{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15082/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15082","id":"gutenberg_15082","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15082","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Spiritual life"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Garrett Alley, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\nAND\n\nTHE LIFE OF TO-DAY\n\nBY\n\nEVELYN UNDERHILL\n\nAuthor of \"MYSTICISM,\" \"THE ESSENTIALS OF MYSTICISM,\" etc.\n\n\n\nNEW YORK\n\nE.P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n681 FIFTH AVENUE\n\n\nCopyright, 1922.\n\nBY E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\nIN MEMORIAM\n\nE.R.B.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book owes its origin to the fact that in the autumn of 1921 the\nauthorities of Manchester College, Oxford invited me to deliver the\ninaugural course of a lectureship in religion newly established under\nthe will of the late Professor Upton. No conditions being attached to\nthis appointment, it seemed a suitable opportunity to discuss, so far as\npossible in the language of the moment, some of the implicits which I\nbelieve to underlie human effort and achievement in the domain of the\nspiritual life. The material gathered for this purpose has now been\nadded to, revised, and to some extent re-written, in order to make it\nappropriate to the purposes of the reader rather than the hearer. As the\nobject of the book is strictly practical, a special attempt has been\nmade to bring the classic experiences of the spiritual life into line\nwith the conclusions of modern psychology, and in particular, to suggest\nsome of the directions in which recent psychological research may cast\nlight on the standard problems of the religious consciousness. This\nsubject is still in its infancy; but it is destined, I am sure, in the\nnear future to exercise a transforming influence on the study of\nspiritual experience, and may even prove to be the starting point of a\nnew apologetic. Those who are inclined either to fear or to resent the\napplication to this experience of those laws which--as we are now\ngradually discovering--govern the rest of our psychic life, or who are\noffended by the resulting demonstrations of continuity between our most\nhomely and most lofty reactions to the universe, might take to\nthemselves the plain words of Thomas a Kempis: \"Thou art a man and not\nGod, thou art flesh and no angel.\"\n\nSince my subject is not the splendor of historic sanctity but the normal\nlife of the Spirit, as it may be and is lived in the here-and-now, I\nhave done my best to describe the character and meaning of this life in\nthe ordinary terms of present day thought, and with little or no use of\nthe technical language of mysticism. For the same reason, no attention\nhas been given to those abnormal experiences and states of\nconsciousness, which, too often regarded as specially \"mystical,\" are\nnow recognized by all competent students as representing the unfortunate\naccidents rather than the abiding substance of spirituality. Readers of\nthese pages will find nothing about trances, Ecstasies and other rare\npsychic phenomena; which sometimes indicate holiness, and sometimes only\ndisease. For information on these matters they must go to larger and\nmore technical works. My aim here is the more general one, of indicating\nfirst the characteristic experiences--discoverable within all great\nreligions--which justify or are fundamental to the spiritual life, and\nthe way in which these experiences may be accommodated to the\nworld-view of the modern man: and next, the nature of that spiritual\nlife as it appears in human history. The succeeding sections of the book\ntreat in some detail the light cast on spiritual problems by mental\nanalysis--a process which need not necessarily be conducted from the\nstandpoint of a degraded materialism--and by recent work on the\npsychology of autistic thought and of suggestion. These investigations\nhave a practical interest for every man who desires to be the \"captain\nof his soul.\" The relation in which institutional religion does or\nshould stand to the spiritual life is also in part a matter for\npsychology; which is here called upon to deal with the religious aspect\nof the social instincts, and the problems surrounding symbols and cults.\nThese chapters lead up to a discussion of the personal aspect of the\nspiritual life, its curve of growth, characters and activities; and a\nfurther section suggests some ways in which educationists might promote\nthe up springing of this life in the young. Finally, the last chapter\nattempts to place the fact of the life of the Spirit in its relation to\nthe social order, and to indicate some of the results which might follow\nupon its healthy corporate development. It is superfluous to point out\nthat each of these subjects needs, at least, a volume to itself: and to\nsome of them I shall hope to return in the future. Their treatment in\nthe present work is necessarily fragmentary and suggestive; and is\nintended rather to stimulate thought, than to offer solutions.\n\nPart of Chapter IV has already appeared in \"The Fortnightly Review\"\nunder the title \"Suggestion and Religious Experience.\" Chapter VIII\nincorporates several passages from an article on \"Sources of Power in\nHuman Life\" originally contributed to the \"Hubert Journal.\" These are\nreprinted by kind permission of the editors concerned. My numerous debts\nto previous writers are obvious, and for the most part are acknowledged\nin the footnotes; the greatest, to the works of Baron Von Hugely, will\nbe clear to all students of his writings. Thanks are also due to my old\nfriend William Scott Palmer, who read part of the manuscript and gave me\nmuch generous and valuable advice. It is a pleasure to express in this\nplace my warm gratitude first to the Principal and authorities of\nManchester College, who gave me the opportunity of delivering these\nchapters in their original form, and whose unfailing sympathy and\nkindness so greatly helped me: and secondly, to the members of the\nOxford Faculty of Theology, to whom I owe the great Honor of being the\nfirst woman lecturer in religion to appear in the University list.\n\n E.U.\n\n _Epiphany_, 1922.\n\n[** Transcriber's Note: This text contains just a few instances of a\n character with a diacritical mark. The character is a lower-case\n 'u' with a macron (straight line) above it. In the text, that\n character is depicted thusly: [=u] **]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER PAGE\n\n PREFACE vii\n\n I. THE CHARACTERS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 1\n\n II. HISTORY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT 38\n\n III. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT:\n (I) THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 74\n\n IV. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT:\n (II) CONTEMPLATION AND SUGGESTION 112\n\n V. INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT 153\n\n VI. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL 191\n\n VII. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND EDUCATION 228\n\nVIII. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND THE SOCIAL ORDER 266\n\n PRINCIPAL WORKS USED AND CITED 300\n\n INDEX 307\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\nAND\n\nTHE LIFE OF TO-DAY\n\n Initio tu, Domine, terram fundasti; et opera manuum tuarum sunt caeli.