
than that of
"Reason/
"
and
that, as "Person/
"
power
or
"
"
faculty
;
is
Word
of
God
but which
way
it is
Per
sonality
agree,
and Reason,
form in us
but one
unity
is
the
problem of
man
just as
it
much
"
as of his Personality.
"
Now
is
Reason
or
"
Personal
ity
Word
it is
that which
it
makes
in
makes
us the identity of
lectual.
1
all
intel
The presence
iv.
Word
John
"
24
iii.
x.
30.
homo
ita
Deus
et
"
homo unus
est
Christus."
we
find
(Symbolum Athanasii.) Theology uses the term hypostasis," but nothing more exact for the point in question than what is conveyed
"
by the term
pretation:
Person."
Here too
is
ordinem temporis non dicitur in mysterio IncarSed secundum ordinem nationis aliquid medium inter Deum et hominem causalitatis ipsa anima est aliqualiter causa carnis uniendae filio Dei." (3 a p.,
"Secundum
. .
.
"
q. vi. a. 1.)
Si
comparemus
partes
Deo
similior.
;
Et ideo
enim
est
unitum
medium
intellectus
Verbum Dei
intellectus
intellectus."
115
it
We
get
are,
less
than an
instant,
and whence
it
of Freedom.
At
"
Reason becomes
have
it
transcendence
act
over
pure
infinite
Reason.
Love
"
is
this
copulative
between
its
Reason
and
is
our Reason
enclosed in to
of mystical facts
worthy
of
consideration.
Every
to
nature
has
...
the
act proper
is
man
is
Reason.
...
In
God
only the
it
to
communicate
in
Now,
Union
join
1
this
tendency
reaches
there
fulfilment
the
hypostatic
the
Infinite
only,
because
the
is
created
to
say,
and
in
in
one identity,
that
Personality."
IV.
to
obtain a
The Personallt y-
planations of determinism.
to unicellular life in
Were we
to descend
it
is
would involve
much
1
confusion,
and
especially
a. 1.
is
it
to be feared lest
we
Summ.
Theol. p. Ill, q. 1
is
corp.
a.
No
difficulty
made,
at
116
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
the illusion that at the two extremities, below in
come under
the
"
"
cell
and above
in
"
Season,"
there
is
two
distinctions, each
1
the
agined.
Personality, as
we
of empiricism.
In
its
is
more out of
freedom for
other
it
super-empirical
facts,
would be a mistake
to
confound
"
it.
"
Person
it is
quite as
much
the centre
called
"
Determinism," as it is
different
for which we
feel
responsible.
little
The unity
of the
human composite
understood.
;
Character
is
there
perhaps
is
empirically
known
sense
to us
it is
we take our
germ of the ego and the aggregating and disaggregating iu a hundred ways. This is to disregard the fact that the most elementary of psychological states containing at once both a sensation from without and a reaction from within,
consciousness, absolutely detached states, without a
non-ego, which
may go on
contains also, in germ, the contrast of the ego and the non-ego.
Idees, Forces,
1
"
FOUILLEE,
t. ii.
p.
400.
Unless
we
ego/
it
we
how
it
pro
ceeds."
Is there
truly no middle
its
supernatural origin
ground between the empirical explanation of Personality and We would rather wait for an answer until we ?
"
"
supernatural
signifies.
117
of
Can
it
human composite
own
On
unity,
But we
us, since
it
"
it
fact
nor conceive
in
as an
We
"
ourselves
have
no
hesitation
adopting
"
Reason
as the real
and
fact
of
which we are
it
we choose
to reject
from
way
real
it
is
One
"
living and
which we
If
there be in us
anything which
pure phenomena,
that which
as
we
call the
"
spiritual,"
"dominating"
among
:
all
the facts
live
is
By Reason man
it
subsists
he does not
by
"
it
exclusively but
is
man."
The
life
"
of animals
sum
of events,
informed
"
and
"
it
with things
1 According to Empiricism "the personality is the result of two funda mental factors two habits, . the bodily senses and the memory."
. . . .
.
(Ribot,
ib. p.
77.)
Personality
is
its
turn
"
is
only the
permanent
better.
nent possibility
is
simply a contradiction.
conditions."
"
118
CONCERNING INSPIRATION
its
own
By
it
we
Word
"
of
s
God
in the
human
is
conscience."
According to Bossuet
expression, Christ
real
more
all
fact
our personality.
It
is
all
we have
of
"
divine."
with
all its
consequences would be
itself to
such an One.
vi. elev.
Elevation sur
les
mysieres
x e semaine,
CHAPTER SECOND
SYMBOLISM
I.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
function consists in the mental production and the
I.
The mystic
Knowledge
even science
itself is
III.
Symbolism is mystical when it claims to effect communication of the ego and the non-ego in the totality of the consciousness.
IV.
Wherein mysticism
accomplishes.
claims
too
it
really
V.
simplicity
its
vivacity.
VI.
Concerning verbal
consciousness.
expression
I.
"
RELIGION embraces
not scientific.
all knowledge
and
all
power
of the
which
is
The unity of
The mystic
sists
of
its fertility
and
"
of *
mental pro-
myth and
rite,
Analogy.
It is
well not to
ttenwraUpplication of
be no
fact.
life
symbols,
"
"
"
religious
Knowl
"
is
which we
Power not
t. siii.
"
scientific
J.
p. 76.
120
is
SYMBOLISM
"
supernatural,"
but
call
"
it
is
Freedom, and
"
we
moral
as
opposed
In
reality, the
two
double aspect
"
of one
it is
always as
immediate
"
dom,
take
sentations
as
"
desires
"
or
"
volitions."
The mystic
act is not
belongs to Freedom
posited
We
we
At present
tent of
Prophecy,"
it,
and to the
facts of representation
which
accompany
without seeking
among
"
determining
God becomes
The
sciousness
a symbolic representation
and in
this sense it
may be
Analogy
is
The content
of
the
sym
"
they
really
create
all
Among
all
signs,
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
121
which intervene
an
actual
Knowledge
are
part
of
that
which they
science itself
represent.
is
but a
Though the
ideal
may be more
it
stable
and nearer
may
be)
which we
call
the
"
senses."
Analogy, that
"
is
to
"
figurative
sense,
"
is
life.
When we
;
say
comprehend,"
we
see the
body of a thought
itself,
but the
itself in
"
Word,"
which
is
the thought
cannot posit
from
it)
higher
incorporeal.
me"
No
"
that strikes
or
"
between the
No
matter
how
close
the
relation
may
a
be,
it
already constitutes an
analogy.
our
consciousness,
Reason which
conceives
things
otherwise than by
Scientific
representation."
knowing
itself
is
nation.
In
Reason
an immanent
act,
always the
same
"
Unity."
1
Knowledge
Vithney,
is
La
vie
du lanyage,
122
according
to
SYMBOLISM
the
different
aspects
in the consciousness.
it
gravely
them
"
facts/
consciousness considered
conventions?
Science keeps
for
itself
least
dependent on our
in the
do what
it
will
understanding in the
state
of
concepts, images
must
be
the
purely
to
mechanical
or
mathematical
terms
which
all
ought
be used.
etc.,
would
vanish very quickly were we to attempt to prove them by only admitting as exact that which
"
is
in itself/
without
scholar
image and
anterior
"
to
all
representations.
quantity,"
The
spectres of
symbols of qual
sees things
means
with
which he
scientifically.
When we
of symbols
the
even
more manifest.
Without mentioning
which have
fictions of Idealism,
seemed confined
tion
to Mysticism,
we quote
The
&wXa
that produced
them
(La
civilisation primitive,
t. i.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
another realm and adapted to the
explanation
of
123
thought
phenomena.
...
is
an historic
may be
when
bound
Democritus explains
that
by the hypothesis
images,
air,
.
every
object
projects
from
itself
et SeyXa,
which, assimilating
with the
surrounding
The animism
phantom
become a
theory of ideas.
religious
straction
We
find
The ab
2
and a
Why
mystic
then,
the
most
essentially
of
The
been
"
Seers
"
and
it
"Not
It
may even be
that
there
intense
1
is
unanimity in defining
interior
t. i.
Prophecy as a
image having
of
consciousness, the
La
civilisation primitive,
t. ii.
p.
579.
2 It. 8
Epist.
ci.
124
SYMBOLISM
it
may
suffice to
quote
Spinoza
We
knew
that which
may God
is,
revealed to
them through
i
their imagi
clothes
"
symbols
if
we
Symbolism
itcial
to
e?
The
term
"
"
symbolic knowledge *
.,
Ancient mythology,
side,
But the
least mystic of
few symbols intended to unite the soul and the world in one
expression.
Very
little
this
busy
there
is
Traite theologico-politique,
t.
ii.
p. 32.
MYSTICAL EXPEESSION
125
the ego and the non-ego, of Determinism and Freedom, in the consciousness
itself.
It is
this
When we become
So we
it
to approach
in
We
make
still
the supposition
Consciousness
appearance
antipathy
and contradiction.
The mystical
:
an
effort to
not
which
is
unknowable, but as
group of
facts of
con
sciousness; thus
so forth, according as
and
Let us take
to say,
is
two
dis
at the
minimum
the
1
maximum. 1
There
is
the purpose of perceiving a relation existing outside of us or in another portion of our consciousness. do not think that this is a departure from any of the
We
which have been given Analogy is a reasoning infers, from a given resemblance of certain points, a resemblance of other (Rabier, Logique, p. 127.) points." "Analogy is a process of mind which
best definitions of analogy
"
which
results
relations,"
de nos connaissances,
t. i.
p. 95.)
126
perceptions which
SYMBOLISM
we
name
first
of
"
springtime
the soft,
balmy
air,
perfumes, the
flowering
constitute
outside of us a
state of
state of
consciousness
In an
the associa
which the
susceptibilities
expres
We
broadly
facts of
con
Now,
more or
less
skilful choice of
sym
yet
it
partial or local.
itself so
Not
in
far
move
ment
all its
powers.
That
is
symbolism.
we have
distinction
from the
of Inspiration, and
no one can
character
of
to
recognize
in
these facts
the
double
spontaneity
and
mental
profusion.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
According to the word which Maimonides uses,
"
127
it
is
the
"
irruption
of the Absolute
into
the
consciousness
it
and
how
are
we
rouses
sions
that
new
spirit
is
relation
itself
between our
tend to
IV.
We
it is
possi
all
ii
that a
i
man
ji
is
i
capable of
willing,
feeling,
and thinking
to the
horizon of
what
it
really
-
the consciousness.
Under what
influence
may
it
accom P 1IBhes
all
at
once of
the
and
sensibility
which
man
same act of
life,
If
it
it
is
to that
and contradiction.
we have
power
to appear to ourselves
series of events, a
stream of vicissitudes,
sometimes joyful
the
and sometimes
whole
sad.
And,
man
at
in
one single
mo
ment.
And
total
yet,
however
all this
may
be,
it
is
and
effectual
128
that mysticism tends.
is,
SYMBOLISM
To
in all seriousness,
no other thing.
some symbolic
vision,
God
so abounding in
Imagi
Reason
1
souls.
The mystic
"
writer
Here
is
"
Confessions of St.
?
Augustine"
"What
is it,
when
I love
my God
it
in
What is he whom my soul feels above my own intelligence, above all images of
I reach that seat of being I cannot fix my back helpless into the common thoughts. I have carried away nothing from this vision but a memory full of love, and as it were a regretful longing for things whose perfume is felt but which are out of reach. What is things
gaze,
but at the
fall
moment when
and I
It is not beauty of bodies, then, that I love, O my God, when I love you ? nor the glory which passes, nor the light which our eyes love it is not the varied harmony of sweet songs, nor the aroma of perfumes and sweet flowers, nor the voluptuous joys of carnal embraces. No, it is none of these that I love
it,
;
when
I love
my God
and yet in
an inner voice, a
perfume, a savor, an embrace of a kind which does not leave the inmost of myself. There in the depths of the soul glows something which is not in space
:
there a word
heard which has no syllables thence there breathes a perfume which no breezes waft away there food is always savored and never eaten
is
: :
-.
God, you create Sometimes, a state of soul in me so extraordinary, and you fill me with so intimate a joy, Who shall understand, who that, if it lasted, all life would be diiferent.
. .
.
shall express
God ?
What
is
it
eyes of
my
soul and
make my
something
;
am
it
is
am
kindled with
love."
1. vii. 17; 1. x. 6, 40; 1. xi. 9.) These are the (Augustine, Conf. 1. x. 7 very ultimate terms which Saint Augustine could find in which to give a We have designedly chosen our example from him, positive definition of God.
for he is not by temperament a mystic, and for this reason his attempts heighten the evidence that the religious fact tends, by virtue of a psychological law, to produce a plenitude of consciousness by the concourse of symbols and
love.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
has no dialectic
explanation to
possessed, but
129
the object
make regarding
it
by which he
is
Esthetic images,
first
moral emotions
life
under
it
mo
"
It is quite
senses, the
When we come
so high.
to really
all
comprehend
there
is
no ambition
fain
Far above
man would
and
to
all
intellectual
of the
at
least,
passions;
1
and as crowning
as
abolish
"Not
forgetting
calling."
all
that
though I had attained (the divine union), but I follow after, and is behind I press towards the mark for the prize of the high
iii.
(Philippians
12-14.)
130
morally.
SYMBOLISM
The mystic
effort
tendency which
is
Hartmann speaks
of.
According to
him
there
no other
way
to reach
;
supreme
the
satisfaction except
by return to the
on the
contrary,
its
Unconscious
mystic
consciousness,
and by
its
com-
munings with
powers.
rest
the Absolute
as
to
grow beyond
natural
Opposed
these
perhaps
:
upon an
identical
the
moral
nature
desire.
it
is
true,
is
commonly
retained
Man
Freedom
farthest
is
in such acts of
disinterestedness
instinct.
as
remove
him
He
also
is
which
is
bounds of
that
is,
True mysticism
"
disinterested
sions
mor
it
is
it
to us symbolically.
But we may
is
as
as it is unknowable.
When man
touches
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
finds there
131
some divine
"
ity to give it
Absolute in us becomes
the Absolute posits
so in a
"human"
conditioned/
the
we may
say that
it
itself in
human
consciousness,
does
of the
human
itself.
"
Will some
insist that
is
to
even morally,
to be
conditioned
There
is
not any
Between
which
is
mystic symbolism.
An
analogical representation,
called out
seem
is
to be
but the
it
to say,
representa
Is
At the
root of symbols
we
No.
it is
is
determined," it is
is
ourselves
and
is
produced
in the
Immutable, but
it is
way
as it can,
by a
an act of Freedom.
We
of the
errors.
new and
132
SYMBOLISM
much
as to furnish
it
with representations.
.
consciousness so
much need
it
be
"
fixed
as in
Infinite.
plicity
and
vivacity.
^g momen ts when
aspires
to
the
We
and
itself the
Object of
its
search,
which
is
The analogy
moment
to overflow
which to circumscribe
made
sciousness
is
the mystic suggestion soars, free and pure, towards the Rea
son.
still
"
Man
if
it
were
floting
up and downe
conceits.
some image ac
hath in some
cording to
The majesty
of
God
celestiall
J
It is this
representations.
The
In an imagination stimulated
by the
complicated, until
1
the
passions
themselves
p.
321.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
133
Under the
few signs
its
possession of
object,
but these few signs join to their extreme sim Let us take as an
"
plicity
an all-powerful suggestiveness.
voice
him
:
Go
forth
the
Lord
great
Lord
wind
and
after the
fire;
and
and
It
would
the verge of
and that
it
God
appear by images of
the mightiest
phenomena; but
could
the
soul
of
presence of God.
To
the simplicity of
its
sym
Symbolism
it
fulfils
of the
heart."
mind and making him living or known Metaphysicians have more than once bor
"
in this
way the
"
circle
has come to be
the
taken, a
little
too
insistently perhaps,
as
symbol
of
134
Eternity.
est
this
"Deus
SYMBOLISM
est
centrum
of
ubique
kind
:
et circumferentia
nusquam."
