CHAPTER II.

WHAT IS THE SENSE OF THE INFINITE?

MORE and more in these later years has the world come to recognize the fact that human consciousness is no simple thing; that even in the sanest and soundest of men there are depths of soul experience which seem inexplicable on any other grounds than, on the one hand, by the theory of a spiritual universe, surrounding and interpenetrating the material universe and on the other hand, by the theory of a certain function or instinct of the soul which enables it from time to time to become conscious of the spiritual world. This thought has been beautifully expressed by Emerson in the following well-known passage:

"It is a secret which every intelligent man quickly learns, that beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect he is capable

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of new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself) by abandonment to the nature of things; that besides his power as an individual man, there is a great public power upon which he can draw, by unlocking at all risks his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him."

What the great American mystic here utters in his eloquent periods, has been more recently received as a philosophical or even scientific fact. Certain psychologists of the day have gravely discussed, and many have even adopted, a theory of consciousness which, foreshadowed by the theory of unconscious cerebration taught by Leibnitz, Hamilton and Carpenter, is now known as the doctrine of the sub-liminal or the sub-conscious self. one of the most distinguished of those philosophers who have endeavored to harmonize the ideal with the real, has declared that 66 Within us lurks a world whose form we imperfectly apprehend, and whose working, when in particular phases it comes under our notice, surprises us with foreshadowings of

Lotze,

unknown depths of our being "; and again he says, "the light of consciousness only plays on the surface of the waters of the unfathomable depths of personality." Among all the disciples of the doctrine of the sub-liminal consciousness, no one has investigated these subtle phenomena with more care and sincerity than the late Frederic Myers, who has summed up the results of his own investigations and those of others in the following brief, yet comprehensive formula:-" There exists around us a spiritual universe, and that universe is in actual relation with the material. From the spiritual universe comes the energy which maintains the material, the energy which makes the life of each individual spiritual. Our spirits are supported by a perpetual indrawing of this energy and the vigor of that indrawal is perpetually changing, much as the vigor of our absorption of material nutriment changes from hour to hour."

It is not our business here to discuss the value of this theory. Of the psychologists some are for, but perhaps by far the greater number are

against it. Whichever side we may take, however, we must all acknowledge that it affords a convenient figure, a means of discussing many obscure and vague psychological and religious phenomena. And yet in its essence the doctrine of the sub-liminal consciousness is by no means new. Though clothed in scientific terminology, though based on the investigations of honest and distinguished scholars, it is none the less a form of that old mystical instinct which is so deeply rooted in the human heart, that nothing can ever tear it out; the instinct to sweep away the barriers of space and time and to come into direct communication with the divine or spiritual world.

Like most other terms that refer to the vague, indefinite mental experiences of mankind, mysticism is a difficult word to define. It means different things to different individuals, to different religions, and to different ages. To the Greeks it was originally applied to the secret worship of various divinities, and the word itself is derived from μvav to keep the lips (or eyes) closed, i. e. not to reveal the

mysteries connected with the worship of the god. This simple meaning, however, was soon lost and forgotten; and as far as the word had any etymological signification at all, it was defined as closing the senses, and even the mind and will, to the outside world, in order that the soul might be undisturbed in its spiritual union with the supernatural powers.

To-day every man who discusses this subject has a definition of his own. Professor Muensterberg seems hardly to differentiate it from common superstition. Others use it as a mere synonym of Romanticism. Thus in his "Misticismo Moderno " Troilo gives the definition of mysticism as "sadness of sunset and undefinable fear of the dawn, echoes of the past and tremblings of the future, visions, hallucinations and dreams; a pallid fluctuating phantasmagoria which takes the place of reality."

We turn from this lugubrious definition to more cheerful ones. To Nettleship, "true mysticism is the belief that everything in being what it is, is symbolic of something