\n Ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanes; et omnes sicut vestimentum\n veterascent.\n Et sicut opertorium mutabis eos, et mutabuntur;\n Tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient.\n Filii servorum tuorum habitabunt; et semen eorum in seculum dirigetur.\n\n --Psalm cii: 25-28\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE CHARACTERS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE\n\n\nThis book has been called \"The Life of the Spirit and the Life of\nTo-day\" in order to emphasize as much as possible the practical,\nhere-and-now nature of its subject; and specially to combat the idea\nthat the spiritual life--or the mystic life, as its more intense\nmanifestations are sometimes called--is to be regarded as primarily a\nmatter of history. It is not. It is a matter of biology. Though we\ncannot disregard history in our study of it, that history will only be\nvaluable to us in so far as we keep tight hold on its direct connection\nwith the present, its immediate bearing on our own lives: and this we\nshall do only in so far as we realize the unity of all the higher\nexperiences of the race. In fact, were I called upon to choose a motto\nwhich should express the central notion of these chapters, that motto\nwould be--\"There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.\" This\ndeclaration I would interpret in the widest possible sense; as\nsuggesting the underlying harmony and single inspiration of all man's\nvarious and apparently conflicting expressions of his instinct for\nfullness of life. For we shall not be able to make order, in any hopeful\nsense, of the tangle of material which is before us, until we have\nsubdued it to this ruling thought: seen one transcendent Object towards\nwhich all our twisting pathways run, and one impulsion pressing us\ntowards it.\n\nAs psychology is now teaching us to find, at all levels of our craving,\ndreaming, or thinking, the diverse expressions of one psychic energy; so\nthat type of philosophy which comes nearest to the religion of the\nSpirit, invites us to find at all levels of life the workings and\nstrivings of one Power: \"a Reality which both underlies and crowns all\nour other, lesser strivings.\"[1] Variously manifested in partial\nachievements of order and goodness, in diversities of beauty, and in our\ngraded apprehensions of truth, this Spirit is yet most fully known to us\nin the transcendent values of holiness and love. The more deeply it is\nloved by man, the nearer he draws to its heart: and the greater his\nlove, the more fully does he experience its transforming and energizing\npower. The words of Plotinus are still true for every one of us, and are\nunaffected by the presence or absence of creed:\n\n\"Yonder is the true object of our love, which it is possible to grasp\nand to live with and truly to possess, since no envelope of flesh\nseparates us from it. He who has seen it knows what I say, that the soul\nthen has another life, when it comes to God, and having come possesses\nHim, and knows when in that state that it is in the presence of the\ndispenser of true life and that it needs nothing further.\"[2]\n\nSo, if we would achieve anything like a real integration of life--and\nuntil we have done so, we are bound to be restless and uncertain in our\ntouch upon experience--we are compelled to press back towards contact\nwith this living Reality, however conceived by us. And this not by way\nof a retreat from our actual physical and mental life, but by way of a\nfulfilment of it.\n\nMore perhaps than ever before, men are now driven to ask themselves the\nsearching question of the disciple in Boehme's Dialogue on the\nSupersensual Life: \"Seeing I am in nature, how may I come through nature\ninto the supersensual ground, without destroying nature?\"[3] And such a\ncoming through into the ground, such a finding and feeling of Eternal\nLife, is I take it the central business of religion. For religion is\ncommitted to achieving a synthesis of the eternal and the ever-fleeting,\nof nature and of spirit; lifting up the whole of life to a greater\nreality, because a greater participation in eternity. Such a\nparticipation in eternity, manifested in the time-world, is the very\nessence of the spiritual life: but, set as we are in mutability, our\napprehensions of it can only be partial and relative. Absolutes are\nknown only to absolute mind; our measurements, however careful and\nintricate, can never tally with the measurements of God. As Einstein\nconceives of space curved round the sun we, borrowing his symbolism for\na moment, may perhaps think of the world of Spirit as curved round the\nhuman soul; shaped to our finite understanding, and therefore presenting\nto us innumerable angles of approach. This means that God can and must\nbe sought only within and through our human experience. \"Where,\" says\nJacob Boehme, \"will you seek for God? Seek Him in your soul, which has\nproceeded out of the Eternal Nature, the living fountain of forces\nwherein the Divine working stands.\"[4]\n\nBut, on the other hand, such limitation as this is no argument for\nagnosticism. For this our human experience in its humbling imperfection,\nhowever we interpret it, is as real within its own system of reference\nas anything else. It is our inevitably limited way of laying hold on the\nstuff of existence: and not less real for that than the monkeys' way on\none hand, or the angels' way on the other. Only we must be sure that we\ndo it as thoroughly and completely as we can; disdaining the indolence\nwhich so easily relapses to the lower level and the smaller world.\n\nAnd the first point I wish to make is, that the experience which we call\nthe life of the Spirit is such a genuine fact; which meets us at all\ntimes and places, and at all levels of life. It is an experience which\nis independent of, and often precedes, any explanation or\nrationalization we may choose to make of it: and no one, as a matter of\nfact, takes any real interest in the explanation, unless he has had some\nform of the experience. We notice, too, that it is most ordinarily and\nalso most impressively given to us as such an objective experience,\nwhole and unanalyzed; and that when it is thus given, and perceived as\neffecting a transfiguration of human character, we on our part most\nreadily understand and respond to it.\n\n\nThus Plotinus, than whom few persons have lived more capable of\nanalysis, can only say: \"The soul knows when in that state that it is in\nthe presence of the dispenser of true life.\" Yet in saying this, does he\nnot tell us far more, and rouse in us a greater and more fruitful\nlonging, than in all his disquisitions about the worlds of Spirit and of\nSoul? And Kabir, from another continent and time, saying \"More than all\nelse do I cherish at heart the love which makes me to live a limitless\nlife in this world,\"[5] assures us in these words that he too has known\nthat more abundant life. These are the statements of the pure religious\nexperience, in so far as \"pure\" experience is possible to us; which is\nonly of course in a limited and relative sense. The subjective element,\nall that the psychologist means by apperception, must enter in, and\ncontrol it. Nevertheless, they refer to man's communion with an\nindependent objective Reality. This experience is more real and\nconcrete, therefore more important, than any of the systems by which\ntheology seeks to explain it. We may then take it, without prejudice to\nany special belief, that the spiritual life we wish to study is _one\nlife_; based on experience of one Reality, and manifested in the\ndiversity of gifts and graces which men have been willing to call true,\nholy, beautiful and good. For the moment at least we may accept the\ndefinition of it given by Dr. Bosanquet, as \"oneness with the Supreme\nGood in every facet of the heart and will.