But symbols
fail
sym
bol
like the
verbal expression
"
Intelligence only.
VI.
Symbolism
is
to externalize the
of consciousness,
as
and
for this
.,
reason both
.
.
or
them partake
much
ol us as ol
things, as
much
Objects enter
into ourselves,
There
is
said to
be a
"
life
of language of
"
but there
is also,
son, a
"life
Symbols."
and
alive,
while symbols
"
whole,"
and
they
"appear."
effect as
"
direct perceptions
"
seen
within,
fills
and
the
Expressions of this
kind
fulfil
by
dialectic
c. v.
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION
processes.
135
we
see
them
all at
We revert
fain
to symbols, there
fore, to
of language and at
mo
comprehend things
"mystic"
so
is
it
We
mean
symbol
brings to
the horizon
become
remark
for
is
us
This
is
specially significant
in
question.
it,
all
the
sentiments relating to
reach us
there
is
an outbreak of
If the
it
sentiments, we
its
feel
;
purest sense)
more
of
so transporting.
matter
Philosophy
within
you."
Besides, this
If
is
of
mystic symbolism.
used,
in
we consider
moral
commonly
the
order,
the
136
"
SYMBOLISM
of
"
Labor,"
Justice,"
of
"
Freedom," etc.
"
in the esthetic
"
Life,"
the
Seasons,"
the
Elements/
of things, or out of us ?
Mysticism
sion which
is
lives
upon symbols;
it.
this
is
proper to
the
"
Scriptures/
when
it
itself
consciousness in a manner at
it,
indeterminate, while
Throughout
tal
"
religious history
"
irruption
state of alienation.
Had
"
the idea of
"
Holiness
we should have
All this
is
which
is
reproduced in ours in
this
is
its
quiescent state
wonderful page.
which
human
consciousness dialectically
filled
the temple.
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train At the highest degree, below God, stood two seraphins
: ;
and they held themselves in space with other twain. And one Then said is the Lord of hosts.
;
Woe
is
me
because I
:
am a man
of unclean
lips,
and
for mine eyes have seen the King, the dwell in the midst of an unclean people Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphins unto me having a live coal in his hand which he had taken from off the altar, and he laid it upon my mouth."
(Isaiah
vi.
1-17.)
MYSTIC INTUITION
the vision of
137
Abraham
it
Genesis was, as
consciousness.
1
in the mystic
Religious dogmas,
it
may be
could
said, are
How
it
II.
MYSTIC INTUITION
I.
Mystic Intuition enables us to perceive the facts of Freedom through and above the empirical consciousness, in a manner
the inverse of Abstraction.
II.
The mystic consciousness sees only itself covered over with the symbols which make apparent its tendencies towards the Infinite. The mystic
act
is
III.
incommunicable.
Mystic privilege.
IV.
Law
of symbolic communication.
We
is
is
twofold
the imagi
nation
And
Abraham
And he
lifted
three
men
and rising up he bowed himself down to adore them, and said, Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from Let a little water, I thy servant. pray you, be fetched to wash your feet (of all three), and rest yourselves under the tree. And they answered, So do as thou hast said. And after had eaten said to Abraham, Where is
stood hy
:
him
And
.
.
they
...
I will return
towards Sodom, and Abraham remained in the presence of the Lord and he drew near again to say to him (in the ruin of Sodom), Wilt thou also destroy
the righteous with the
wicked?"
all
(Gen.
xviii.
1-23).
This narration
is
in
comprehensible according to
It is a
138
There
is
SYMBOLISM
never any breach of the intellectual law.
Before
is
the rational
Mystic intuius
to perceive the facts of
of representations
always
and we could no
in the void than
throuTand
ra
piricai
c<m-
mental images.
Evolution
begins
the
mind by
"species."
or
we
reserve for
future explanations
"
analogical representations, or
symbols."
product.
We
we have
in the
empirical and
sense of the
its
word
object,"
purpose to objec-
and one much more intimate and deep than the exterior
world.
the
Absolute
it
it
is
true
tends to merge
inverse of
with
the
ego
in
a
call
Abstraction.
all
"What
we
"
concepts
or
"
ideas,"
and
kinds of
may be
carried, could
not equal
poses.
all
that
the
its
mystic pur
consciousness
best
the
special
effects
of our
ability
as
"
with the
Infinite."
The mystic
MYSTIC INTUITION
tained in the words of Pascal
"
139
the
heart"
God known of
The work
of intellection
is
its
in
the heart/
Freedom.
What
What do we
"
acquire
"
from
it ?
"
ideas
or
"
concepts
we
might
be empirical or rational.
"mystic
But
strictly
no such thing as
"
knowledge."
The experience
of
"
seers
reduces
itself
to
common
experi
"
ence, and God does not create for their use any new
"
cate
gory
this is
But
only
act
is
illusory.
By
effect
which the
consciousness aspires to
all
feel
that
the
others,
etc.
that
creative
Love
which absorbs
the world, that Eeason has gained any more ground in the
are established in
Abso
inward vigor
acter,
and
The
in a
representative action of
and
it
reinforces, in
140
SYMBOLISM
qualities
posits itself in us
"
"
"
symbolically
"
and
in such
known
expressible
in concepts
do not properly
the Eule
Knowledge,
perhaps
less ourselves
the consciousness.
The
mass of men,
Is
it
we can
"
Is life
worth living
"
II.
Reason
from apparent
covered over
The subject
Absolute
,
enters into
if
,
nearer
communion with
...
species.
entirely
to produce.
own
veritable essence,
it
which
is
becomes
capable,
attributes of
the Absolute
which
it
But
no
"
representation,"
where
is
MYSTIC INTUITION
does the construction of symbols rest
?
141
It is this.
Every
is
posited in the
"When
consciousness by
are
of
means
of
representations.
such affections
we
them
menially, and
not
merely
The
and therefore
we ask
imaginative species.
Hence
and
alive),
striving to
express
itself,
lending
its
Mystics, in this
man who
lacks
the terms to define directly the good or the evil with which
he
feels
knows
which
phenomenon, that
is to say, according to the way in But, at the same time, above this colloca
tion of pure
phenomena which he finds in his proper subjectivity, he is forced which serves them for basis, viz. his ego, whatever
:
intimate nature
may
be
and consequently he
world, in
is
bound
to consider himself
as
partaking
of the
sensible
perception
of
phenomena, and receptivity of sensations, and as partaking of the intelligible world, in regard to that which belongs to him as pure activity (that is to say,
as to that
senses), of
which reaches the consciousness immediately, and not through the which he knows nothing more." (Metaphysics of Morals, pp.
106, 107.)
142
SYMBOLISM
may be
called the
"
"
religious
fact
the consciousness,
Infinite.
we even need
to say
?)
Who
of the
Duty ?
and distinguish
from
When we
"facts
of
Season,"
the
rest
which
is
posited in
by words of deepest
the bottom.
interior
The very
efforts
we make
we
desire to grasp,
and we tend
nearer
to the indeterminate
ab
makes naive
efforts to
and
in
is
assurance of
III.
seeing
God."
arise
in
the
consciousness
of
some
identical
MYSTIC INTUITION
143
Of
all
mental repre
more
rebellious of fixedness
and
Through Freedom
.
we
Symbols have no
efficiency
for
it
are crystallized in
the state of
narrative
sciences
can
only
live
again
fact
in
other
con
which originated
them.
There
is
to allow the
and by
this road
it
Symbols have no
the Absolute
is
signifi
moment when
;
posited
by
are
their
means
in the consciousness
lifeless
they
very person who has once drawn mystic enthusiasm from them. With even more rea
empty and
to the
We
between
Freedom which
are incommunicable.
We
can never know, for example, what was the state of con
sciousness of
some
citizen
when he
the
"sacred
Fire/
or
Infinite.
The most
is
perfect notion of
God which
has ever
its
been conceived
"the
144
SYMBOLISM
essence
"
own
by
it
we have
God
and which
more
interior than
may
human
It
would be
exterior
inconsistent,
wish to
stamp
certain
symbols
character of
is
precepts
Both of them,
it
true, tend
what
different
grounds
holds
its
universal,
priori value.
Since
we have no
Reason,
it
Though we should
its
talk of
"
higher evidence/
the
very fact of
universality in
We
must
strictest subjectivity.
Would
make them
M hich
is
only
sacred
? 2
"
so far as
it
is
"
secret
"
and
appertaining to Freedom
"
1 Ipsa natura Dei est essentia bonitatis boni ut se aliis communicet." (Summa Theol. 2
"We
a. 1.)
work, of the things themselves true and invariable which are presented to the consciousness under such infi They constitute that source of pure activity and nitely free representations.
Freedom which we
call
MYSTIC INTUITION
It is permissible to say, perhaps,
145
Mysticism, but
if
we say
it,
enabled to mani
positivist,
Freedom
Who
least
states of consciousness in
least
may be
"
that
God
does not
make
himself
"
known
The
sunk deep
in the unconscious,
and leave
it
dream
fruitful
but
Heart
"
be most
when
looked
is
for.
that
more
interior perhaps
memory than
that
we have been
lifted
morally
above ourselves and loosed for one moment from the Deter
minism of the
that by of
instincts
Freedom
men
A
is
without excep
Heart
in contact
with God.
There
power
This
is
It
was of
spoke when
"
Be com-
146
forted.
!
me."
SYMBOLISM
Hadst thou not found me thou wouldest not seek
is
purely psychological,
we have no
Lawofsymbolic
desire to claim or to
ileges of Inspiration.
deny
to
Besides,
we would observe
is
com
munication.
once more
only an en
The
the divine essence and the essence of our soul both fused in
2
;
and
all
which
how
come
to
of a social fact or
"
Religion."
an accomplished
that Inspiration
called
"
fact,
is
without discussion,
our opinion
"intense,"
weak."
may be
regarded
theological thesis)
is
by
in extraor
The whole
Le Mystere de
God
effects
increate Trinity.
MYSTIC INTUITION
originality of
tion.
147
who
present them as
from God.
Properly speaking there
education
"
is
no
such thing as
"mystic
there
is
We
is
may
posited in the
consciousness, beneath
all
presentment remains
fatigue to the
sciences
it
uncomprehended.
if
become a
mind
Desperate
and repeated
grasp at
all
to the principle
is
The term
"
mystic
limits of
therefore,
first,
symbol whatever.
to
God and
relig
Freedom
its
be more
ious if
troubled.
V.
The character
of
"
divine efflux
"
148
SYMBOLISM
use natural signs and ordinary mental expres
When we
sions,
we
are referring
them
to
objects
find
Words warn us
to
me something who
show
my
eyes or
is
it
my
its
thought something to be
present
?
learned."
But who
who can
to
search
The
:
knowing may
which
the mystic
search.
Saint
value for this world, and believes that he can thus found
his
"
Ontology/
pure
God
aspires to
come
by the power of
Love.
"
What
"is
learn,"
same
connection,
man who
is
speaks to
me and
me
what
his
words induce
and
for
reigns in
my understanding,
who
He whom we
is
go thus
dwells in
of God.
to consult,
Christ
who
the eternal
Wisdom
it is
but
is
op.
t. i.
MYSTIC INTUITION
149
own
good-will
is
the measure/
"
to find again
"
like his
own
in our
"
common Season,
"
peculiar
symbolical
state, there is
another intuition to be
is
accomplished.
The
no other
knowing
is
the mental
you
species."
have seen,
some
it
must be
who
without ceasing
be indivisible,
and that
spirit,
not the
scientific
order of
phenom
own
direct and
which
De
Magistro,
loc. cit.
150
SYMBOLISM
III.
MYSTIC ALIENATION
I.
II.
phenomena and
the prophetic
Dream
Voices,
we attempt
to analyze
symbols.
we
find a sort
of infinity about
of genius to exhaust.
if it
The miracu
The
real
soul of the
imaginative groups
is
is
in thought,
Inspirations.
asserts that
(e
Duns Scotus
when grace
1
"
all
creatures
them."
become symbols
Accepting only
:
illuminates
him who
sees
cnm
vero
per condescensionem
inspicitur, ipsa
lis
quandam
ineffabilem
. . .
in
creatura
i.
sola invenitur esse. Ideoque omnis visibilis et invisibiTheophania, id est divina operatic potest appellari." (Divisione
nature?,
iii.
19
MYSTIC ALIENATION
such philosophic truth as this
that things do not
151
it
may
contain,
must be
said
range
under the empirical aspect only, but that they also assume
in
it
a coloring which
is
themselves
and which
other in so
many
ways.
What
it
there
is
of mystical in
"
it is,
that
")
the intellectual
Power (be
called
natural
"
or
"
divine
redoubles
its
action
upon the
mind
of the Seer,
and that
is
ex
;
upon us from
God
except through
this
intellectual channels
influence
reach?
Upon
much
more
If
put in motion
is
unity of act.
we
fix it
it
dormant
this
memory
In
way an
ths,n
it
is
believers
"
52
SYMBOLISM
:
in short,
it
is
thus
that
the
maximum
of mental
any expression
than any
and more
full of life
fictile efforts
of Art.
to reproduce the mystic
and the
common
to every imagination,
is
any exterior
which the
folded
will.
No
one
outside
the
revealed
dogma
has un
itself,
may dream
of doing
more than
;
participate in
which has
phenomenon ?
This can
any
from what
itself, all
to hold conscious
communion with
;
beyond the
tokens
as
dialectical
this
and, above
all,
could
it
bring to us, as
of
Maudsley
says,
all
men
of
heart ?
II.
At
the point
we have
reached,
is
it still
worth while
In
such
a discussion
the
Augustine
That which,
is
MYSTIC ALIENATION
divine is the thing
signified,
153
the
1
sign"
and not
It
is
authority from
Distinction
1,1 the
by
to
naive opinion
then
prevailing in regard
between the
objectheness
of mystic
the objective of visions, and because phenomena reality J J and the verquestion was
lty
sym
were concerned.
"
signified
as
though we should
write the
;
name
of
the
is
vile,
represented
remains identically
in letters of gold
the
Write the
name
letters
of
man
will
how
little
this
2
intelligence."
mind
The question
of objectivity
must be
we go any
cal
further.
We
do not understand
in
its
ontologi"
sense
of
"
existence,"
somatic
reality,"
or
"corporeity."
De
Trinitaie, lib.
iii.
Oper.
t. iii.,
p. 108.
Ibid.
154
SYMBOLISM
is
What
The fundamental
that
activity
things,
whence
comes
the
by invariable
intuitions,
"
Heart
"
And
much
of
?
"
"
being
at the root of
symbols as be
for
neath phenomena
Indeed, very
is
much more ;
phenom
posited in
the consciousness by a
"
we never hold
the
same,"
we hold
is
the iden
are no
if
"
it
is
anything.
"
We
"
longer
apprehending
facts
but
principles
to
when we
the
penetrate
through
the
symbolic appearances
con
sciousness of the
the
name
of the
But we
now
considering
the
objectivity of
we
call
"
"
object
that which
it
was before.
The word
is
"body."
And
to
in this sense it is
the
mystic
is
phenomena of
logical
voices,
strict,
etc.
Such
impossibility
and therefore
admitting no
mitigation.
No
us,
may seem
etc.,
satisfactory to
monism,
there can be
:
but
three
ontological
terms in the
sight
of Reason
the
The mystic
MYSTIC ALIENATION
thesis
155
this ontological
division of first
falls
of
itself.
There
impressions
as
the world
"
acts
logically both
"object"
and
"not
object."
III.
tivity of
on the non-objec
mystic visions.
Mamre
is
as
commented on
Non-objectivenes8 of mystic
none more
illustrious Phenomena.
Vision,"
that
etc.
all
in its objective
sense.
