Light, Life, and Love | Page 8

spark in the centre of the soul (this
doctrine, too, is found in Plotinus) must be verily divine. The logic of
the theory is inexorable. If only like can know like, we cannot know
God except by a faculty which is itself divine. The real question is
whether God, as an object of knowledge and worship for finite beings,
is the absolute Godhead, who transcends all distinctions. The
mediaeval mystics held that this "flight of the alone to the alone," as
Plotinus calls it, is possible to men, and that in it consists our highest
blessedness. They were attracted towards this view by several
influences. First, there was the tradition of Dionysius, to whom (e.g.)
the author of the "Theologia Germanica" appeals as an authority for the
possibility of "beholding the hidden things of God by utter
abandonment of thyself, and of entering into union with Him who is
above all existence, and all knowledge." Secondly, there was what a
modern writer has called "the attraction of the Abyss," the longing
which some persons feel very strongly to merge their individuality in a
larger and better whole, to get rid not only of selfishness but of self for
ever. "Leave nothing of myself in me," is Crashaw's prayer in his

wonderful poem on St Teresa. Thirdly, we may mention the awe and
respect long paid to ecstatic trances, the pathological nature of which
was not understood. The blank trance was a real experience; and as it
could be induced by a long course of ascetical exercises and fervid
devotions, it was naturally regarded as the crowning reward of sanctity
on earth. Nor would it be at all safe to reject the evidence, which is very
copious,[19] that the "dreamy state" may issue in permanent spiritual
gain. The methodical cultivation of it, which is at the bottom of most of
the strange austerities of the ascetics, was not only (though it was partly)
practised in the hope of enjoying those spiritual raptures which are
described as being far more intense than any pleasures of sense[20]: it
was the hope of stirring to its depths the subconscious mind and
permeating the whole with the hidden energy of the divine Spirit that
led to the desire for visions and trances. Lastly, I think we must give a
place to the intellectual attraction of an uncompromising monistic
theory of the universe. Spiritualistic monism, when it is consistent with
itself, will always lean to semi-pantheistic mysticism rather than to
such a compromise with pluralism as Lotze and his numerous followers
in this country imagine to be possible.
But it is possible to go a long way with the mystics and yet to maintain
that under no conditions whatever can a finite being escape from the
limitations of his finitude and see God or the world or himself "with the
same eye with which God sees" all things. The old Hebrew belief, that
to see the face of God is death, expresses the truth under a mythical
form. That the human mind, while still "in the body pent," may obtain
glimpses of the eternal order, and enjoy foretastes of the bliss of heaven,
is a belief which I, at least, see no reason to reject. It involves no rash
presumption, and is not contrary to what may be readily believed about
the state of immortal spirits passing through a mortal life. But the
explanation of the blank trance as a temporary transit into the Absolute
must be set down as a pure delusion. It involves a conception of the
divine "Rest" which in his best moments Eckhart himself repudiates.
"The Rest of the Godhead," he says, "is not in that He is the source of
being, but in that He is the consummation of all being." This profound
saying expresses the truth, which he seems often to forget, that the
world-process must have a real value in God's sight--that it is not a

mere polarisation of the white radiance of eternity broken up by the
imperfection of our vision. Whatever theories we may hold about
Absolute Being, or an Absolute that is above Being, we must make
room for the Will, and for Time, which is the "form" of the will, and
for the creatures who inhabit time and space, as having for us the value
of reality. Nor shall we, if we are to escape scepticism, be willing to
admit that these appearances have no sure relation to ultimate reality.
We must not try to uncreate the world in order to find God. We were
created out of nothing, but we cannot return to nothing, to find our
Creator there. The still, small voice is best listened for amid the
discordant harmony of life and death.
The search for God is no exception to the mysterious law