\"[6] And since without\nderogation of its transcendent character, its vigour, wonder and worth,\nit is in human experience rather than in speculation that we are bound\nto seek it, we shall look first at the forms taken by man's intuition of\nEternity, the life to which it seems to call him; and next at the actual\nappearance of this life in history. Then at the psychological machinery\nby which we may lay hold of it, the contributions which religious\ninstitutions make to its realization; and last, turning our backs on\nthese partial explorations of the living Whole, seek if we can to seize\nsomething of its inwardness as it appears to the individual, the way in\nwhich education may best prepare its fulfilment, and the part it must\nplay in the social group.\n\nWe begin therefore at the starting point of this life of Spirit: in\nman's vague, fluctuating, yet persistent apprehension of an enduring and\ntranscendent reality--his instinct for God. The characteristic forms\ntaken by this instinct are simple and fairly well known. Complication\nonly comes in with the interpretation we put on them.\n\nBy three main ways we tend to realize our limited personal relations\nwith that transcendent Other which we call divine, eternal or real; and\nthese, appearing perpetually in the vast literature of religion, might\nbe illustrated from all places and all times.\n\nFirst, there is the profound sense of security: of being safely held in\na cosmos of which, despite all contrary appearance, peace is the very\nheart, and which is not inimical to our true interests. For those whose\nreligious experience takes this form, God is the Ground of the soul, the\nUnmoved, our Very Rest; statements which meet us again and again in\nspiritual literature. This certitude of a principle of permanence within\nand beyond our world of change--the sense of Eternal Life--lies at the\nvery centre of the religious consciousness; which will never on this\npoint capitulate to the attacks of philosophy on the one hand (such as\nthose of the New Realists) or of psychology on the other hand, assuring\nhim that what he mistakes for the Eternal World is really his own\nunconscious mind. Here man, at least in his great representatives--the\npersons of transcendent religious genius--seems to get beyond all\nlabels. He finds and feels a truth that cannot fail him, and that\nsatisfies both his heart and mind; a justification of that\ntranscendental feeling which is the soul alike of philosophy and of art.\nIf his life has its roots here, it will be a fruitful tree; and whatever\nits outward activities, it will be a spiritual life, since it is lived,\nas George Fox was so fond of saying, in the Universal Spirit. All know\nthe great passage In St. Augustine's Confessions in which he describes\nhow \"the mysterious eye of his soul gazed on the Light that never\nchanges; above the eye of the soul, and above intelligence.\"[7] There is\nnothing archaic in such an experience. Though its description may depend\non the language of Neoplatonism, it is in its essence as possible and as\nfruitful for us to-day as it was in the fourth century, and the doctrine\nand discipline of Christian prayer have always admitted its validity.\n\nHere and in many other examples which might be quoted, the spiritual\nfact is interpreted in a non-personal and cosmic way; and we must\nremember that what is described to us is always, inevitably, the more or\nless emotional interpretation, never the pure immediacy of experience.\nThis interpretation frequently makes use of the symbolisms of space,\nstillness, and light: the contemplative soul is \"lost in the ocean of\nthe Godhead,\" \"enters His silence\" or exclaims with Dante:\n\n \"la mia vista, venendo sincera,\n e piu e piu entrava per lo raggio\n dell' alta luce, che da se e vera.\"[8]\n\nBut in the second characteristic form of the religious experience, the\nrelationship is felt rather as the intimate and reciprocal communion of\na person with a Person; a form of apprehension which is common to the\ngreat majority of devout natures. It is true that Divine Reality, while\ndoubtless including in its span all the values we associate with\npersonality, must far overpass it: and this conclusion has been reached\nagain and again by profoundly religious minds, of whom among Christians\nwe need only mention Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, and Ruysbroeck.\nYet these very minds have always in the end discovered the necessity of\nfinding place for the overwhelming certitude of a personal contact, a\nprevenient and an answering love. For it is always in a personal and\nemotional relationship that man finds himself impelled to surrender to\nGod; and this surrender is felt by him to evoke a response. It is\nsignificant that even modern liberalism is forced, in the teeth of\nrationality, to acknowledge this fact of the religious experience. Thus\nwe have on the one hand the Catholic-minded but certainly unorthodox\nSpanish thinker, Miguel de Unamuno, confessing--\n\n\"I believe in God as I believe in my friends, because I feel the breath\nof His affection, feel His invisible and intangible hand, drawing me,\nleading me, grasping me.... Once and again in my life I have seen myself\nsuspended in a trance over the abyss; once and again I have found myself\nat the cross-roads, confronted by a choice of ways and aware that in\nchoosing one I should be renouncing all the others--for there is no\nturning back upon these roads of life; and once and again in such unique\nmoments as these I have felt the impulse of a mighty power, conscious,\nsovereign and loving. And then, before the feet of the wayfarer, opens\nout the way of the Lord.\"[9]\n\nCompare with this Upton the Unitarian: \"If,\" he says, \"this Absolute\nPresence, which meets us face to face in the most momentous of our\nlife's experiences, which pours into our fainting the elixir of new\nlife-mud strength, and into our wounded hearts the balm of a quite\ninfinite sympathy, cannot fitly be called a personal presence, it is\nonly because this word personal is too poor and carries with it\nassociations too human and too limited adequately to express this\nprofound God-consciousness.\"[10]\n\nSuch a personal God-consciousness is the one impelling cause of those\nmoral struggles, sacrifices and purifications, those costing and heroic\nactivities, to which all greatly spiritual souls find themselves drawn.\nWe note that these souls experience it even when it conflicts with their\nphilosophy: for a real religious intuition is always accepted by the\nself that has it as taking priority of thought, and carrying with it so\nto speak its own guarantees. Thus Blake, for whom the Holy Ghost was an\n\"intellectual fountain,\" hears the Divine Voice crying:\n\n \"I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;\n Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me.