But
if
we
interpret
it
scientific
"
mental vision
and
"
hallucination
"
it
be
comes easy, and the religious symbolism shines forth pure and noble in these pages, whose beautiful simplicity
surpassed by
their
is
only
psychological exactness.
recital
When we
ap
is
proach
general
explains
this
same
not
and
in
Maudsley
that
how an
hallucinations
Gen.
xviii.
is
movement is truly the movement in the innermost ; it the current of nervous action which when transmitted along the proper nerves
idea of the
The
will
MAUDSLEY,
Physiologic de
V esprit,
156
SYMBOLISM
What
are
we
to think of a
middle
state,
half-way between
com
are
mentators
have
so
often
mentioned?
"Appearances
when once
the vision
is
ended,
the
creation
vanishes."
We
"
reject
provisional
creations
all
of identity.
in the
why
endeavor
existence?
"a
dove"
"solar
3
rays,"
etc.,
but do not
iii.
Saint Augustine,
De
Trinitctte,
i.,
ii.
ch.
vii.,
cf.
ib.
i.,
ch. x.
and
St.
Thomas,
2
"
Summa
Aug.
i.,
Theol., p. 1, q. clxxi.-clxxiv.
.
Non
valeo."
(St.
De
Trin.,
i.,
"
ii.,
ch. vii.)
De
.
Trin.
ii.,
ch. vi.
Verbum
Non
ergo
sic
assumpta
ilia.
.
est creatura in
ignem.
Sed apparuerunt
. . .
serviente Creatori.
lumbam nee
Deum
et co
dicimus Filium
Ilia Dei, Joanne Evangelista vidente Agnum occisum in Apocalypsi. quippe visio prophetica non est exhibita oculis corporeis per fonnas corporeas sed in spiritu per spiritales imagines corporum. Columbam vero illam et ignem
Agnum
oculis viderunt
quicumque viderunt
MYSTIC ALIENATION
all
157
Mystic action
than to introduce
it
may have
is
interests
which are
There
therefore
no logical au
whereby we can
whatever they
they
may
be and
under
whatever circumstances
;
historically
produced
Had
the cosmic
claimed, been
set
in motion aside
from
all
appearances
we should have
and
"
to
spiritual
bodies,"
subjective
objects
would have
phenomena without introducing anything higher verities which could not have come
of
through mere
imagination.
forced to
make
when he
body of Christ was material and veritable ? devil tempted Christ what was it that he said
oculis
When
"Will
the
you
an spiritu visus
sic
Non euim ait viderunt propter verba sic posita. visse sunt eis. Non (Act. Apost. ii. 3.)
solcmus dicere
ii.,
significatione
visum
cst
mihi
qua dicinius
well upon what slender bases the objective interpretation of symbols rests. Exegesis which has to resort to such methods is no longer an aid to Faith, but a peri].
vidi.
(2V.
de
Trinitate,
i.,
ch. vi.)
These
last lines
show
158
SYMBOLISM
did
Madmen
that
you are
Bather than
admit that
that
God spoke
If there was no real body what was it then that was manifest to human and corporeal gaze ? Was it only the apparition of a lie ? The very thought is
God
blasphemy."
This reflection,
it
more gener
2
mystic phenomena.
"
IV.
tion
"
We
hallucina
alienation."
The subintegrity
ofm
stic
preserves
all
its
Hallucination.
wliatever
when
and
it is
just
word
"alienation/-
The mind
1
8
De
we
stop for a
moment
to
that Angels could substantial appearances The without being guilty of falsehood. produce matter which they assume," says he, was not human flesh but it was true
in this
"
same connection,
"
show
"
it
in one of those to
guard."
celestial bodies
them
(De
diversis
sermo,
This
property
which the Angels have in such a portion of universal matter (a conception of ages more naive than our own) is not even worth as much as the usual scho
lastic subtleties.
office of substantial
moral relation of protection, or even an efficient causality form, and a matter which becomes, as
such only, the true body of the agent which gives it external motion, are in ventions which the mystic genius would never have produced had it kept itself
free
from
all
infinite love,
spirit
afterwards called
scholastic."
MYSTIC ALIENATION
is
159
;
to
say,
this
when
is
firmly
itself,
it
convinced that
whatever
"
may
"
an
alienation
and a
We
among
and by
the latter,
hallucinations."
At
the
knows
same pathological
alienation,
Sleep
is
a case of
is
normal
the state
Morbid
cases
come from
others,
and can
find
than
life."
causality,
it
must be allowed
fined
"
The
when
1 It is all confined to
states of consciousness
own.
De
Genesi
ad
litteram,
1.
xii.,
ch. xii.
160
SYMBOLISM
same vividness
as
eyes,
and
in such a
l
way
that
sensa
tions/
In the
first
we must
limit the
first,
in a
2
waking
state
second, under
fact
comes
The experimental study of the nervous system has led to discoveries, which we hope will be followed by many others,
but
it
may be
knowledge has so
far
Charles Richet
observation regarding
Although we oftenest
encounter hallucinations
among
am
speak
and touch),
phenomenon
is
in the case
of the absolutely
normal.
As
classic
authors
not possible
to trace.
If
we suc
normal
state of
undoubt
lose
is
"a
This definition has nothing to litter am, 1. xii., ch. xii. s definition of hallucination best. with the Parchappe very by comparison state of soul in which pure imaginings are reproduced spontaneously in
De
Genesi
ad
all
sensations."
MYSTIC ALIENATION
161
we
shall
apparitions."
We
"
must look,
"
gradual transitions
"
"
and the
hallucination
We
have
we
may
of
"
relation
"
so called.
"
human
"
represent
destructive, tyrannical
power
Now,
it
is
this
unhesitatingly
produces
them, our
nervous
with fatigue
physiological
1
enables
us
t.
to
understand
better
the
"From
the idea to
no greater distance than from that of the germ to complete vegetable or animal life." (De Vintelligence, t. ii. p. 25.) 2 Ribot, Psychologie de V Attention, p. 117.
hallucination,"
says Taine,
there
is
11
162
psychological opposition
hallucination.
intellectual
;
SYMBOLISM
of
Life
is
express in the
the mental act.
word
"
Idea-Force/
specially apparent in
of
life
is
the state of
external perception.
that degree,
it
happen
"
Idea
is
coherent images; or
too intensely
its
it
beyond
succes
lucination.
But what
"
difference
mental process
The one,"
the
less.
says
Mr. Eibot,
is
"
is
an evolution,
a dissolution, and
in pathological hallu
ceased to belong to
in the ego,
mental images.
tions
The cause
some
defect of personality,
some moral
subject or inherited.
The
various mystic
phenomena may
all
be regarded as
is
which
generally
the following
Under a moral
we
shall
MYSTIC ALIENATION
state of
"
163
endures, the im
state of
impressions."
If the
influence
pression
is
normal
hallucination which
"
Mr.
others as being of
really
this
central
origin."
Ideas
"
"
become then
elBrj,
visions."
But
to representations purely
and
properly
visual/
for
fact,
the
whole
consciousness
is
is
and there
not a psychic
"
element which
may
"
not
"
be contributory.
"
Thus
voices
"
images
vision,"
thus contradicting
"
guage
function."
upon the
:
characteristic
reflection,
most
of mystic
mentality
it
is
and not
abstraction.
When
the
mind withdraws
itself as in
representations (for
,
synthesis of conceptions)
all
its
strength,"
it
with
morally, mentally,
etc.,
and everything
arise in this
manner
Revue philos.
Dr.
"
loc. cit.
scientific precision.
Cf. Physiologic
Max
And thon
Simon, Lyon medical, 1880, Nos. 48, 49. shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all
all
thy
strength."
(Mark
xii.
30.)
164
tion
:
SYMBOLISM
but, in a
of concepts, instead of
sensibility
by acts
which
which have
in the con
immanent
"
This
may
still
be called
mono-ideism," if
we
"condition
1
Idea
"
is
the
"
Absolute."
The mystic
object
is
expressed
is suffi
its
presence
will original
impres
in
PHI-
nomena: the
prophetic
thTsd m^tT
Dreams
natural
events.
second,
the free
dom
of the intellectual
power from
all
organic interference.
dream
is,
by
molecular function
of external
state,
of motion
of
the brain.
The opposition
waking
and
and when
tendency to motion
in the
is
at its
minimum with
representative
effect
regard to abstract
ideas.
Such
motor element
is
weakened
same proportion
Volant e,
p.
as the
element."
(Ribot,
absolutely
Maladies de la
different.
132.)
The
of
symbols
is
MYSTIC ALIENATION
the external perception
is
165
nothing but
absent, there
is
memory
facts of
reality.
The
may be
thus explained.
In a
state
of sleep
we can maintain
selves,
and assume
we can
In the
of
in the
waking
state,
vividly.
consciousness of a person
who
is
asleep, a certain
number
and
the others, a
real
world
"
were
images
is
mingle
with
The subject
thus exposed
complex
alienation,
What
dreams?
special
shall
be
said of
the condition
of Reason during
in the depths of
slumber have
soul
importance, according
to
certain
authors, the
free
from
all
organic influence,
"
intuition
more
intellectual.
Is there
perception,"
enabled to give us
"
experience
question.
He
this
At
may
it
be that
there
is
some transcendent
some unconscious
1
activity, productive of
ch. xii. Cf.
more subtle
intui-
De
Gen. ad
litt.
De immortalitate
166
SYMBOLISM
by prolonged attention?
would tend
and
acquired
to give
These
are
bold
hypotheses, which
dreams a
higher
value
than natural
built
knowledge, and
It
influence,
the mystic
determinations
be exercised
during
alienation.
between
representations.
power of
1
"
is
suspended."
Now, however
Freedom,
it
may be which
cases
is
thus
left for
is
enough
in
consciousness, and
the
conclusions
which
would be enough
dreams as have
our
which
it
is
not
affair to investigate.
scientific
explanations
which may have been given on the same subject, we can say
that everything
is
What is
the influence
and again
it is
in
Psychol.de
Cf.
Maimonide, Le
said that
"dreams
MYSTIC ALIENATION
167
or which causes the often eloquent hypnotic representations, discussions which go on within, and the enacting of dramas
of
"the
power of the
and
as he
makes an express
"power"
must be
power
some super-organic cause which he does not name, and which for ourselves we are unable to distinguish from
"
Keason."
often said to be
"
"
spoken
Are we
to understand
by
this
nication than
"
by Symbols ?
"
No
Inner Speech
manner the
accompaniment of nearly
"
our concep
as
In these cases of
vivid
"
speech,
it
though a
author seems to
class
the
phenomenon
of
"Inspiration"
among
current of
thoughts.
I
He
insist
.
the in-
"
The point
. .
wish to
on
. .
is
but we
This
new
(Physiologic de
Esprit, p. 17.)
La
iii.
168
terior speech of
"
SYMBOLISM
that speech
to lips
passion,"
we
all
recognize, which
ordinarily
"imagination,"
art
all
and
that
not without
is
effort, in
rior speech of
morals."
Had
mind
symbolism he
kind of speech as
Arc."
"
and
"
they
are heard
in
the
soul
of
seers
at
times
when the
themselves
symbols
assume
rest
such intensity
as
to
detach
from the
personalities.
It is easy to understand
first
assigned the
those
rank among
"
all
mystic phenomena to
which
accompany
inner
voices."
When
seems to
re-ecJio in
spoken by
to others,
it
to himself
and
the
is
maximum
reached.
There
voices,"
mean
their in
themselves or
by those to
whom
it
is
declared.
Would
St.
Thomas,
Summa
Theol.
q. clxxiv., a. 3,
corp.
a.
MYSTIC ALIENATION
169
by our patriotism
candor
"
if
much
my
voices
"
signs,
and had
"?
is "within
us only
Saint
when he
is
batur in me;
voices."
in the
said,
"my
Et
dixit mihi
Were
these
inner
words similar
to the
agination
when we
realize
ourselves?
him
to issue
2
subject.
is
it
of certainty of interpretation
grammatical subtlety.
The mystic consciousness has explained this phenomenon naively, as alone it knew how ; and in these accounts, we find, of critical interest to us (1) that under
is
What
Ecstasy
become more
that, in the
"
Zech.
i.
9.
Epist.
ci.
170
(3) that the
sense
of
SYMBOLISM
externality finally
is
becomes
entirely
that respect, or
subsists in the
"What
at
least,
none of the
the ecstasy
memory.
specially
we would
remark
is
of
Know
do
shall
without
representations."
Moses in Mount
is
Sinai
Moses
absorbed by the
moment
is
conversation seem
ificabatur
yet, at the
all
there
Sic mod-
tanquam
esset
amid
loquentis
all
ad amicwm. 3
But
symbolical, manifested to
him was such anguish to the he burst forth into sighs. Show me
"
may
see
you clearly/
Moses knew
only
spiritual vision of
God, which
is
all
God
"
Ex. xxxiii.
2 Cor.
xii.
2
8
*
1-6.
ch. xviii.
De
"
Trin.
i. ii.
thee
show me thy
glory."
(Ex. xxxiii.)
171
We
might explain
in the
The passage
state of
And
if
we could succeed
in penetrating
we should be
where
be placing ourselves
outside
and nothing
shall see
is
No man
"
me and
One
and
Being/ or of mystic
seers,
ness.
The
intelligence,
having
of
the
powerless
falls
is
alienation
"
and the
deficient.
of inner per
During natural
;
and because
is
where
On
De
Genesi ad litteram,
i.
xii.
eh.
i.
ii.
iii.
172
SYMBOLISM
tense,
mind remains
and when
it
it
of external perception,
strata, at the
is
ideation are to be
accomplished.
change in the
is
it
is
expressed
says
Mr. Eibot,
"
activity
empiricists), but
high degree of
determination,
abstractness and
absence of
1
feeling."
all
limit or
excludes
all
individual
is
in such cases, in
artificial
"
aid.
For
this
alienatio mentis
spoken of
and
we have
to
all
an Infinite which,
our concepts.
is
qualitatively, is the
most meagre of
The
in
set
in
motion
it
in to render
Les maladies de
MYSTIC ALIENATION
the absolute present and
sense of
its
"
173
comes
to lose the
"
felt
is
and
if it
own
identity,
it
In the mystic
The
we may not
alienation
may
added
to
We
think, not
possibilities,
but
it
means of
vital tion.
alienation
that
is,
and
simple
"
in
the language
of
Kant,
hypotheses."
man
the
called
by physiologists and
"
alienatio mentis
would
occur,
and
such
art
as a
"
progress
The
child,
suddenly
would
feel
still himself,
fail
but also
much
to recognize
was greater
in the
sum
would join
"in
it
We
174
regard to character.
SYMBOLISM
Let us imagine what would occur
if
man
practised in all
consciousness of a
man
aliena
imagined.
of
in mathematical continuity
in space,
nor are
to the
same has no
the passage from the same to the other, which has laws.
The power
Life,
is
of the
of
we have been
studying.
The mystic
We
shall
:
make no lengthy
nothing
is
physiological
comments
on the subject
"
"
unity of action
web
of our
But on
this subject
we
MYSTIC ALIENATION
Saint Francis de
Sales,
175
"
speaks as
follows
it
This soul,
and as
were melted by
all
loving sorrow
disposed to
its
receive impressions
lover.
supreme
The memory was almost obliterated in the recollec tion of this divine love, and the imagination wholly bent on representing to itself the wounds and bruises which the eyes
were seeing
at that
moment
in a perfectly clear
and present
image
its
transformed
Then
its
the sorrowful
lover just as
it
can so
was
made
wounded
with which
heart."
We
could
ill
do we need to
utmost, our
add anything
to
them.
They confirm,
to the
Traite de
f Amour de Dieu,
i.
176
SYMBOLISM
IV.
Criterion of Mysticism.
Occultism.
II.
III.
I.
mysti
(1)
point
of
departure
desire, for
we can expect no
occultism,
belief
must be renounced
fall
below
itself, its
instead of rising
above
itself,
negation of any of
essential principles.
has
loss for
his
Reason and
is
The
long, as
is
lamentable.
of
"
Occultism
"
may
The
be grouped
all
the
common
and the
birds,
removed from us
rise to
the
less
gross
177
outside the
individual
persistent
relations
empirical world.