\"[11]\n\nThus in the last resort the Sufi poet can only say:\n\n \"O soul, seek the Beloved; O friend, seek the Friend!\"[12]\n\nThus even Plotinus is driven to speak of his Divine Wisdom as the Father\nand ever-present Companion of the soul,[13] and Kabir, for whom God is\nthe Unconditioned and the Formless, can yet exclaim:\n\n\"From the beginning until the end of time there is love between me and\nthee: and how shall such love be extinguished?\"[14]\n\nChristianity, through its concepts of the Divine Fatherhood and of the\nEternal Christ, has given to this sense of personal communion its\nfullest and most beautiful expression:\n\n \"Amore, chi t'ama non sta ozioso,\n tanto li par dolce de te gustare,\n ma tutta ora vive desideroso\n como te possa stretto piu amare;\n che tanto sta per te lo cor gioioso,\n chi nol sentisse, nol porria parlare\n quanto e dolce a gustare lo tuo sapore.\"[15]\n\nOn the immense question of _what_ it is that lies behind this sense of\ndirect intercourse, this passionate friendship with the Invisible, I\ncannot enter. But it has been one of the strongest and most fruitful\ninfluences in religious history, and gives in particular its special\ncolour to the most perfect developments of Christian mysticism.\n\nLast--and here is the aspect of religious experience which is specially\nto concern us--Spirit is felt as an inflowing power, a veritable\naccession of vitality; energizing the self, or the religious group,\nimpelling it to the fullest and most zealous living-out of its\nexistence, giving it fresh joy and vigour, and lifting it to fresh\nlevels of life. This sense of enhanced life is a mark of all religions\nof the Spirit. \"He giveth power to the faint,\" says the Second Isaiah,\n\"and to them that hath no might he increaseth strength ... they that\nwait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with\nwings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk,\nand not faint.\"[16] \"I live--yet not I,\" \"I can do all things,\" says St.\nPaul, seeking to express his dependence on this Divine strength invading\nand controlling him: and assures his neophytes that they too have\nreceived \"the Spirit of power.\" \"My life,\" says St. Augustine, \"shall be\na real life, being wholly full of Thee.\"[17] \"Having found God,\" says a\nmodern Indian saint, \"the current of my life flowed on swiftly, I gained\nfresh strength.\"[18] All other men and women of the Spirit speak in the\nsame sense, when they try to describe the source of their activity and\nendurance.\n\nSo, the rich experiences of the religious consciousness seem to be\nresumed in these three outstanding types of spiritual awareness. The\ncosmic, ontological, or transcendent; finding God as the infinite\nReality outside and beyond us. The personal, finding Him as the living\nand responsive object of our love, in immediate touch with us. The\ndynamic, finding Him as the power that dwells within or energizes us.\nThese are not exclusive but complementary apprehensions, giving\nobjectives to intellect feeling and will. They must all be taken into\naccount in any attempt to estimate the full character of the spiritual\nlife, and this life can hardly achieve perfection unless all three be\npresent in some measure. Thus the French contemplative Lucie-Christine\nsays, that when the voice of God called her it was at one and the same\ntime a Light, a Drawing, and a Power,[19] and her Indian contemporary\nthe Maharishi Devendranath Tagore, that \"Seekers after God must realize\nBrahma in these three places. They must see Him within, see Him without,\nand see Him in that abode of Brahma where He exists in Himself.\"[20] And\nit seems to me, that what we have in the Christian doctrine of the\nTrinity, is above all the crystallization and mind's interpretation of\nthese three ways in which our simple contact with God is actualized by\nus. It is, like so many other dogmas when we get to the bottom of them,\nan attempt to describe experience. What is that supernal symphony of\nwhich this elusive music, with its three complementary strains, forms\npart? We cannot know this, since we are debarred by our situation from\nknowledge of wholes. But even those strains which we do hear, assure us\nhow far we are yet from conceiving the possibilities of life, of power,\nof beauty which are contained in them.\n\nAnd if the first type of experience, with the immense feeling of\nassurance, of peace, and of quietude which comes from our intuitive\ncontact with that world which Ruysbroeck called the \"world that is\nunwalled,\"[21] and from the mind's utter surrender and abolition of\nresistances--if all this seems to lead to a merely static or\ncontemplative conception of the spiritual life; the third type of\nexperience, with its impulse towards action, its often strongly felt\naccession of vitality and power, leads inevitably to a complementary and\ndynamic interpretation of that life. Indeed, if the first moment in the\nlife of the Spirit be man's apprehension of Eternal Life, the second\nmoment--without which the first has little worth for him--consists of\nhis response to that transcendent Reality. Perception of it lays on him\nthe obligation of living in its atmosphere, fulfilling its meaning, if\nhe can: and this will involve for him a measure of inward\ntransformation, a difficult growth and change. Thus the ideas of new\nbirth and regeneration have always been, and I think must ever be,\nclosely associated with man's discovery of God: and the soul's true path\nseems to be from intuition, through adoration, to moral effort, and\nthence to charity.\n\nEven so did the Oxford Methodists, who began by trying only to worship\nGod and _be_ good by adhering to a strict devotional rule, soon find\nthemselves impelled to try to _do_ good by active social work.[22] And\nat his highest development, and in so far as he has appropriated the\nfull richness of experience which is offered to him, man will and should\nfind himself, as it were, flung to and fro between action and\ncontemplation. Between the call to transcendence, to a simple self-loss\nin the unfathomable and adorable life of God, and the call to a full, rich\nand various actualization of personal life, in the energetic strivings of a\nfellow worker with Him: between the soul's profound sense of transcendent\nlove, and its felt possession of and duty towards immanent love--a paradox\nwhich only some form of incarnational philosophy can solve. It is said\nof Abu Said, the great S[=u]fi, at the full term of his development,\nthat he \"did all normal things while ever thinking of God.\"[23] Here, I\nbelieve, we find the norm of the spiritual life, in such a complete\nresponse both to the temporal and to the eternal revelations and demands\nof the Divine nature: on the one hand, the highest and most costing\ncalls made on us by that world of succession in which we find ourselves;\non the other, an unmoved abiding in the bosom of eternity, \"where was\nnever heard quarter-clock to strike, never seen minute glasse to\nturne.\"[24]\n\nThere have been many schools and periods in which one half of this dual\nlife of man has been unduly emphasized to the detriment of the other.\nOften in the East--and often too in the first, pre-Benedictine phase of\nChristian monasticism--there has been an unbalanced cultivation of the\ncontemplative life, resulting in a narrow, abnormal, imperfectly\nvitalized a-social type of spirituality. On the other hand, in our own\nday the tendency to action usually obliterates the contemplative side of\nexperience altogether: and the result is the feverishness, exhaustion\nand uncertainty of aim characteristic of the over-driven and the\nunderfed. But no one can be said to live in its fulness the life of the\nSpirit who does not observe a due balance between the two: both\nreceiving and giving, both apprehending and expressing, and thus\nachieving that state of which Ruysbroeck said \"Then only is our life a\nwhole, when work and contemplation dwell in us side by side, and we are\nperfectly in both of them at once.\"[25] All Christian writers on the\nlife of the Spirit point to the perfect achievement of this two-fold\nideal in Christ; the pattern of that completed humanity towards which\nthe indwelling Spirit is pressing the race. His deeds of power and\nmercy, His richly various responses to every level of human existence,\nHis gift to others of new faith and life, were directly dependent on the\nnights spent on the mountain in prayer. When St. Paul entreats us to\ngrow up into the fulness of His stature, this is the ideal that is\nimplied.\n\nIn the intermediate term of the religious experience, that felt\ncommunion with a Person which is the _clou_ of the devotional life, we\nget as it were the link between the extreme apprehensions of\ntranscendence and of immanence, and their expression in the lives of\ncontemplation and of action; and also a focus for that\nreligious-emotion which is the most powerful stimulus to spiritual\ngrowth. It is needless to emphasize the splendid use which Christianity\nhas made of this type of experience; nor unfortunately, the\nexaggerations to which it has led. Both extremes are richly represented\nin the literature of mysticism. But we should remember that Christianity\nis not alone in thus requiring place to be made for such a conception of\nGod as shall give body to all the most precious and fruitful experiences\nof the heart, providing simple human sense and human feeling with\nsomething on which to lay hold. In India, there is the existence, within\nand alongside the austere worship of the unconditioned Brahma, of the\nardent personal Vaishnavite devotion to the heart's Lord, known as\nBhakti Marga. In Islam, there is the impassioned longing of the S[=u]fis\nfor the Beloved, who is \"the Rose of all Reason and all Truth.\"\n\n \"Without Thee, O Beloved, I cannot rest;\n Thy goodness towards me I cannot reckon.\n Tho' every hair on my body becomes a tongue\n A thousandth part of the thanks due to Thee I cannot tell.\"[26]\n\nThere is the sudden note of rapture which startles us in the\nNeoplatonists, as when Plotinus speaks of \"the name of love for what is\nthere to know--the passion of the lover testing on the 'bosom of his\nlove.\"[27] Surely we may accept all these, as the instinctive responses\nof a diversity of spirits to the one eternal Spirit of life and love:\nand recognize that without such personal response, such a discovery of\nimperishable love, a fully lived spiritual life is no more possible than\nis a fully lived physical life from which love has been left out.\n\nWhen we descend from experience to interpretation, the paradoxical\ncharacter of such a personal sense of intimacy is eased for us, if we\nremember that the religious man's awareness of the indwelling Spirit, or\nof a Divine companionship--whatever name he gives it--is just his\nlimited realization, achieved by means of his own mental machinery, of a\nuniversal and not a particular truth. To this realization he brings all\nhis human--more, his sub-human--feelings and experiences: not only those\nwhich are vaguely called his spiritual intuitions, but the full weight\nof his impulsive and emotional life. His experience and its\ninterpretation are, then, inevitably conditioned by this apperceiving\nmass. And here I think the intellect should show mercy, and not probe\nwithout remorse into those tender places where the heart and the spirit\nare at one. Let us then be content to note, that when we consult the\nworks of those who have best and most fully interpreted their religion\nin a universal sense, we find how careful they are to provide a category\nfor this experience of a personally known and loved indwelling\nDivinity--man's Father, Lover, Saviour, ever-present Companion--which\nshall avoid its identification with the mere spirit of Nature, whilst\nsafeguarding its immanence no less than its transcendent quality. Thus,\nJulian of Norwich heard in her meditations the voice of God saying to\nher, \"See! I am in all things! See! I lift never mine hand from off my\nworks, nor ever shall!\"[28] Is it possible to state more plainly the\nindivisible identity of the Spirit of Life? \"See! I am in _all_ things!\"\nIn the terrific energies of the stellar universe, and the smallest song\nof the birds. In the seething struggle of modern industrialism, as much\na part of nature, of those works on which His hands are laid, as the\nmore easily comprehended economy of the ant-heap and the hive. This\nsense of the personal presence of an abiding Reality, fulfilling and\ntranscending all our highest values, here in our space-time world of\neffort, may well be regarded as the differential mark of real spiritual\nexperience, wherever found. It chimes well with the definition of\nProfessor Pratt, who observes that the truly spiritual man, though he\nmay not be any better morally than his non-religious neighbour, \"has a\nconfidence in the universe and an inner joy which the other does not\nknow--is more at-home in the universe as a whole, than other men.\"[29]\n\nIf, in their attempt to describe their experience of this companioning\nReality, spiritual men of all types have exhausted all the resources and\nsymbols of poetry, even earthly lovers are obliged to do that, in order\nto suggest a fraction of the values contained in earthly love. Such a\ndivine presence is dramatized for Christianity in the historic\nincarnation, though not limited by it: and it is continued into history\nby the beautiful Christian conception of the eternal indwelling Christ.\nThe distinction made by the Bhakti form of Hinduism between the Manifest\nand the Unmanifest God seeks to express this same truth; and shows that\nthis idea, in one form or another, is a necessity for religious thought.