Subtle
manifestations of
spirits
it
have
was be
of
"conversing
dead."
certain
number
of
people of leisure
still
this pursuit;
There
is
still
quite a
number
of
phenomena
by
in the sense
super-empirical
of occultism
?
intervention.
Do
they
Towards
all
these events
We
and
are not in
less
life,
still
"
so
and these
psycho-
mystic
facts, these
we know
about
it.
in bringing
it
would
here below of
all
wonder.
But
all
we have
12
in
in
common
has no
178
SYMBOLISM
"the
new,"
but
impulse
is
is
to discover
"the
better."
The
true field of
Mysticism
Our minds
own moral
Mysti
"
autonomy, there
cism.
it is
is
It can
no more be
shocked
scientifically
than
the
Possible
"
which
is
of
Eeason
is
Infinite.
II.
Even
if
we
show only
s till
Unknown, we
its
shall
Mystic
bolism.
Sym
find that Mysticism,
though true in
ten
imper
:
It is this evil
so
much
that
"
reality."
"
the reality
is
the object
which they
express
to the Reason,
will.
impress on the
It is necessary in
Symbolism to make a
precise estimate
elements.
is
In
fact,
we
null,
do nothing but make up for our inability to grasp things Prom the point of view of Absolute Good in themselves."
and Truth,
it
would be better
1
if
Pensees,
art. xv. 5.
179
:
We
as objective;
is
a superstition to
is,
Unfortunately
and
see
to us.
We
and
to propositions
stated,
and not
to the unreal
symbol
we
In
this
way
it
has
happened that
human weakness
dictory essence,
the Infinite,
"
as
sacred
"
of
subjectivity,
detached both
we
which
An
may
our Freedom to
God
may
to carry
and passion.
It has
con
an object of
desire
all
the passions.
180
and
as they seek place
SYMBOLISM
in consciousness irrationally, they
easily
the consciousness.
their
The passions inspire themselves after own fashion and translate themselves symbolically into
"
"
it,
and
not to be
More
frequently
it
without, and
Mystic In-
by
direct illu
fail
to
and in
It
intelligence
is
really
injured
thereby.
has
been said
fool.
that the
man
precise
object
is
to
procure for us at
we
refresh
Infinite,
vital faith
which
impervious to
evil.
there
it
is
the fool/
While
and
strive to
extend the
field of
is
own
vision,
it
often
of mediocre
absorb a strong
symbols as pos
own poverty
of conception
The
181
the
common burden
life
of all
who have
no
Having
the
law of Freedom.
Let us add
is
that,
man
has
"
enough
heart,"
he
The symbols
examples of
this.
Primitive
men
(if
we
to explain
phenomena
or to criticise their
in all things
;
own
them
to give
more
force to their
errors.
IV. but
its
,
as a
mystic malady,
it is
degraded
takes
possession
it
ot
us
p essimi3m
and Mysticism.
yields, as
Time
is
The
to
known
to be without purpose.
It is
no
inability to
attain
in
which we are
"
ideally
In vain do we
our concep-
182
tions to extend
SYMBOLISM
beyond
all
conceivable space
. .
.
we
shall only
is
What
man
1
The
me."
man
The
not
state as
moral Pessimism.
The
come conscious
but to
reflect
of
it,
but in order to
"
above
it,
I have
with Pascal
that I
am
conscious of
it,"
and
infinite,
but
in
which, at
least,
I can
advance
if,
in
definitely
But
if
by mis
succeeds
man
pends on
it,
is
all is
lost.
which
defies
our
its
outside,
and convinced of
own
and
rise, falters
Pascal, Penaees, a
1.
&
a xxv., 17 bis.
WE
initiative
and what
the value of
its
symbolic creations,
since
it
itself
There
human and
ifestations
universal fact,
we ought not
to tolerate the
man
of the Understanding;
futile.
"
more than
is
this
would be
false
and
But
if
the Absolute
in us as moral necessity or
Postulate/
it will still
how
is
that
Freedom
unites directly
we
shall call
"
the
Heart."
CHAPTER FIRST
THE ABSOLUTE AND FREEDOM
L
THE MODERN IDEA OF FREEDOM, AND THE MYSTIC CONCEPTION OF THE DIVINE WILL
Subordination of the Reason to
"
I.
the
Heart."
II.
Freedom and
the Idea of
Reconciliation of
Determinism
of
choice
"
divine
"
WE
times,,
in
speaking of the
consciousness
mystic
Subordina6
fact,
the
Absolute
enters
the
this sense
we
of
it
in-
ReLonto
Pascal
phrase,
"God
known
the
must
the Heart
"
is
nothing else
for disinter
it
"power
When we
must
by
itself;
so that the
acquired
such intuitions
on
its
own
185
expressible
from within only, and this growth consists of things not in concepts and in acts of such a nature as
Heart in opposition to
as
much
as
it is
Freedom,
would be impossible
for
it
to be absolutely opposed
the Heart
is
two powers
the
active
all
an implicit of Eeason and Love, in which those subordinate. are Desire, which is only
really
essence
of of
Eeason, surpasses
Dialectics,
in swiftness
and
us
energy
process
and
is
1
able
It
is
to
give
intuitions
the Heart,
The mind
call,
is
the Heart
"
and
Freedom."
Between
this feeling
the Absolute,
lieve,
we
great
we be
itself
more
free."
The
"
"
intuition
ch.
ii.
Kant
"
pure Reason, but he makes it expressly understood that it is not which is claimed for Reason, but an extension of penetrating view
"
more
use
its
in another
relation."
We
other
we
what
"
this
may
be.
In our opinion
it
and
186
inner sense
tells
it is
beings
(if
like ourselves
between physical
it
subjection
and moral au
above
itself to
tonomy.
Reason,
is
we ask
if
there
call
is
"
hypothetically
Perfection
"
the Absolute/
:
There
it is
this
As
it is
by moral
Law
man
autonomy,
so,
is,
by
re
peated victories of
to
A man
would in
this
way
contract a habit
it
which
at first
this
"
limit
of
approximation which we
Perfection
or
"
the Absolute/
"
Such
is
the
sense of these
1
in itself Goodness and Duty, and transcending motion and desire, the action itself cannot be called contradictory. It has been expressed by Kant in very a holy will whose maxims accord of necessity with laws of autonomy (Fond, de fa Met. des Mosurs, p. 89) and he builds St. Thomas has logical foundation of Personality upon this definition. more simply, Voluntas non hunc solum habet actum, ut appetat quse
intelligible
terms
"
the
"
the
said
"
non
illis."
(St.
Thomas,
q. xix., a.
i.
ad.
2 urn.)
187
dim
truly, of the
means
alone."
impress
divine
Kant
with Inspiration
that both
fact of
condition
notion
on^e*
be found again in
11
vine Will
6
Inwardness of
some
implicit
actually
present
to
the
consciousness.
The middle
reproached, and
is
the idea of
Good."
of the
Good from
were
depths of
Practical
Eeason."
The idea of
the possible
"
How
the
it,"
or again
Where
is
Crit. Crit.
insists at length
Good,"
(ib.
pp.
it,
upon the
idea of
"
distinctions
"
the
carries
with
This
is
we
venture to dispute.
188
we know nothing except that they extend to all and every Necessity, as we have seen already, is not to be thing ?
confounded with universality
;
it
which have
in
to say, a principle
The
is
be nothing.
We
Moral Law, an
"
Act,"
that
is
to say,
the Implicit to
make
itself
explicit.
Now
and
Good.
to its
Sensorial being
would
limit the
Good
own
life
consumes
itself
Reasonable being
life is
conceives the
slender thread
"universal"
Good, of which
only a
yet
neither
is
the
Good
in
itself,"
to
which
all
properly a
mystic
when he proposed
upon
its
Reason be
its
own
end, founded
Why
men
?
does
Personality confer
radical right,
source of
all
means by other
prudence
With Kant
nothing of the
doubly remark
as
"
Dignity,"
"
on the one
is
side,
Respect
or the
1
"
but
it
"
Person,"
Now,
this
It
is
not so
much
because
it
is
Person has sublimity, but because it gives that law to itself, and is not subject Fond, de la Met. des Moeurs, p. 87.) to it on any other condition." (
189
being in
"excess
of pure
Reason."
1
It
was an unacknowl
Enable a
man
to feel, in
dialect
a part of an
"
and I understand
the
in
sublimity of
human
dignity."
man
is
found to be in a relation
once of identity
witli
and
of
quite
is
Good."
The Good
justifies
capable
"
of
infinity,
and
by that
the
categorical
character of Duty.
Whenever we
find a cate
gorical imperative
at
if if
we have
one extremity or the other of Existence our will decides in favor of divine desire
appetite conquers.
is
a mental oper
in the
less
is
subjective aspect of
"divine
Law
"
consciousness
that
is
in us of eternally
"practical
Reason
is
sovereign
is
own
interests."
(Crit.
R.
prat. p. 327.)
190
The autonomy which Kant pointed out so well as lying beneath all Duty must be carefully kept pure; and the
concept of the divine Will
ficed should this
must be unhesitatingly
altered.
sacri
autonomy be thereby
is
But
in our
"Per
and inde
terminate
still
"that
"
less
is
it
would be
midable,
etc.
is
the Good.
it
We
Perfection
the
"
because
of
combines
impression
subjectivity
from the
"
divine
Will."
But
in the meanwhile, as
we go on
is
the
Good,
to its
let
own
into
the
"dull
circle"
of those
or
as
the
divine
Will, an
object, in the
we
objectivate things
is
feel
is
"ourselves,"
we
yet
feel
that
it
infinitely sur
passes
us.
Mysticism has
so that
our
life
may be
its
ambition
must confine
itself
constantly increasing
namely
it
that
"
the
Kingdom
of
God
is
within
us,"
and that
is
without bounds.
III.
The Kantian
notion,
it
must be confessed,
is
at
191
"
free/
or even
absolute/
relations ?
We
ception of
Freedom.
Does the
scientific spirit
mean
that Determinism
is
to have
universal sway ?
Be
it
so,
may
indifferent/
1
it
must not
"Freedom."
Determinism would
the
continuity
of
things
to us.
But
if
the
mind
so that
"systems
or
"actions"
result,
science
should not be
it
into
account.
The source
of
in
things
is
of
no consequence to
science.
We
feel
that
more than
in
the
the
phenomena
spontaneities
which
that
arise
from
it,
and
or
we
"
feel
that
"
we
with
call
"
"Life"
Freedom
anarchy
cannot be synonymous
but
it
confusion
tells
"
or
"
"
is
not
science
which
us
"
this.
"
order
"Necessity
reduced to
nothing, for
call
it is
not even
necessary
contingency, in opposi
is,
on the contrary, a
:
rinconnaissable, Rev.
192
necessity
Good
is
to itself
its
own
"To
be to
;
itself its
own end/
of
Freedom
man
tions of deliberation
minism
is
"divine Will."
Freedom
is
mid
way between the two, and the word must be used with
to
respect
man
alone.
upon a
false
conception of Free
dom.
The
"
Idea
"
is
"
representative
;
effect,
cannot in
its
but the
fact is overlooked
"
Idea posits
itself in
us as
Free
Life
Will,"
it
has affirmed
fact of the
its
is
but a
rule
of the
ideal,
or
if
form
ideas.
The
cannot be
does not
fall
under the
:
now,
real
we do not claim
than
this.
1
for
only Finality
Induction, p. 95.
put into
Du Fondement
de
193
this
Finality no
doubt, but
"
most
important attribute of
science in the least.
the conscious
does
not
concern
Life, compli
cated
with
finality or
it
laws,
and that
therefore although
at least
it
may
sets
up against
no destructive contradiction
It
is
But Freedom
that
itself
quite true
man
invalidates the
fails
laws of
life.
an end which
in every at
which recommences
is
every
It
moment.
Freedom
in
man
only trying
its
wings.
Nevertheless
it
kingdom
of
visible
actions."
fused into
God
is
the Being
who
all
rests
is
wholly
whom
else
drawn
through
In the actual
of our knowledge
it
is
not possible
in
"indifference;"
sense
it
can
no longer be defended.
It
would
not,
In our opinion
194
the attribute of free-will which ends and crowns all our facts
of consciousness should be called
"a
force of
attraction,"
rather than an
"
indifference,"
with the
"
essence
"
of
Freedom.
Indetermiuateness
"
and
contingence
rather
all
and of the
is
will
of others.
Absence of
predeterminations
to
enable us
state
pass
from power
force."
and
is
for us
the
of
"available
Consequently,
if
am
a line
whose influence
is
limited to
"appearing
to
me,"
can any
Becoming?
And
because
my
Free
dom
it
had
No
one thinks
it.
And
lastly, if
my
heart
life
is
so fixed that
vails
in
my
over
the
senses,
there any
reason to
which
Is the
man who
fixes
his heart in
"free"?
Under empirical
other, can only be
conditions,
moral
activity,
like
every
an Evolution.
When
"conduct"
happens
another
it
is
J.-J.
Rousseau
felt
in the
own master
i., iv.,
because I
am
same way. Does it follow that I not master to he another than myself ?
"
am
"
not
my
(f,mile,
195
itself. is
Free
called
dom
"Duty/
itself to
be
felt in
it
is
very
true
that the
facilities
for
it
Good augment
is it
passivity,"
Determinism
is
insists
augmented and
"
sui
"necessary hypothesis;"
it
is
call
"the
divine
divine
Will.
Will,"
We
these words of
Kant
"
s,
It is a supposition necessary
to
IV.
He
feared lest
human
the
"Kingdom of
exists,"
where we know
_
Holiness and
he
among our
which belong
as
much
to passion
We
have,
the Absolute.
The whole
difficulty in the
is,
way
of reaching
inmost of ourselves,
that after
we have
attention,
and
p.
119.
196
The
"
outward,"
upon which we
live, so
fills
up
we
the heteronomy of
principles is
imposed on
us.
Instead
of merely witnessing
all
withdrawn
in
our
free
difficulty get
All
efforts are
merely meant
plain to
man more
within
himself and to
make
him
principles deeper
and more
his
"
first
perceived,
by reason of
of
"
Under
the
name
divine Will
for.
is
it,
"
Duty
the
and
"
"
Freedom,"
1
Holy
and
Free
"
same
is
thing.
"
The
attribute which
duty."
the
power of
If a
man
must come
Freedom.
would only be
made
the machine
Intimations of
us, without
excep
is
personal Eeason.
There
no
if
this necessity,
and
it
senti
Now
the Lord
is
that Spirit
iii.
it,
there
Liberty."
(2 Cor.
17.)
197
no outside power
iny
which
valid for
"
"
my
consciousness.
Xot only
is
it
me
that
is
essentially
my
indi
vidual
acts,
is
among
the functions
of that
"
same
itself as
legislative
When
to be in opposition to
my
must be able
dom, or
it
else
we
so
becomes merely
Neverthe
in himself;
far
from
it.
that this
nat
in
demanding
it
only
it
knows,
if it is
pure, that
cannot
communicate
itself in
any other
Good
in the limits of
actualize itself as
much
will permit,
but regarding
itself as
and
its
proper
it
form being
us.
In this
still
The
198
Good
it
"
is
this
we render
in the one
word
Ideal."
the
Good
is
is
present,
it is
the consciousness
itself
filledyW/ of God,
carried outside of
is
to bring joy,
knowledge,
find room.
This
is
the
"
Faculty of Confidence
faculties,
inherent in Prophecy
"
These
two
seems to
me
J
among
the physical
faculties."
is
found in
all theories of
In
spiration
to
and
it is
neither contrary
to objectivate practical
un
is
It
of
the
The Absolute
is
is
Person
But
as the Absolute
Knowable
which we
possess
it
to introduce
"
some imperative
divine Will/
based only on a
unknown.
work out
perfection in
it
and to suggest to
as
it
199
is
mind
receives
neither
more nor
;
subjective
in
than
all
other
kinds of
progress
there
must be seen
or
it,
an intussusception
even a more
dom. 1
We
capable of
sufficiently
deed the
originality of which
this is
"
not
been
recognized, and
Disinterestedness."