\n\nFurther and detailed illustration of spiritual experience in itself, as\na genuine and abiding human fact--a form of life--independent of the\ndogmatic interpretations put on it, will come up as we proceed. I now\nwish to go on to a second point: this--that it follows that any complete\ndescription of human life as we know it, must find room for the\nspiritual factor, and for that religious life and temper in which it\nfinds expression. This place must be found, not merely in the phenomenal\nseries, as we might find room for any special human activity or\naberration, from the medicine-man to the Jumping Perfectionists; but\ndeep-set in the enduring stuff of man's true life. We must believe that\nthe union of this life with supporting Spirit cannot _in fact_ be\nbroken, any more than the organic unity of the earth with the universe\nas a whole. But the extent in which we find and feel it is the measure\nof the fullness of spiritual life that we enjoy. Organic union must be\nlifted to conscious realization: and this to do, is the business of\nreligion. In this act of realization each aspect of the psychic\nlife--thought, will and feeling--must have its part, and from each must\nbe evoked a response. Only in so far as such all-round realization and\nresponse are achieved by us do we live the spiritual life. We do it\nperhaps in some degree, every time that we surrender to pure beauty or\nunselfish devotion; for then all but the most insensitive must be\nconscious of an unearthly touch, and hear the cadence of a heavenly\nmelody. In these partial experiences something, as it were, of the\nrichness of Reality overflows and is experienced by us. But it is in the\nwholeness of response characteristic of religion--that uncalculated\nresponse to stimulus which is the mark of the instinctive life--that\nthis Realty of love and power is most truly found and felt by us. In\nthis generous and heart-searching surrender of religion, rightly made,\nthe self achieves inner harmony, and finds a satisfying objective for\nall its cravings and energies. It then finds its life, and the\npossibilities before it, to be far greater than it knew.\n\nWe need not claim that those men and women who have most fully realized,\nand so at first hand have described to us, this life of the Spirit, have\nneither discerned or communicated the ultimate truth of things; nor need\nwe claim that the symbols they use have intrinsic value, beyond the\npoetic power of suggesting to us the quality and wonder of their\ntransfigured lives. Still less must we claim this discovery as the\nmonopoly of any one system of religion. But we can and ought to claim,\nthat no system shall be held satisfactory which does not find a place\nfor it: and that only in so far as we at least apprehend and respond to\nthe world's spiritual aspect, do we approach the full stature of\nhumanity. Psychologists at present are much concerned to entreat us to\n\"face reality,\" discarding idealism along with the other phantasies that\nhaunt the race. Yet this facing of reality can hardly be complete if we\ndo not face the facts of the spiritual life. Certainly we shall find it\nmost difficult to interpret these facts; they are confused, and more\nthan one reading of them is possible. But still we cannot leave them out\nand claim to have \"faced reality.\"\n\nHoeffding goes so far as to say that any real religion implies and must\ngive us a world-view.[30] And I think it is true that any vividly lived\nspiritual life must, as soon as it passes beyond the level of mere\nfeeling and involves reflection, involve too some more or less\narticulated conception of the spiritual universe, in harmony with which\nthat life is to be lived. This may be given to us by authority, in the\nform of creed: but if we do not thus receive it, we are committed to the\nbuilding of our own City of God. And to-day, that world-view, that\nspiritual landscape, must harmonize--if it is needed to help our\nliving--with the outlook, the cosmic map, of the ordinary man. If it be\nadequate, it will inevitably transcend this; but must not be in hopeless\nconflict with it. The stretched-out, graded, striving world of\nbiological evolution, the many-faced universe of the physical\nrelativist, the space-time manifold of realist philosophy--these great\nconstructions of human thought, so often ignored by the religious mind,\nmust on the contrary be grasped, and accommodated to the world-view\nwhich centres on the God known in religious experience. They are true\nwithin their own systems of reference; and the soul demands a synthesis\nwide enough to contain them.\n\nIt is true that most religious systems, at least of the traditional\ntype, do purport to give us a world-view, a universe, in which\ndevotional experience is at home and finds an objective and an\nexplanation. They give us a self-consistent symbolic world in which to\nlive. But it is a world which is almost unrelated to the universe of\nmodern physics, and emerges in a very dishevelled state from the\nexplorations of history and of psychology. Even contrasted with our\nevery-day unresting strenuous life, it is rather like a conservatory in\na wilderness. Whilst we are inside everything seems all right.\n\nBeauty and fragrance surround us. But emerging from its doors, we find\nourselves meeting the cold glances of those who deal in other kinds of\nreality; and discover that such spiritual life as we possess has got to\naccommodate itself to the conditions in which they live. If the claim of\nreligion be true at all, it is plain that the conservatory-type of\nspiritual world is inconsistent with it. Imperfect though any conception\nwe frame of the universe must be--and here we may keep in mind Samuel\nButler's warning that \"there is no such source of error as the pursuit\nof absolute truth\"--still, a view which is controlled by the religious\nfactor ought to be, so to speak, a hill-top view. Lifting us up to\nhigher levels, it ought to give us a larger synthesis. Hence, the wider\nthe span of experience which we are able to bring within our system, the\nmore valid its claim becomes: and the setting apart of spiritual\nexperience in a special compartment, the keeping of it under glass, is\ndaily becoming less possible. That experience is life in its fullness,\nor nothing at all. Therefore it must come out into the open, and must\nwitness to its own most sacred conviction; that the universe as a whole\nis a religious fact, and man is not living completely until he is living\nin a world religiously conceived.\n\nMore and more, as it seems to me, philosophy moves toward this reading\nof existence. The revolt from the last century's materialism is almost\ncomplete. In religious language, abstract thought is again finding and\nfeeling God within the world; and finding too in this discovery and\nrealization the meaning, and perhaps--if we may dare to use such a\nword--the purpose of life. It suggests--and here, more and more,\npsychology supports it--that, real and alive as we are in relation to\nthis system with which we find ourselves in correspondence, yet we are\nnot so real, nor so alive, as it is possible to be. The characters of\nour psychic life point us on and up to other levels. Already we perceive\nthat man's universe is no fixed order; and that the many ways in which\nhe is able to apprehend it are earnests of a greater transfiguration, a\nmore profound contact with reality yet possible to him. Higher forms of\nrealization, a wider span of experience, a sharpening of our vague,\nuncertain consciousness of value--these may well be before us. We have\nto remember how dim, tentative, half-understood a great deal of our\nso-called \"normal\" experience is: how narrow the little field of\nconsciousness, how small the number of impressions it picks up from the\nrich flux of existence, how subjective the picture it constructs from\nthem. To take only one obvious example, artists and poets have given us\nplenty of hints that a real beauty and significance which we seldom\nnotice lie at our very doors; and forbid us to contradict the statement\nof religion that God is standing there too.\n\nThat thought which inspires the last chapters of Professor 'Alexander's\n\"Space, Time, and Deity,\" that the universe as a whole has a tendency\ntowards deity, does at least seem true of the fully awakened human\nconsciousness.[31] Though St. Thomas Aquinas may not have covered all\nthe facts when he called man a contemplative animal,[32] he came nearer\nthe mark than more modern anthropologists. Man has an ineradicable\nimpulse to transcendence, though sometimes--as we may admit--it is\nexpressed in strange ways: and no psychology which fails to take account\nof it can be accepted by us as complete. He has a craving which nothing\nin his material surroundings seems adequate either to awaken or to\nsatisfy; a deep conviction that some larger synthesis of experience is\npossible to him. The sense that we are not yet full grown has always\nhaunted the race. \"I am the Food of the full-grown. _Grow,_ and thou\nshalt feed on Me!\"[33] said the voice of supreme Reality to St.\nAugustine. Here we seem to lay our finger on the distinguishing mark of\nhumanity: that in man the titanic craving for a fuller life and love\nwhich is characteristic of all living things, has a teleological\nobjective. He alone guesses that he may or should be something other;\nyet cannot guess what he may be. And from this vague sense of being _in\nvia,_ the restlessness and discord of his nature proceed. In him, the\nonward thrust of the world of becoming achieves self-consciousness.\n\nThe best individuals and communities of each age have felt this craving\nand conviction; and obeyed, in a greater or less degree, its persistent\nonward push. \"The seed of the new birth,\" says William Law, \"is not a\nnotion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting, a magnetic\ndesire.\"[34] Over and over again, rituals have dramatized this, desire\nand saints have surrendered to it. The history of religion and\nphilosophy is really the history of the profound human belief that we\nhave faculties capable of responding to orders of truth which, did we\napprehend them, would change the whole character of our universe;\nshowing us reality from another angle, lit by another light. And time\nafter time too--as we shall see, when we come to consider the testimony\nof history--favourable variations have arisen within the race and proved\nin their own persons that this claim is true. Often at the cost of great\npain, sacrifice, and inward conflict they have broken their attachments\nto the narrow world of the senses: and this act of detachment has been\nrepaid by a new, more lucid vision, and a mighty inflow of power. The\nprinciple of degrees assures us that such changed levels of\nconsciousness and angles of approach may well involve introduction into\na universe of new relations, which we are not competent to\ncriticize.[35] This is a truth which should make us humble in our\nefforts to understand the difficult and too often paradoxical utterances\nof religious genius. It suggests the puzzlings of philosophers and\ntheologians--and, I may add, of psychologists too--over experiences\nwhich they have not shared, are not of great authority for those whose\nobject is to find the secret of the Spirit, and make it useful for life.\nHere, the only witnesses we can receive are, on the one part, the\nfirst-hand witnesses of experience, and on the other part, our own\nprofound instinct that these are telling us news of our native land.\n\nBaron von Huegel has finely said, that the facts of this spiritual life\nare themselves the earnests of its objective. These facts cannot be\nexplained merely as man's share in the cosmic movement towards a yet\nunrealized perfection; such as the unachieved and self-evolving Divinity\nof some realist philosophers. \"For we have no other instance of an\nunrealized perfection producing such pain and joy, such volitions, such\nendlessly varied and real results; and all by means of just this vivid\nand persistent impression that this Becoming is an already realized\nPerfection.\"[36] Therefore though the irresistible urge and the effort\nforward, experienced on highest levels of love and service, are plainly\none-half of the life of the Spirit--which can never be consistent with a\npious indolence, an acceptance of things as they are, either in the\nsocial or the individual life--yet, the other half, and the very\ninspiration of that striving, is this certitude of an untarnishable\nPerfection, a great goal really there; a living God Who draws all\nspirits to Himself. \"Our quest,\" said Plotinus, \"is of an End, not of\nends: for that only can be chosen by us which is ultimate and noblest,\nthat which calls forth the tenderest longings of our soul.\"[37]\n\nThere is of course a sense in which such a life of the Spirit is the\nsame yesterday, to-day and for ever. Even if we consider it in relation\nto historical time, the span within which it has appeared is so short,\ncompared with the ages of human evolution, that we may as well regard it\nas still in the stage of undifferentiated infancy. Yet even babies\nchange, and change quickly, in their relations with the external world.\nAnd though the universe with which man's childish spirit is in contact\nbe a world of enduring values; yet, placed as we are in the stream of\nsuccession, part of the stuff of a changing world and linked at every\npoint with it, our apprehensions of this life of spirit, the symbols we\nuse to describe it--and we must use symbols--must inevitably change too.\nTherefore from time to time some restatement becomes imperative, if\nactuality is not to be lost. Whatever God meant man to do or to be, the\nwhole universe assures us that He did not mean him to stand still. Such\na restatement, then, may reasonably be called a truly religious work;\nand I believe that it is indeed one of the chief works to which religion\nmust find itself committed in the near future. Hence my main object In\nthis book is to recommend the consideration of this enduring fact of the\nlife of the Spirit and what it can mean to us, from various points of\nview; thus helping to prepare the ground for that synthesis which we may\nnot yet be able to achieve, but towards which we ought to look. It is\nfrom this stand-point, and with this object of examining what we have,\nof sorting out if we can the permanent from the transitory, of noticing\nlacks and bridging cleavages, that we shall consider in turn the\ntestimony of history, the position in respect of psychology, and the\ninstitutional personal and social aspects of the spiritual life.\n\nIn such a restatement, such a reference back to actual man, here at the\npresent day as we have him--such a demand for a spiritual interpretation\nof the universe, which will allow us to fit in all his many-levelled\nexperiences--I believe we have the way of approach to which religion\nto-day must look as its best hope. Thus only can we conquer that\nmuseum-like atmosphere of much traditional piety which--agreeable as it\nmay be to the historic or aesthetic sense--makes it so unreal to our\nworkers, no less than to our students. Such a method, too, will mean the\ntightening of that alliance between philosophy and psychology which is\nalready a marked character of contemporary thought.