Its originality
But unless
the per
its
natural
if
free
good,
known
some
heroism
"
is
left
V.
The moral
;
mind
of
and
its
.,
supernatural essence.
.,
Kant
looked
upon the
likely to
divine Will
j.
TTT-n
as a
dangerous concept,
is
to
SSJ85SL
ble epo over the empirical ego
.
It is quite
certain that
"
if
the supernatural
attacks
its
"
the moral
Law,
it
essence.
Even
in its boldest
ing Reason on any other side than that of Freedom, and that
of
"
The mysticism of Christianity owes its greatness to these characteristics inwardness and withdrawal into self." Only, its formula should
"
"
"
Redite ad
cor."
200
would
go of Season.
Not even
the symbolic
when he
wrote,
"This
notion that
such and such actions are made respectively good and bad
simply by divine injunction
is
such and such actions have not in the nature of things such
effects.
is
If there
is
not an unconsciousness
l
an ignoring of
"
it."
We
do not believe
"
that
consciousness of causation
there
is
sentiment of
causation"
and the
sentiment of duty
it
must be surmounted.
For
this object,
If mysticism pro
is,
apart from
it
symbols which
arise
with
it
in the consciousness,
nature
of
Duty;
but, in the
the synthesis of the ego and the non-ego, except in the con
it
alone, in
"
in
to its consciousness.
Upon
synthesis
of Determinism and
in the conscious
but identity between the free desires of the Ideal and the
1
volutionniste, p. 43.
201
all
which lead
it
empirically whither
tend
things
with
it.
Kant
scruples
and the
objections
of
empiricism
are
pure Reason.
unaccompanied by
its
influx,
nor
steal in
Perhaps
arise
many misunderstandings
tive
There
is
some psycho
logical factor,
we
As
it
we
is
see
it,
Duty
is
no more determinable
scientifically
than
It
it
must be created
in this
and posited
and
is
Act of
flight
mystic
by divine
favor, or
some new
"
"
syndesis
by which
to
God Himself
Mysteries/
"
has
"
nor any
profane,"
of
Holiness
Other
202
purum
is
penetrat coelum et
infernum"
).
There
with
infinite
it
is
touch
selves
for
an instant for us to
able to reach
our
who were
it
so far.
We
whether
whether
it
brings us
is
it
Name,
needed
is
that
is
our part.
fail
Many
mystics, contemptuous of
common Reason,
to
remember
things
had to detach
some grosser
Reason,
after
part,
the
of
same fashion
in
from
the
side
Adam
"
the
is
and
men.
simple
common
The
tion gives
else.
The notion
of
"supernatural"
and so contrary
their
poets
of
or
philosophers
3
discourse
Duty and
the
marvels
1
Holiness.
De
Trin.
1.
xi. c. iii.
words and actions that august Holiness the heavens where they took birth, laws of which
Olympus alone
will never
men have
a
wipe out
in
them breathes
v. 863.
God
age.
203
"
Whence comes
"
the universal
inclination
all
to
supernatu-
ralize
of ourselves?
opposition
solely
fear
called
"Duty/
and
at
matchless
pangs of
to
and the
delicate
joys which the spirit feels in the urgings of the moral law,
as
as
they
are forbidding
on the
it
other.
itself in
To
Duty when
posits
From
love,
the
moment
of
change into
and divine
;
resist
ance
is
identity
whence we
as all-per
receive the
knowledge
of
an
of
"inner
kingdom/
absolute.
Man
needs only to
make
desires of
and death
us with
by the
ineffable
"
joys of
Freedom which
identify
the Absolute.
ful
is terrified
by the fear
is
power
of the
Law
resist,
open
recognizes
of its
own
l
will,
and thus
it
the
Divinity."
1
t. ii.
p.
581.
204
REEDOM
II.
I.
II.
fall to
III.
The
I.
No
system of
is
not
but
must
also
accompany
^he autonomy.
it
"When
objective, there
danger
lest
it
we recognize
the
in its interior
What
is
and which
"Rever
much
that,
science
and
sincerity to bear
it
upon
traditional
Morals
we must
its
confess,
will
Of
the
all
have served, up to
morally and to
present
qualify
of
human
acts
establish
doctrines
Disinterestedness,
none
are
secure
faith, or from
more
interested
scepticism.
For example,
205
may be
ends
in
the strict
"
sense
required
by
The
it
"
Aristotelian notion of
true,
"
the
Good,"
nearer in
is
does
mark
of
morality
an Object
is
wanting
more
characteristic
The Dogmatist-Mystics, on
Beatitude
The dangers
of Asceticism
All
to
the
other
theories
of
this
if
Duty can
be easily
attributed
Utilitarianism, and
II.
one to Empiricism.
Nevertheless,
re
for
"
Em pi ri cai
re the equi-
immoral
it,
According to
us
to
the
valentofpure g f p|ecTsbe"facto"
consider
of
"
good
and even
"
obligatory
are simply the devices which Life employs against the mis
deeds of egotism
adaptability of
which Humanity
capable,
is,
it is felt
that Life
becoming broader
206
there
is,
of anything
more
in
Duty than
in thirst or
sleep.
There
is
no mistaking such an
idealization.
In morals
But Egotism by
is
itself
not Duty,
Being.
fact to
motion that
it
can
become Knowledge
until
it
it is
supplemented, that
is,
takes from
and not
at all
from things.
It
is
this
though
is
it
Egoism
life,
the
"
tendency to endure
which
is
the root of
in the
by
those
of
Reflection.
What
speak of
"
"expanding" life,
"
breadth
We
assume the
latter hypothesis as
"
more favorable
.
to
Empiricism.
To
"
expand
Life, then,
1 self preservation has been increased by the overruling Throughout of presentative feelings by representative feelings, and representative feelings by re-representative feelings as life has advanced the accompanying sentiency
.
. ;
ideal.
la morale Evolution-
93.
207
is
means
to idealize
it
supposed
re-representa
that
is
The
is
sensible
because
it
the
rest.
If the
it
his
own
tions
conservation
"
"in
this
To be
"
living
is
is
J
not
pre
even the
ferred to
"
minimum
Life,
"
of morality
no one commences to be
man."
In
expanding
itself,
That
much
more than an
cation that
accidental fact
it
it
we can use
as
ought-to-be.
despair,"
must be retained
facts
way when,
1
we
find
it
neces-
In the same way that Life appears to be a resistance to physical forces itself under certain conditions, Freedom
not by opposing
itself,
which may go
independent.
208
sary to attain
ness
alone.
Being.
Empiricism
feels itself
strong as
it
sees
how
helpless
;
Dog
if it
is
matism
is
is
to point out
but
no
individual
Good which
since
it
fits
man, and
is
in such a
man
that
we must seek
the
model of our
pirical
"
species,
we
beyond em
fact.
The
all
Sage
know
the Absolute as he
knows
it
shall
and he needs
at least to feel
its
The Good
of
Eeason
is
not Life
"
it
reflecting consciousness as
something
to
Not
only
is
the
mind unable,
after
reflection,
is
stop at materialistic
say
it
suffice.
it
part, those
who
cannot
1
a happiness which
is
purely negative.
Life
is
not static
it
to be quickened,
not from the outside alone, but also with a moral stimulation
"
the
sentiency of Reason/
We
feel;
"
as
much need
to will as
we have
"
to see
and to
We may
1.
(Od.
iii.
ode
desiderantem quod satis est but such a state would be the very triumph of moral ambi
describes,
"
" "
man who
moderateLet us not forget that it was this Non omnis moriar ( 1. iii. ode xxx.). cried out,
209
living.
Direct observation of
is
facts teaches us
not, as
it
has been
called, a disease of
Freedom.
infinity
and
as
Pessimism.
Freedom,
seeking, in the
other, that
resist this
We
mod
But
which
by choosing
is really
to place
"
Wisdom
in a practical
useful."
eration which
only
Reason
the
animal
an overwhelming sad
maenads. 2
in
"
such a
a state
way
as to
show
man
"
moral vigor often engenders down below his Reason and his Duty. The
"
mind
of
man,"
says
Hume,
is
ceeding either from the unhappy situation of private or public affairs, from ill health, from a gloomy or melancholy disposition. ... It is also subject to un
accountable elevation and presumption proceeding from prosperous success, from
luxuriant health, from strong spirits, or from a bold and confident disposition.
ceptions, to
In such a state of mind, the imagination swells with great but confused con which no sublunary Beauties or enjoyments can correspond."
But if many men well-endowed (Essais moraux et pohtiques, I2e essai.} both in character and fortune have been subject to these phenomena, we are com
pelled to maintain the
species
2
is
commonplace of
"human sadness,"
which
for the
whole
nothing but want offaith in that Freedom where the Absolute dwells. The man who adapts the purpose of his life to external conditions will
have to redesceud successively every stage of being, and bend to, submit to, and From that time he identify himself with the things whose shock he dreads.
will see only evils in the
feeling,
in existence itself; for all these things are contradicted by the outside world,
and
at last he will
come
supreme good
E.
BOUTROUX, De
14
210
it
Freedom
is really
the
"
power
taken no
we
"
say
in
it
life
or
"
thought/
Seen in
this light,
Freedom has
is
the element
of the mystical.
Nothing
more un
scientific
the ego.
III.
What
it
must be borne
mind
fact
it
dominates them.
In
order to
know
if
it
this aspiration,
must
first
fact,
de
Knowing
and on
this exclusive
ground
it
has no objective
to
value,
kind of
"false start"
into the
Unknowable.
Subjectively
we
the
God
all
more gentle because we make Him in our own image ; but On the of positive acquisitions there would be none at all.
1
211
of Life,
it
is
by a necessity which
fact enters the
is
The mystic
opening,
whole
through
this
Does
we may
It does not
we must never
always contained
all
that was
known
and
in the
Morals and
reli
gion,"
we
Savage
animism
to
is
almost
the
educated moral
1
"
mind
is
the
"
very
mainspring of
practical
religion."
Eudimentary
all
relations, it
life
may
be,
the moral
that he
civilization
new
itself
data,
means to unite
is
More
is
the question
thesis against
inward
"
mystic
fact."
"We
symbols de
It
is
not surprising
Tylor, Primitive
Region,
t.
ii.
pp. 464-406.
212
that
have occa
sionally
nature; but
among
the masses
who have
suffered religious
has
God, and there have been souls in which the Ideal was
strong
enough
to
pierce
through
veils of
forms to shine
Were Mysticism
"
"
Knowl
edge
and
"
metaphysical explanations/
its
exclusion
of moral progress,
more than a learned Fetishism, and there would be nothing left for us but to condemn it radically. But it is, in fact,
the exact contrary.
the
of
place
of
pure
the
Reason to
effect
the moral
to
effect
we
fact,
new
all
or mathematical, etc.
the
mind does
is
Reason,
etc.,
in
Freedom.
When, under
in us
Wisdom assumes
is
accomplished;
of
that is to say,
at
that
moment an
alienation
as
the
state
our Freedom,
as mystic
the
The
213
it
ness,
cold
life
and calm
into
in its sublimity
that
seems to
send the
its
recall it to
organic centres,
the thing
it
we
act
and
is
this
fact
of
moral alienation
the mystic alien
which
ation,
gives
nobility to
all
it
the
rest of
at the
of
consciousness.
be un
fact
representative."
itself
and
said
love,
endeavors
that
it
to
inspire
or
rather,
it
should
be
receives
an impression of eternity,
the
some Grace,
sense and
in short
(we use
word
in
the
natural
Reason
Life.
sufficient
impetus to
arouse
it
the pure
Good
for
which the
We
Detemina* 011
but
it
must be confessed
that Disinterestedness
T-v
ra l
is
it
Good, divine
and human
to s ether -
is
at
some
intelligible
End,
if
Though
strated
this
End
it
cannot be demon
it
by any
therein.
force of reasoning
that
is
wholly con
real
tained
and
214
desirable
the
salvation
of humanity.
in
time, but in
connection
it
matters
little.
as
much
in
the
call
"
interests
proper to
salvation."
human
life
as
what Mystics
eternal
When
once the
supreme
remains to be
known whether
suffice to preserve
is
constant value.
this
to
become so con
The claim
is
Reason
cannot
by
its
own
means reach
some
it
sovereign
is
Good
pure, and an
It does not
seem
made
concrete, or the
Good
"
by
rationalist processes.
"
The expressions
"the
Impersonal
Eeason,"
the
Beautiful,"
Good,"
"
much
of
objectiveness as the
it
"
Ideas
of Plato.
To speak
them
must by
be, as
we
directing the
mind
to the results
But on
etc.,
which we
1
call in
one word
"
facts of
Eeason,"
Kant says that the determining cause of the will ought not to be the rep resentation of an object, for the Supreme Good would thus be brought into the empirical sphere. agree with him in that we propose to Freedom no other end than itself (human deliverance). Its symbols are not like the
We
representations
p. 157.)
as empirical.
(Crit.
de la raison pratique,
215
and what are
make them
intelligible;
"
we
of
to
do
"
to assimilate to our
to
mind
the
word
know)
the
very
it
things
which constitute
the
the mind.
We
belongs to
mystic
where
"
but above
all to
recognize,
"
their character of
exces-
It
is
to think the
fix
noumenon
upon our
In
the ideal
failure.
it
that
holds
away from
them
as
from
idle
them nothing of
itself.
it
comes to
inform with
formations;
itself.
aspire
to
remove
of Disinterestedness to cause a
man,
in fact
and quocumque
but to make
him
bids
resolve
defiance to all
maxims
of
La Rochefoucauld.
it
If there
is
for Mysticism,
is
of which I
216
particle of
my
me
when I
to impress
moral
The Absolute
men, potentially
and I must
in
itself;
Every
man
is
own
deems
a
"
"
it
"
Person"
in Time, or
whether he regards
it
as
Soul
for
Heaven.
Disinterestedness, therefore,
is
The Act
of
accompanied
by symbols which bring the Absolute before the Imagina tion, whence it flows into the Eeason, and lastly shows
itself to
Freedom.
Eeason,
logically,
;
without
in
his
between them
turn
this
man becomes
mystical
only
the
when
the
Heart
effects
meeting
with
Absolute.
When
first,
that
it
is
second,
that nothing
is
more
desir
man
He
beyond things
Life,
relative
that perfectly
organic
work
in
we
things,
but he
217
make
it,
there
is
really
If
any one
wishes to call
it
mystic
and only
recalls to
mind
Good
is
Here we must be
the
careful.
Good
is
not for us to
of pleasures, but as an
for
End which
all
seeking,
and
which
it
aspires through
ascending adaptations
towards Humanity.
for myself,
it
When
I have idealized
my own
life
my
good) that
it
should extend
possible,
my
see
life,
it,
my
time,
my
Good
as I
Infinite?
"
Or does
"
Science warn
me
to
excessive
and
is
may be
realized
still
has a
it,
why
218
soul and
upon Duty.
To warn him
merely that
if
the
Disinterestedness,
should be enough.
Do we
and
an
in an act of free
feels
Whether mystic or
stoic or empiric,
is
Morals must
always be human.
Mystic pleasure
remarkable phenomena of
man
inner
Its claim to be
itself.
Y.
Asceticism
is
it
tends to displace
it
to a sphere of
where our
T
The
tll Absolute
desires
./,
is
tendecy to isc
late
man
in
the Absolute,
"
....
is
to
be
divinely
informed
is
life
itself,
and especially
social life.
Mystic
in
acts
designed
to
and
definitively
Personality.
create
world
to
say,
an entity
all
the
219
but that
it
more negative
tends to
all
as
we endeavor
to enlarge
it,
make
God
is,
then,
practically and
"surplus,"
the
fruits
of which
we
find
in
ourselves
and
find
in every reasoniug
this
creature.
seeks
to
surplus
outside of
himself, by means of
direct
is
John
affections astray,
if,
after
be
from
coming aware of its Object, it desires this life, and under pretext of
to
remove
it
altogether
infinity tries to
escape
Nature suggests to
the naive forms of
us,
in
"instincts,"
laws
"which
of themselves
upon
all
evolution
in
the
mobile
of
"becoming,"
opposed
divided
to itself in Life
and
in
Freedom
or man, thus
would
"
find
himself essentially
doomed
to Evil. 2
1 If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he
seeth
not?"
(1
John
iv.
20-21.)
Although Love
as well as
Reason may
its
its
object
still
Men
are
never displaced the object must always be in Life. to be found," says Spencer, "who regard voluntary sufferis
;
220
a certain
is
we may be
;
certain that
being protected
perative,
it is
im
because an ideal
Freedom, and
its
transcendence appears in
Life
is
us
really
own
destruction.
to
which finds
way
to us positively, either
practically,
all
purposes
the
Absolute are
contained
in
the
word
Loving-kindness.
gives
solidarity
is
But
to
fruitful
disinterestedness
which
not
root of Asceticism.
Too
often
it
has leaned
"
pessimism.
We
shall
die
"
alone,"
says
Pascal,
1
therefore
it is
we must
live
as
But
a purer mysticism
life
when
were
man throws
as
though
it
forever,
and does
Empirical morals
this
and mysticism
"to
thought
be a
member ...
no
life
favor."
with
Pensees,
art. xiv.
1.
59
his.
221
Spirit"
be universalized.
For
this
it
reason
in
its
brutal
it
when
individualization
is
the
On
another
side
sternly
on
the
spiritual
as
it
to
conceive
of
Spirit
in
moral op
always, as
position
to
Life;
it
should have
been
called
Pascal calls
rious
efforts
of
the body,
to
to
conceive
the
Good
outside of
Humanity
ought never
Not even
appears as
"
Human/ and
as such
belongs to us.
the Stoics, any
It is a
God
God
should
What good
to
surround
The
Absolute for us
life
only a reflection
which
it
falls
upon our
Every one
and
idealizes
Whence
does
come?
Infinite.
But
when we speak
of
we must not
attribute substance to
222
III.
I.
II.
III. Excessive
IV. Reverence
is
a manifesta
The moral
of effects only.
The Moral
"We
may
say that
its
as those
f the senses.
The Will,
itself.
Accord
to Love, or
recoils at
an apprehension of Modesty,
Com
etc.
What
is
the principle of
by images
of
Motion ?
is
Perhaps
this is
what
is
the
Morality resolves
itself
by
most
original,
are
Sincerity, Courage,
Honor, Reverence,
Now, we
a tendency which
is
excessive
"
to Life.
223
We
cerity.
is
This virtue
is
like
the
of
identity
is
in
in
Without
want
and the
called
loveliest
"
the moral
the
identity
purity
of
intention,"
most
immoral.
is
An
"Duplicity,"
we
carry
to
the
last
sincerity to
is
we
shall see
that
an unfruitful and
itself,
nothing of
and that
is
There
we need look
;
it
is
simply to
the
Good
to the True,
a fundamental
What
better definition of
as
the
contrary
of
"
violence
"
Violence
being
only a
is
courage
all
There
could be
no
To pure
is
noth
component elements.
Courage
and
it
is
is
224
for
is
said,
it
it
quite
as
impossible
measure
is
Freedom
as
is
to
something
in excess
of
life.
We
may perhaps
succeed
in
measuring
the
intensity
it,
of
sentient desire
and
we may succeed
same
phenomena, but in
regulative factor.
is
only a
is
of consciousness, intellectually as
"
concepts/ or morally as
actions
"
and empir
In order
tendency
ical,
which we
Character,"
is
constituted.
is
to
really this
in
we must observe
in
that
it
is
something
generally experienced
life,
the
in a state
culture.
it
from
all
the
is
Absolute
the
presence
of the
Absolute in
Freedom
Conduct.
Absolute character,
transfers
we have refused
state
to
allow to Duty.
is
induced
is
a patho
sensibility
is
not susceptible
of
225
Suicide
of this
less instructive.
when
own
limited and
we have no wish
is
to live,
This
The
in fact,
categorical
lie
after
its
own manner,
Con
not in
and
life
to itself,
unless something
it
other than
should have
place with
in It
the
is
commit
this
suicide.
When
negation
man, of
of
seeks
extinction,
practical
the
Absolute
testifies
that
we have
it.
in our
if
Courage,
only
it
is
one which
itself
can find
Freedom
into
the
explanation
of
that Mysticism
which
is
preva
lent in
epochs
degenerate, and
manifesting
itself
in
false
appearances of
the mental
we
There
is
no better symptom of
the
his
Cf.
ii.
sec. iv.
226
senses,
his
and even
his
Keligion.
Mysticism,
de Sales, has
seat at the
"
mind
in order
debauch
"
all
our powers.
The
Whenever
some object
it
has been
practically
inexhaustible
of
its
if
not
infinite, it
it
is
own
activity;
actualizes itself
in
of its actions,
it
comes
like
vicissitudes, is
in
Freedom.
III.
If
an objective
call it
"
definition of
Honor may be
allowed,
we might
Excessive ana mystic nature of Honor.
Consciousness."
Sub-
jectively
Honor
is
to
resolve
into
empirical
elements a feeling
2
If,
is
which
is
at
Honor
cere.
.
.
Amor ex Deo natus est nee potest nisi in Deo, super omnia creata quiesAmor leve facit omne onerosum et fert sequaliter omne insequale. Amor plus affectat quam etc. (De Imit. Christi, 1. iii., ch. v.)
.
.
valet,"
The
the reality
"
Suppose a
man
is
is
calumniated
there
is
on
Nor
this all
may bring on
ill
health.
Hence the
flagitiousness
(Spencer,
evolutionniste, p. 50.)
227
is is
Person, which
all
is
of
Honor,
it
beyond
"
parallel,
excessive/
Therefore
is
but
logical not
itself.
"
to
exchange
the basis
this
good
for the
good
is
of
even Life
At
of duelling there
blood redeems
Honor
It has
is
due entirely
;
than Life
and
as proof of this
we need only
the fact
Oath
at every
epoch of history.
The
Oath
is
religious character.
will
We
upon
the assurance
"
that
;
man
"
put nothing on a
Oath
consists precisely
and
solely in thus
mind,
is
IV.
"
impersonal
and
it
it
well
that
it
should be
ig
kept
.
there.
,
Nevertheless,
-,-r
must always be
impress
in case
said Reverence
i
that
it
,
the
moral
as
Law
"
cannot
"
us
of
unless
its
,
which
pa
is
appears
i
fact
as
real
ft
,
l*^*
Absolute.
"
TTT
senses.
We
experience
"
it first
Dignity
springs
from
it.
When
when we
228
ence,
it
only the
reflected in
them.
identity
of
the
general
:
man who
respects
nothing."
But what
?
is
Respect,
when
We
have here an
we
Eespect has
its
birth
same
:
act
by which our
first
sentiments of duty
to our Reason,
formed
it
is
It
Reason
to
dwelt in the
region of concepts
surpasses
abstract
in
but
all
it
is
extent
possible
All
the
ideas
not
possibly
bring
has no
means of access
to
us
V.
Modesty
it
is
even
less explicable if
we
insist
on exclud
ing from
Modesty the
mystic pride of Reason.
The empirical
accompanies
it,
moral Law.
It is an assemblage of facts,
How,
then, has
itself into
the consciousness ?
as
The
prehistoric data
explanation
is
229
in
is
mystic
Consciousness
in
the
two systems.
According
to
Empiricism
is
barbarism
The mystics
Kingdom which
they
name
"the
state of Innocence."
It is
excellence
of things
and
Beneficence.
we
the
call
man
s first
sin,
say
Ideal.
They
rely
upon Progress
to do
explicable
perturbations
human
consciousness suffers,
state
and
they
believe
will
that
its
the
mystic
dream of a
of
Innocence
find
actual accomplishment in
Humanity.
here
The
scientific
But
just
we
The
endeavoring to assert
;
its
transcendence
this instinct
and although
it is
found to exist
is
useless.
The
susceptibilities
of
as
pathological
phenomena;
No
we
believe, unless it
230
is
son to
is
only
rule,"
Reason
finds
servitude
irksome, and
specially
dislikes
She
is
and
strives
by stratagems
effectively possess.
It will be perceived
that
it
completely retains
mystical character.
VI.
Benevolence,
is
still
less susceptible of
definition than
Modesty,
The
contradic-
^ on
dialectically.
foundation
Heart,"
as its
own
the
But
pure essence
that which
ordinarily
experienced, mingled
and
enveloped
with other
absorbing motives,
essence which
we
Even admitting
of
men
or
are
rarely
good,
it
pride
self-interest,
is
more
rare
to
find Benevolence
to lose
disinterestedness
which would
make
the
true
"Kingdom
231
God
"
here
below.
etc.
It is perhaps the
same
is
in
an idea could
gift of
one
"
self
so-called,
of
our Freedom,
could never be
made from
In the
sight of Reason
relation of
opposed to another in a
the Law.
Now, we
origin.
The
itself
con
name
of
and
violate at its
"
own
of
cuique suum
time,
liberty,
Altruism,
its
rational
more
to lose than
;
of instinct
and of
in
stinct also,
must not exaggerate, however, what we The acts of moral contradictions, of Benevolence/
We
alienation
232
empirical
"
in
The
ego,"
which
is
not wholly in
appear before
itself empirically,
It feels
them
first in
itself,
it feels
them outside of
itself,
as
an object without
In
this
way
it
of Egotism.
The
sense
of
the
divine, or the
immutable
Good comes
and
it
down deep
Good always remains wholly belonging to the ego outside of Time, in common with all the other reasoning beings to whom
it
may
"
devote
itself.
"
We
word
contradiction
by that of
transcendence."
The
does not
it
know how
said that
to construct,
must be
Reason participates
"
able degree.
Not
2
only
a fool
has
not
enough
stuff
in
him
to be
good,"
"
but Genius
itself is specially
manifest in
the kind of
Heart."
We
We
recognize that this intuition could not take place by means of abstrac
tions and concepts, nor could it be obtained by ordinary reflection. To obtain for one s self that effectual vision of attributes which renders man distinct in the
order of empirical things, a more advanced condition of reflection and one which places the consciousness in a symbolic state is necessary. Thence comes
the mystic nature of Benevolence.
2
La Rochefoucauld, Maxime
ccclxxxvii.
233
Courage
is
really the
it
itself;
as
Benevolence,
that inner world of souls which has for Space only the indi
visible
Good everywhere
all
diffused.
It
is
of this
Kingdom,
in
which
spirits
which adds
Blessed are
"
God
Heart
and
this,
to
it
Reason
at
first
sight
when
degree
a soul
of
is
capable of
life
possesses
the
is
highest
mental
at
and
in
moral
all
life.
There
nothing to
wonder
;
any more
Freedom
of the
whatever they
same, because
may
it is
God.
is
accomplished, and
God
gives
Benevolence which
life
is
called
"
love of souls/
is less
To
transfer
self to
another
than to transfer
the Reason
and
if
Infinity, it is
when
Freedom of
others.
When
Matth.
v. 5.
principle of intellectual creation, like that of every other kind, is con tained in the magnanimous and unreasoning The genius of the . gift of self. .
.
The
is
P.
BOUEGET, Disconrs de
234
The man
Life,
who
carries
views like
these
is
into
the
work of
of
"
mystical
affections.
In
this
case Benevolence
depends
itself
human
If
we were
to give a
name
to the emotions
without disturbing
its
inner
call it
outside of
itself,
we should
Infinite."
CHAPTER SECOND
THE ETHICAL FUNCTION OF SYMBOLS
I.
I.
Good
moral inspiration.
The
and
The universal
"
divine Vision
"
tianity, Rationalism,
and Positivism.
:
The Mysticism of
Jacobi.
III.
accompany
IV. Absolute verity of the symbols given to the moral consciousness. Their esotericism.
V. The function of Grace.
VI. The Relations of moral and esthetic symbolism.
Eloquence.
I.
Concerning
The Absolute, by
this time, is
an abstraction, or
bally the
limit, as it were,
unpre
of
e
meditated na-
all
prin- g
rai
and which
is,
Life, Reason,
and Freedom.
all
Now,
of ever
andrepreseutative of the
made up
moral object.
renewed
it
and as
will
will create
jtp
extend
functions,
we may
236
in
human Freedom
means
of
Good
only,
and
for
to realize the
Good more
it is
of
life itself.
Essentially
to
con
be
stantly
aspiring
renew
its
youth.
If
it
were to
interestedness could
would be
at an end,
and
it
would
also be the
more
They might
has gone on,
to outside
how
it
life
has given
The
Knowledge
effort,
merely a condi
tion, exists in
us as a state of
which
it
fixed about
shall
them except
their purpose,
which
is
that
man
If
we recog
precisely
it is
because
this
kind of
activity
escapes
the
calculations
of
When
good
or
"
generous
will,"
it
It
would be foolish to
dialectics,
when
it
is
a question of speaking
it
237
"ego"
Good.
;
It is a
moment when
ordinary
tion. 1
speech
is
not enough
"
there
must be Inspira
for
The Absolute
"
appears/
Heart."
one
instant, manifest
to the
If in that there is
it
any
mechanism
to be demonstrated scientifically,
seems to us to
be that of Hallucination.
sciousness in this
sent to
it
The images which reach the con manner and which unite together to repre
all
symbolic
him
alone,
much
the same
way
"
mystical
It is not, at
has
"
created
"
inspiration,"
partakes
of
it.
Even
in
uneventful
life,
of which every
man
though
it
it is
1 Kant is far too abstract in his Typique de la raison pure pratique. would not be possible for the moral conception to realize itself under the Rationalism of Judgment." conditions which he sums up in the expression it requires representations (See Crit. de la raison pratique, p. 238-244)
It
"
and
as these representations
s apprehensions. There they will be symbolical. is nothing so difficult and dangerous as the symbolic conception of the Abso
(in this
Kant
is
right),
lute.
"
has
reasons
"
and
its
is
mys
tri
ticism which, by mere superiority of desire, has kept free of fanaticism and
self-contradiction.
No
its
umph
of Arc.
238
many times
over.
Any
which the
will is
thrown out of
itself, is
quite
enough
to call it forth,
would be dangerous
and to refuse
to to
abandon
Duty
know
it
The
legislative
its
character of
power of Reason, and the axiomatic judgments, therefore, must be preserved above
everything
else.
The mystic
influence
of symbols has no
all
men
as rules of
conduct.
ineffectual
influence
as
we speak
of
is
is
it
in
common
ism
itself
obligation,
and above
true.
all
The most
notions of our
"
ought to
are
is
true that
is
in the understanding,
not think
we
are
The moral
us effectively, and so as to
239
which
partially
con
conduct.
It
is
true that
Reason contains
every
motive for action, even the most heroic, but we are not con
scious of these motives unless
of our
own
imaginary in them
It is in
this
effects.
sense
that
we venture
to say that
Rationalism
and even
Idealism
itself are
To
"
moral
"
fact
rational explanation of
Duty
is
consciousness
this fact is
and the
signs,
sensibilities
than
is,
for
Psychology.
itself
What
man
wills,
shows
in
the act
it
Of
the
mystic
symbols,
may we
as
truly
say,
"Expression is
something detach
less far off,
1
history."
able
from
and more or
but
t. i.,
p. 141.
240
II.
a close rela
and the
lute
i
is
invisible
is
only
obstructions in our
own
be
No
the
for
other
in-
Rationalism,
TheKS&terpretation should
"
given
to
beatitude
heart, as
they shall
see
God."
Although
it
has
served
the
fundamental
axiom of a
rigid Asceticism, it
"
may be
disinterestedness,"
canon of
Let
it
all
apparitions, etc.
suffice
on
this point to
who
What
"
is it
by
and
pure in heart
except
disinterestedness,"
is
incapable of the
How
who
seek
God with
Now this is what we are to understand by only he seen by the pure in heart. a pure heart Its purity is easily sullied even by namely, a simple heart. our good actions themselves. The eye is pure when it has learned to look
;
beyond human opinion straight to God, who appears only in the consciousness." (De Serm. in monte, 1. i., t. iv., p. 131, et 1. ii., p. 345.) "God seeks that inward purity by which everything in us becomes pure, without as well as But within. ... He himself has said, Give, and all shall be pure to you. is not to give essentially an act of the heart ? If the hand opens to give, and not the heart, it is nothing, and if the heart opens though the hand has no alms to dispense, before God it is all one. The Pharisee who understood
material purity only, and who had bidden the Saviour as his guest, would have sent the sinful woman away, with indignation of heart, had she approached
him.
thoughts."
(Enarratio in
Psalmum
241
is
freed
from
egotism
The
its
stronghold
indicates,
of
by
this
gospel precept
alienation
is
of
the
condition
there in
Absolute appears.
Nor must
Certain
"Ethics
theories
have
been
collocated
of
Feeling,"
practical inadequacy of
in establish
To
of the
is
"
Heart,"
as higher instincts of
sympathy and
justice,
to give
up
all
we consent
instincts.
to
The
"inspirations
of the
Heart"
must be
con
and
cepts rationally
must be found
Thus we
are led to
Ab
to
and are
dition of
be."
phenomena
is
to
What
?
that
"light
of which Jacobi
speaks
The
man must
at all cost
242
be set free
;
brought to the
it
must belong
to
of the mental
life.
These
we endeavor
make them
are facts of
life
Imagi
brilliant,
into
it
breath.
and
Had
their
the philosophers of
theories
whom we
own
by the
critical
com
the
two explanations
is
mind
to
it
an impulsion to
this is
a correspond
Must not
the Absolute, of
To
would
Freedom
243
of
"
God
to
makes
and
it
is
the Abso
Freedom
to
have given to
herself.
But
if
we admit
this hypothesis
it futile.
we must not
we must
believe that
God
enters inevi
we do not precede
is
the infinite
Love by a
There
of
nothing but
desire
human
imperfection
or
the
inconstancy
human
way
of
of
symbols, then,
of
is
not limited to
individual
cases
those persons
who do
their
lift
themselves
of
above
all
determinations
consciousness,
Absolute
through
Disinterestedness,
itself.
surpassing
Whether we
it,
will or not,
as Progress,
Freedom,
we must go
is
pure Good.
But
in thus
the things which are properly our own, to love, in itself that
244
Good which
we
we know
it
or not.
This
is
the
;
price
Have we not
seen Positivism
it
was
sin
logically,
re-enters
thusiasm, which
finds
common,
forever
of
it.
new means
of reproduction and
its
life.
The positivism
openly
in the inmost
depths of the
The mind
unknowable.
vain declares to
it
the Absolute
is
In vain
flies
to
it
"
"
men
in a state
of impassible love
it
without representations
In
its
best
proceeds
all
to
purposes of
there
and
action.
Without
analysis
and
reflection
would be no
for
life
science,
for
them
and
Freedom would
lead to
245
order to love
may have
it
chosen, he must
live
symbolize
it
in
and to
from
it.
We
it
is
not a question of
intellectual
The more
more
right have
we
to think that
him
it is
and personal.
We
minimum
of representation, and
much
as
it
mind
of
its
empirical matter.
all,
But
in the end, as
in order to appear to us at
the invisible
;
Good must
to say,
it
in the consciousness
that
is
must
Whenever a
serious question
senses
which
called
"
moral
Emotion."
It
properly
Analysis of
moral Emo-
gc^^eof
repraentations
Absolute reveals
himself symbolically.
Outside
which
it.
man
.without
power to create
it
in himself
would be reduced
"
actions,"
and would
With the
"
Conduct which
is
called
"
instinct
is
"
object
and
isolated,
246
moral
"
there
must
also
moment
the
objects which
is
to
embrace
practically.
Now
:
there are
that the
(1)
practical"
object
is
mark
all
the
more
in
Freedom ap
unchanging.
It will be
is
granted that
if
life, it
actions
that
is
to say,
upon
in the
mind more
felt
Good
in
some
relation
not before
or understood.
it
It is
no
Duty
not
brought
as to
make
moment, we know
to say,
it
247
man
man
of heart
")
or else
we
must grant
We
call
mystic symbols
to-be
if it is
From
may be
considered.
The
oftenest
it
is
only a ques-
The
appetite
by
and
social justice,
But
in other
ego
is
total
Good which he
beyond
all
price, a
moments, if the non-ego triumphs morally over the ego, it can only be in two ways either the man thus led to the borders of Annihilation is prevented from draw
life,
:
himself, his
his possessions.
Now,
at such
ing back by a sense of Honor or some other extrinsic motive, and inspires himself with a sort of delirium of intoxication in order to rush on without
seeing anything
;
upon
is
to
himself morally, so that his freedom and his love remain in a state of intense
consciousness, as long as there
a pulsation of
;
life left.
The term
life,
"
"
ideas
the mental
a
in
such acts of
Disinterestedness,
man
normal condition, and suc-h has ceased to think empirically under the schemata of Time and
is
henceforth not in
Space.
248
tion of to a
Eeason
work
of the understanding
dialectically, in
is
only
discursive
an order
But
call
there
"
is
another extraor
"
emotional
or
"
sym
which
is
pointed out.
is
it
In an emotional
whole consciousness
to
it
to
ourselves.
In such
representation
representation
not dialectic.
Of
course,
it
is
not a
question
whose limit
is
their
power to
we
translate
into
But
in the
moral emo
makes
is
closely
in
Good
ennobled.
Let
us look at
little
nearer
what
will
As we have
seen,
inward
"
speech"
is
not sufficient
249
do
this,
and nothing
but
the
is
sciousness;
totality,
moral Object
posited
in
us as a
and unforeseen
it
is
All
may
be
summed up
called
"
in the
word
It
states
"Thought,"
but this
is
"Vision."
must be acknowledged
"
that
what are
intense
that the passions have very different affinities for the sensi
bility
fixed
upon a moral object, such a case of mono-ideism becomes the most noble of hallucinations. The nature of the facts
in
this case admits
a prolonged attention
object, far
is
Such an object
generous enough
mind
which
under
is
to
give
it
persistent attention,
symbols
soul,
which
all
become
more
and
is
more
intense,
until the
absorbed in them,
to
itself
sublimely halluci
enthusiasm,
nated,
and returns
full
of eloquence,
and courage.
The power
be accorded
the
moral
idea;
but the
added to
it
may be
is
still
a fact of repre-
250
sentation
;
proper
"
of
character of an
itself in certain
"
experiences called
as,
"
Reason
"
or of
Freedom."
And
on the other
moral
activity, in order
that
is,
productive of symbols.
has
efforts
By
moral
love
marvellous
susceptibility
of
increase.
Unless the
accompanying symbolic
will
IV.
When we
* ne y
phenomena
of In
y 6* carrv
1
w ^h them
the
maximum
of
truth
Jymbois given
to the moral consciousness, Their esoteri-
we hazard views
of too exceptional a
title
nature.
to everything
else,
We
may even
cede the
of
"
"realities
The mind
and thither
it is fitting
that
we should allow
What
is
elsewhere so deceptive?
1
First Part,
cli.
sec.
ii.
251
is
says Renouvier,
made
passion."
But
is
made under
a legiti
and are
all
the representations
Thinker
find
we
no
criterion
"
If/
as the
"
it,
low order/
I should
easily
which might
be only the
sion.
"
mental whirl
"
of a
an
evidently the of
for
them
freely in
their
precious
meanings,
which,
though
irrational
the
for
sight of
"pure
Reason/
as
have
as
"
an incalculable value
the
the
intelligence
well
:
for
Conduct
M.
Eenouvier
says
very justly
sentiments
The
origin
and
intrinsic
worth
of
the
which
have
possession
of
the
his
him
to
make
unknown
now
"
Revealers,"
but
"
it
seems to
remains good
morality.
laws
is
1
in
p. 12.
2 Ibid.
252
it
is
Phenomena
"
thing,
Ought-to-be,"
in
which the
Good
who
breast of Freedom, form the very fact which the mystics call
"divine
Love,"
human
love
"
The choice
"We
which
is
have made the god of love blind because he has better eyes
than we have and sees things which we cannot
l
perceive."
on Morals
one that
is
When
once
a morality that
it
is
it
but the
it
gets from
In
order to
know them
1
surprise from
230.
J.-J. Rousseau,
iv., ed.
Gamier,
p.
253
knowing
it.
calling for
Deeds
tially
this it is
"
Creation
"
and
"
Genius
"
from
while
the
May we be permitted
subject to
differences
Suggested
or even
fact
of
consciousness,
and the
fact
"
of
burn
"still
small
etc.,
have
afforded the
the
infinity
to
the
least
gleams
the
empirical
consciousness.
we may
of
mystic narrative,
?
is
the
human
form.
How
could
is
it
be otherwise
Let us not
let
it is
only
expression.
And
known
surely
is
is
the most
com
is
plex to be
dialectically
it
the
254
look.
of Mysticism.
Any
many
mystical authors
some human ap
Oftentimes mystics
all
the
more
active
and able
the Infinite.
Upon
this slight
foot-hold;
then see
through the
minimum
itself in
of representation that
its
essence in
continuity
to the
Absolute must be
The function
^s
ordinary
state.
sufficient to
of Duty.
Moreover the
abuse of
Mysticism
is
most
The requirements
virtual presence
of
life
of
the Absolute in
keep under
moment withdrawing
itself
"
that
not hostile to
life
at
Mystic appeals to
God
255
life.
It is not
there
some
shows us
her
most original
is
such
at
of Grace finds
reconciliation
Freedom.
Grace
can
only be
apparition of God.
When
make
man
own
man can
help him
In such
is
states
of moral
less
inclined than
ever
Never
or to
God
only.
is
able to call
they are to
the
;
ego,
will
act
in
manner contrary
to
mystic illusions
in ourselves,
and
crisis
favorably, that
Grace
"
places
itself.
The
infinite
;
Goodness intervenes
at this
moment
of sharpest anguish
Abso
relish for
Duty.
It is quite true
256
that there
no hypothesis
is
less
facts, it is
true,
not
moral coninte;
sciousness,
quence.
rior apparitions
but
we
shall not
When
esthetic effects,
we cannot speak
except
and
"
appari
are
tions of the
Absolute,"
far as such
effects
conjoined to Freedom.
In
this
respect dramatic
Art and
affinity of
much
possibility
whole consciousness
is
But
there
is
etc.
difficult to explain religious function that the distinction of the two terms thus brought into rela psychologically tion incurs the risk of vanishing, and the notion of Person the risk of being lost
is
"
"
in the Absolute.
very solid basis of individuation and freedom is demanded which Saint Paul s mind was full when he wrote,
/ live, no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." Von Hartmann theism starts from the dogmatic a priori that God and man complains that are two conscious personalities of different essence! (llev. phil. Oct. 1883,
"
pp.
414-416.)
In
fact
sonality
subsist
might remain
inalienable
something should be designated by which our per and by which individual Reason could still
itself
when
it
Intelligible.
Our
257
its
must be noticed,
of
;
all,
that
it is
not con
readily
by a book than by a
discourse.
The
orator
feels
his
"
country/
"
prog
at the
ress/
a fireside to protect/
in
his
"
a soul to save
and
very
moment
discourse
when
his soul
seems to us
us;
it
first
alienated
own
higher Good.
Eloquence
moral
Now we
and of
of the orator
we must take by
surprise the
and which
realize
moment
to
pay for
it
By way
of contrast
"
we might
The
If
Hume
a true defi
nition of Eloquence.
"
decline of Eloquence
may
be
attributed,"
he says,
you banish the pathetic from public discourses you reduce the speakers merely to modern Eloquence, that is, to Good Sense
Sense.
delivered in proper
expressions."
to our
Good
...
(Essais
a genuine
"
moraux
et politiques,
16e Essai,
calls
(Euvres
t. vi.,
pp. 230-231.)
As
Englishman,
Sense."
Hume
It
no doubt
Good
"
must be acknowl
"
edged that this Disinterestedness has only negative relations with the Good Sense which triumphs by proper expressions alone, and in this light modern It would remain to be Eloquence" has nothing in common with Mysticism.
"
left in a speech deprived of all pathos, would be Eloquence, and whether we ought to retain that word for the practical Evi dence which would apply to business matters, or reserve it for a higher Evi
"
"
transports
aroused in Freedom.
blood.
These
representations,
possibly
uncon
more strongly
on
senses.
But
shall \ve
these marvellous
visions
which the
will of others ?
II.
I.
The
Peace.
II.
III.
Mystic and
can never
the
Free-Man."
is
free
V. The integration
loves nothing so
is
much
as
Disinterestedness: Peace,
CI-.LV-
supreme vision
r\
i
a perfectly organic
))
1
IT and Love.
No
it is
term.
But what
is less
Coelestis
Eeata Pacis
259
conflict,
is
triumphs through
and
relaxed.
The
mass and
all
multitude.
Neither
could Society
other,
the
unities
"
dominat
Any
or even to
vital,
would be
anti-scientific.
Must
by Eeason ?
By
lute
so doing
we renounce
at the
and Disinterestedness.
;
In Time there
Absolute
no room for
and the
finds
if
no
place
And
it it
we choose
prescribed
to see in
of moral alienation
to
by law,
the
the Heart,
but to
it
Sword;
it
any more.
What
part
is
it is
it
a society which
formed
first
In our opinion
the
marks of a
social postulate ;
a fact which
sociology
demands
ditions.
as sternly as it is helpless
It could
itself
"
not
be
"
condemn
to live
260
Our
and
Life,,
we
find
no example in history of
itself
from the
Even
armed
state
in the
present
day,
when
the
World seems
better
pacific
for
in
life,
we
which
is
all
are
directed
towards
to
say,
universally.
political
Thus
projects
there
liberal
"
and
the
sound
the
"
Vision
of
Peace
of
Mystics.
II.
We
shall
In
the same
way
.
we
learn to believe,
when we
i
n
tliat
they
all
sliare in
concepts.
common
Desire
the world
we
are also
the
ultimate
"
which
we
Heart
"
or
Kindness."
itself
its
is
world once
more remarkable
ness.
in that
it
When
as
it
is
concerned.
It
enters
261
communion,
empirical
own
is
law.
In
it
this
man
born,
must be acknowl
when
it
does
it is
as it were
;
by
it
surprise.
No
such supreme
effort is
employs
its
power of willing
;
say, egotistically
it
does not
create
things
it
that
are
"good,"
Hence
ness
is
an
exotic.
But does
this matter ?
The
ultra positive
It
is
arm
itself
it
that none
Good
of
all,
affairs fall
"
of the
disinterested."
Power
in
man
should have
Tyrants.
in the Heart.
III.
Duty; and
that,
on the contrary,
is
its
symbols are
Freedom can
have no other
6*
formed from
free.
all
that
gjfj^lSJ?
sociandeai
"the
:
To dream
of a
mystic
Citv,"
would
be,
Free"
Man
except
of
"Freedom,"
which
must sustain
No
social part
In default, however,
common
262
object
tions
;
Freedom
ceptible to
purity.
We
have
do we perceive the
Infinite,
is
empirical
limits.
And, moreover,
is
a practical object,
irrational
Absolute
by the imagination of
false
mystics, throughout
It is in the heart
that
it
God
us.
is
lives,
to
He
much
but there, he
as accessible as he
infinite,
as
as he imposes himself
" "
Man
"
is
not so
ing"
much a
himself
free
being as he
a being
who
is
free
slowly,
and burden
his
life.
There
is,
We
Holy
they
it
is
"
be
"
and
say
to be
"
Free
when
that
there
is
no
than
"
sin."
And what
Freedom ?
lute?
is
which
entails a loss
of
What
other Avay
is
Abso
full
Disinterestedness
itself
thus finds
firm footing
and
scope to exercise
without end.
itself into
God who
is
who
man.
263
When
man
makes a moral
"
divi
of
into
two incompatible
Cities.
the The
Mystic
6
World/
1
.
we cannot but
,
,
JS^
be damned,
one
ot
if
pushed
Since Society
for
is
assemblage
could
there
of all
men
the maintenance
at
how
fact ?
be an Antinomy
the root
of this
will
The
rational
come
replace
life
is
the
mystical
Dualism of the
Human
in
Good
call
"
we
Freedom/
The
will,
is
pos
sible.
in
the
sense
of
duty
or the
opposite
but so long as
habit
and
heredity
produce organic
effects,
no
men man
are
makes him
"
man,"
namely, Freedom.
Whenever
Freedom
is
it.
A
;
whole
it is,
moral order
may
Reason
life
the
"
wretched,"
"
amor
sui
sui."
(Le
Civitate Dei,
1.
xiv. c. ixviii.)
264
demned by law
immorality.
that
might
There
human
essence which
Kant
calls
"
"
Dignity * O
/
about the
venture to
very worst of
refuse
men
for us to be careful
how we
them our
is
respect.
there
no better established
no deeper sentiment
it
than this.
We
is this
quality of
Christianity
centuries.
V.
it
The empirical
life is
power of
selection,
and as such
it
assirn-
Must we acknowledge
its
a manifestation
Freedom
it
and
solid in it at
all,
or else
fittest.
tends, like
to the
triumph
Goodness, cannot be
The
integration of good-wills
which Saint
it is
below in the
social hurly-burly, as
how could
How
could
it
265
is
Omega
the principle
Good
embosom
itself in
the consciousness
If anything
;
it
will
the
Good with
sufficient
enable
them
in this
in the perfect
is
and
final
Order which
is
Love,
From
be reached.
experience of
is
true
that Goodness,
in
the general
life, is
embrace
it
practically
it
some manner
mean
that
we
are
;
good
in this
in the Absolute
for that
only in order to be
essence of Goodness.
of appearances, there
in
defending themselves
With nothing
to
hope
they
ele
life
attainment as
it
is
morally
by promises
of the ultimate
triumph
The mystic
266
Hope,
is
up on such
and com
appears
in
it
as
an embellishment or sumptuous
1
detail of
celestial architecture.
Why
"
"
selection
?
"
and
not
exoticism
Why
is
universal,
is
and that so
?
is
without walls
At
least
desire.
Whatever the
facts
may
be,
must
man
bears
within
himself the
Mysticism
follows
of the
the sun.
We
by Eeason
members
kingdom
of Ends, all of us
who
of the soul,
makes us
creators,
The moral
sidered.
is
significance
of our actions
is
also
to
be con
altogether in phenomena,
it
express
otherwise,
by a word which
The
Time the
acts
which
Et tunsione plurima
Hanc
267
but
this
In
all
and no
first
act
would perish. 1
Now
mystics
"
believe, in
the
"
do not perish
become integrated
"
in a personal
"
indifferently
soul
or
character ;
VI.
upon no
faltering
life,
as
herein
is its
having
confidence of
Pe
made of
it
an interior
object
by means proper to
itself,
in a
in
appre
hending phenomena.
mystic
with
feels
God, he
union
God ; and
immor
It
is
tality,
not solely to
up
Good which
From
its
own
part
intimate experience
it
desires future
R. pure,
t.
ii.
life,
as the
bud de-
Grit.
p.
140.
268
sires
What
will
become
mystery which
for
no complicated
unfailing
Love
more than he
trusts reasonings.
resuming
to-live."
it
again witli
all
"
will-
more
alive
An
act
so
vital as
this
carries with it
Even
divine
that,
;
though con
will partalce
it
it
once par
took
of
its
Reason,
free
at
last
to participate therein
is
thus
completed.
At the point
experience ends,
we have
hesitates
it
future
life,
God
a postulate only.
How
in fact could
we proceed
to construct
it
but our
dreams
its
own proper
1
the power
of the Sons of
delivered
For the earnest expectation of the creature waits God here below all is subject to vanity
:
but there
all shall
.
be
. .
from that bondage. Meanwhile creation groaneth and travaileth and ourselves also, which have already in us a beginning of God, we groan
within ourselves, waiting for the
viii.
final adoption.
PAUL, Ep.
to the
Romans,
19-23.
269
still
which are
of
desires."
ness, asks support for the last time from symbols; but in
whoever in
this
dreams of Heaven.
to the very end
will
posit itself
(Hebrews
xi. 1.)
CONCLUSION
IF
modem
off the
fetters
of religious
dogma
only to
of the empirical
consciousness, and
Science,
we
recognize the
;
fact,
is
sovereign
"
in
the ex
and by
Science
"
we under
:
that
Kaut placed
in pure
Eeason
the
We
"
interest, or attach
ment
ideas
"
believed
indestructible,
knowable
sciousness.
Everything which
side,
"
"
is
Object
belongs to
it.
But on another
the
"Subject"
completely
eludes
sufficient strictness
it
to us in our turn.
We
still
regard
appearance called
"phenomena,"
if
interpretation
is
"
itself
me,"
must be
called
for
The
commences beyond
same time
CONCLUSION
facts of
"
271
terms
pure autonomy
is
and we
us,
that which
done without
and which
exists outside
of
us,"
sub
jective being,
within
us"
It is this occult
background of subjectivity
with the images
which, by mingling
itself indiscriminately
many
errors
which have
shadow of bar
mystical."
It
is
not at
all
that
the
subject
subsists
apart
from
midst of the
it
at pleasure.
We
are born
into,
in
Experience
which
will not
does exist,
why
wish
it
to
deny
by
consenting to be
brought under
Although we are
we have
at the
we
are subject to
them only
and that
"
all
the
facts
empirical
consciousness
Activity
science
itself,
knowledge
but
it
would be of paramount
272
CONCLUSION
we would gladly
as
non-being.
But
this is
Not
only would
cease to be, if
we
scientific
of
the consciousness
would come
life
to an end.
There
alike to
sacrificed.
it,
Man
life,
or even cheer
himself only.
into an
Above
all
Freedom degenerate
requirement
overwhelming burden, he
feels it a real
to be morally inspired,
and
actions
that
he cannot
the
is
creates within
of
which
life-giving.
The mind has but one means of conferring upon its esthetic and religious creations sufficient truth to make them
enduring, and this
of
itself.
is,
The
objectivity which
mystics
have too
often
Man
of
understanding
not
formed
for
the
construction
the
immutable
CONCLUSION
273
It
is
only
formed to apprehend,
our senses
present
to
in the
constant
mobility of the
becoming.
of
faith
Certainly,
that
we hold through
the insights
and fancy
but
let it
common.
Freedom alone
;
us
to
objectivate
but
is it
to
Would
it
not be better to
person alone, by
their true
"
name,
beliefs
may
be,
common
usage
of,
among
namely,
"In
minds made
ours
remains to be spoken
spiration
its place,
word
in
so called.
it
illuminates
is
its
no doubt, a more
inspiring
influence,
Under
may
remain
resentations
274
to perceive a
CONCLUSION
whole order of things which only needed light
in order to appear.
The
promises of which
at least
scious,
we bear within
and
is
us,
manifested
in forms
life,
in facts
as
much
as
we do from
those called
empirical."
Idea of
God
departed
too
call
far
"
from
this
intimate
personal
which we
mystical,"
illumine
the subject
at each
true
light.
We
need only
remember
fitly,
moment,
if
we would
enter this
domain
is
that
God
not
to be taken
"
hold
of, as
we take
in this
know them.
?
Done
And what
if
can be
short
paths,"
such there
?
To deny
is
object,"
if
the
word
is
to be
itself
with
"
true
"
that which
will
not
detach
in
itself
from us
"
such
called
excessivity"
The
exterior
"
object
;
has
it
and even
our consciousness
bility of the
same
sensations.
The
"interior"
object,
it
is
CONCLUSION
as those of the Character for
275
it
which
is
specially created
is
even more,
an active power
direction?
for inspiration
Nevertheless,
ob
jectivity of the
symbols to consist in
power
to repro
;
all
free subjects
lies
representations affirm
a character
"
of all our
;
natural
tendencies,
and of
notions
acquired
empirically
This character of
excessivity,"
which belongs
not
to certain of our
They
them
here,
necessary
unless
we
face
Are we wrong
of their
nature constitute an
There
is
no
absent from the empirical world, should return to only to be lost there.
Freedom
is
The
objectivity of this
world
but
276
CONCLUSION
comparison with the super-
effects
Our
dom.
lost,
It has
God would
be
should
man come
of his own.
To our mind
it
is
tarried
when
we
it
shall
all
that is in
filled
of positive and
human.
A man
cannot be
with
God
use
by
own
facts
of consciousness,
own Heart
ourselves to
him
in
know
of him.
Such a
religion, besides,
last
term the
CONCLUSION
Prophets and Seers, many lovely and revered
their aspect,
recitals
277
change
is
left
which Freedom
But
it
is
enough.
For minds
books, a whole
new
caus
If
But
let
us be honest.
modern thought
Have we
single idea
worth
entities
were
banished
lose
from
discussion ?
some of
the empirical creations with which the naivete of preceding ages had
filled it,
its
depths
ours,
and
its
power
Heaven remains
all
it
human
efforts
of con
What
other
End
could
oppose
itself to
that ?
empirically nor
justified
ordinary fanaticism
religion,
it
278
that
"
CONCLUSION
Excess
in
"
present
the consciousness
its
when
it
looks
into
its
own
Nothing forbids us to
affirm the
we thus
we cannot bring
under the laws of
positive
it
life
for being
is
when
it is
possessed.
Possession
is
pos
is
session, therefore,
legitimate.
But
position,
must check every attempt to complete the knowledge of God by the ordinary means of the under
mystic Positivism
standing and the senses;
means, good-faith,
love,
by knowing.
society
must
also
be regarded.
the
world
alive,
repose
anything
but the
The images which occupy the incessant consciousness must not be torn away from it
dom.
;
the term of
the empirical
limits that
life
is
made
to appear to
it
would be
and actions
in
Freedom
will only
change
its
sphere.
The
will for
imme
diate possession,
CONCLUSION
279
lose that
purifying
some object
Humanitas, there
is
Desire
would
Faith, as a
power of disinterestedness,
is
is
to
to
all
the rest
of
Were
fear.
The mystic
least
wholly within
is
man,
offers
at
nothing
practical to the
"
something
to give fulfilment
excess
"
of
human
solidarity
and Freedom.
But
in
order that
man
good
we must
leave every
is
"
ex
cessive
is
to Science,
"
namely
that a
In the words
of
"
suffices that
such a principle
"
for the
mys
and
will
which accompany
it.
If,
then,
man
280
CONCLUSION
in order to gain consciousness of
Freedom with
all
this
trust
ourselves to
modern
ideas.
The
active
on one
other,
it
would no longer
its
course
towards a
God common
of our
infinity of
our
own
happiness.
and
being
of
lost in
the issue
first
much more
is
than things of
its
forms and
its
free energy,
and that
it
in short,
God which
him
to ourselves scientifically,
we do
all
the rest
gion of which all special symbols are but the free develop ment.
all
We
own
native
all
soil.
ills,
treasures of
human
soul
life
unrealized, or
undertaken in
criti-
CONCLUSION
cal
281
its
unaided
tion
To
the imagina
its
assurance and
creative
power,
manner
in our
minds that
flashes of
way
that Life
art, builds
up
active unities
from the
Man
Since
we have
by conforming
to esteem
we have come
too lightly,
under the
term a priori, a
press to us
which ex
more
and of duty.
his
Freedom
but
it
is
sufficient
proof
man
more
more
active,
more strong
to
keep
his
word and
so, let
his resolves.
He
us
grant,
if
itself
preoccupations
Faith
embraces
all
the
first
it
principles
which
Science
"
pur
Man
282
CONCLUSION
subject
jective laws
fictions.
Noth
ing, then,
is
to
man
but to
summon
the Invisible by
solicitations visible
of Desire,
by a
become
extinct
as soon as
we
learn symbolically
what we
tions
cease.
are.
Under
of
faith
The essence
call
a true
"
Absolute in
time,"
to
say
an
Implicit
forever
unfolding
itself.
In
fulfilled,
and for
freed
life,
that oppresses
it,
must be
come
for all
may
In
spite of
them,
God
and
the vision
to
be renewed in
soul.
every
What we
have to do
is
own nature by
to desire the
pressing for
things which
die
with
it.
Even
man
be absolutely needed
to
give
form
CONCLUSION
to our visions and food for moral inspiration.
283
Are not
all
the
joys
and
all
are
every
many
impelled to
interpretation
represent to
itself,
not
dialectically
an
but in
the
However humble
number
egotistical view of
Arid which of us
is
by circumstances
at
it ?
It is enougli
of,
to have
some child
to relieve,
to
make
man
some misfortune
some
the opportunity to
inspire ourselves
"
morally.
There
is
and cause
to rise
from the
What
We
know
they
are
our
weakness
apprehend
the
is
Absolute
never
theless faith
must
in itself so
this
much,
and nothing
to-be
"
exists
"ought-
which conceals
284
our interior symbols
CONCLUSION
are
defective
as
representations,
we
know
assuredly that
it is
or too touching, for, on the contrary, they are far less so than
their object.
"
When
Isaiah, said,
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, what God has who love him," 1 he was beginning to pass
and
appeals to other
means of
vision.
Freedom renders
ness.
No
make him
a better
man.
It has
been
of
said, in
one, that
"
there are
the
laws
Truth."
the
Absolute,
Truth
may
of
consider
Being,"
them together
the
first
"
one
and the
same
reflection
indispensable
quality
to
of
universality
all
us
practically
make
will
the
rest
depend
certain
upon
it.
always
be
minds that
will
truth through
science,
seek for
it
in
more
by means of
symbols.
We
evidence of
common
extend be
all
to
all
parts
of
Knowledge, or that we
shall finally
1 1
identified in
some
Cor.
xi. 9.
CONCLUSION
centre of intellectual
will
285
very different influence
unity.
Some
bring
consciences
together,
in
themselves
way
of
such su
results.
is
Gradually, as
man
advances in
is
Freedom, a
clarity
purer
matters
little
where
each
one goes
to
obtain
divine."
It is
enough that
it
exists.
To
cise conditions
wish to compress
consciousness
into formulae
less
it
-
broad than
"
human
yet
it is
itself.
We
"
have called
fact,"
divine,"
human
it
humanitea.
"\vorks,
Were
distinct
we
required to
all
describe
by
its
essential
from
other facts,
we could
positive
term
"
Kindness
is the
fulfilment of
Freedom."
But
if
Freedom
is
to say,
begins and
is
1
by
acts of intellectual
"
autonomy.
Mysticism
mind."
When
of
as
its
Mysticism,
acquisitions,
is
we
is
a term
positive as
"absolute
all,
its
"
objective
degree.
of Desire
1
therefore
its activity is
boundless
and moreover,
286
as
it
CONCLUSION
offers to it inexhaustible
Analogy
means of representation,
it
has
last point
and
all
existence
"
which takes
place.
is
in
it
us,
and
us,
since
it
is
this
very
from
do unless
acts of
it
method
as far as
mystic spontaneity
even to Inspiration?
But
if
Metaphysics we should
its
negative.
is
as sharp
basis
and pre
of
opposition.
How
and evidence, be
autonomy which
believe,
is
We
on the con
that
scientific
disinterestedness
Science or Inspiration
If
"
we do not
alternative.
human
life
cannot
satisfy,
must
it
must
fasten
from the
Lachelier, loc.
cit.
CONCLUSION
Heart, that
sciousness.
is,
287
"
the
"
Absolute spontaneity
of
the
Con
pres
The highest
exacts a
more energetic
initiative
than curi
and
it
the
senses.
Since
it
is
our condition of
"
"
free
being
must
also be in
Freedom
;
reserves of the
to re-establish the
balance
otherwise
we should
we alone
in the Universe,
would be
essence.
To
name
of Inspiration.
fills
completely.
s
We
it,
Pascal
sentence
is fulfilled
God known