\n\nAnd note that, working on this basis, we need not in order to find room\nfor the facts commit ourselves to the harsh dualism, the opposition\nbetween nature and spirit, which is characteristic of some earlier forms\nof Christian thought. In this dualism, too, we find simply an effort to\ndescribe felt experience. It is an expression of the fact, so strongly\nand deeply felt by the richest natures, that there _is_ an utter\ndifference in kind between the natural life of use and wont, as most of\nus live it, and the life that is dominated by the spiritual\nconsciousness. The change is indeed so great, the transfiguration so\ncomplete, that they seize on the strongest language in which to state\nit. And in the good old human way, referring their own feelings to the\nuniverse, they speak of the opposing and incompatible worlds of matter\nand of spirit, of nature and of grace. But those who have most deeply\nreflected, have perceived that the change effected is not a change of\nworlds. It is rather such a change of temper and attitude as will\ndisclose within our one world, here and now, the one Spirit in the\ndiversity of His gifts; the one Love, in homeliest incidents as well as\nnoblest vision, laying its obligations on the soul; and so the true\nnature and full possibilities of this our present life.\n\nAlthough it is true that we must register our profound sense of the\ntranscendental character of this spirit-life, its otherness from mere\nnature, and the humility and penitence in which alone mere nature\nreceive it; yet I think that our movement from one to the other is more\nnaturally described by us in the language of growth than in the language\nof convulsion. The primal object of religion is to disclose to us this\nperdurable basis of life, and foster our growth into communion with it.\nAnd whatever its special, language and personal colour be--for all our\nnews of God comes to us through the consciousness of individual men, and\narrives tinctured by their feelings and beliefs--in the end it does\nthis by disclosing us to ourselves as spirits growing up, though\nunevenly and hampered by our past, through the physical order into\ncompleteness of response to a universe that is itself a spiritual fact.\n\"Heaven,\" said Jacob Boehme, \"is nothing else but a manifestation of the\nEternal One, wherein all worketh and willeth in quiet love.\"[38] Such a\nmanifestation of Spirit must clearly be made through humanity, at least\nso far as our own order is concerned: by our redirection and full use of\nthat spirit of life which energizes us, and which, emerging from the\nmore primitive levels of organic creation, is ours to carry on and\nup--either to new self-satisfactions, or to new consecrations.\n\nIt is hardly worth while to insist that the need for such a redirection\nhas never been more strongly felt than at the present day. There is\nindeed no period in which history exhibits mankind as at once more\nactive, more feverishly self-conscious, and more distracted, than is our\nown bewildered generation; nor any which stood in greater need of\nBlake's exhortation: \"Let every Christian as much as in him lies, engage\nhimself openly and publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit\nfor the Building up of Jerusalem.\"[39]\n\nHow many people do each of us know who work and will in quiet love, and\nthus participate in eternal life?\n\nConsider the weight of each of these words. The energy, the clear\npurpose, the deep calm, the warm charity they imply. Willed work; not\ngrudging toil. Quiet love, not feverish emotionalism. Each term is quite\nplain and human, and each has equal importance as an attribute of\nheavenly life. How many politicians--the people to whom we have confided\nthe control of our national existence--work and will in quiet love? What\nabout industry? Do the masters, or the workers, work and will in quiet\nlove? that is to say with diligence and faithful purpose, without\nselfish anxiety, without selfish demands and hostilities? What about the\nhurried, ugly and devitalizing existence of our big towns? Can we\nhonestly say that young people reared in them are likely to acquire this\ntemper of heaven? Yet we have been given the secret, the law of\nspiritual life; and psychologists would agree that it represents too the\nmost favourable of conditions for a full psychic life, the state in\nwhich we have access to all our sources of power.\n\nBut man will not achieve this state unless he dwells on the idea of it;\nand, dwelling on that idea, opening his mind to its suggestions, brings\nits modes of expression into harmony with his thought about the world of\ndaily life. Our spiritual life to-day, such as it is, tends above all to\nexpress itself in social activities. Teacher after teacher comes forward\nto plume himself on the fact that Christianity is now taking a \"social\nform\"; that love of our neighbour is not so much the corollary as the\nequivalent of the love of God, and so forth. Here I am sure that all can\nsupply themselves with illustrative quotations. Yet is there in this\nstate of things nothing but food for congratulation? Is such a view\ncomplete? Is nothing left out? Have we not lost the wonder and poetry of\nthe forest in our diligent cultivation of the economically valuable\ntrees; and shall we ever see life truly until we see it with the poet's\neyes? There is so much meritorious working and willing; and so little\ntime left for quiet love. A spiritual fussiness--often a material\nfussiness too--seems to be taking the place of that inward resort to the\nfontal sources of our being which is the true religious act, our chance\nof contact with the Spirit. This compensating beat of the fully lived\nhuman life, that whole side of existence resumed in the word\ncontemplation, has been left out. \"All the artillery of the world,\" said\nJohn Everard, \"were they all discharged together at one clap, could not\nmore deaf the ears of our bodies than the clamourings of desires in the\nsoul deaf its ears, so you see a man must go into the silence, or else\nhe cannot hear God speak.\"[40] And until we remodel our current\nconception of the Christian life in such a sense as to give that silence\nand its revelation their full value, I do not think that we can hope to\nexhibit the triumphing power of the Spirit in human character and human\nsociety. Our whole notion of life at present is such as to set up\nresistances to its inflow. Yet the inner mood, the consciousness, which\nmakes of the self its channel, are accessible to all, if we would but\nbelieve this and act on our belief. \"Worship,\" said William Penn, \"is\nthe supreme act of a man's life.\"[41] And what is worship but a\nreach-out of the finite spirit towards Infinite Life? Here thought must\nmend the breach which thought has made: for the root of our trouble\nconsists in the fact that there is a fracture in our conception of God\nand of our relation with Him. We do not perceive the \"hidden unity in\nthe Eternal Being\"; the single nature and purpose of that Spirit which\nbrought life forth, and shall lead it to full realization.\n\nHere is our little planet, chiefly occupied, to our view, in rushing\nround the sun; but perhaps found from another angle to fill quite\nanother part in the cosmic scheme. And on this apparently unimportant\nspeck, wandering among systems of suns, the appearance of life and its\nslow development and ever-increasing sensitization; the emerging of pain\nand of pleasure; and presently man with his growing capacity for\nself-affirmation and self-sacrifice, for rapture and for grief. Love\nwith its unearthly happiness, unmeasured devotion, and limitless pain;\nall the ecstasy, all the anguish that we extract from the rhythm of life\nand death. It is much, really, for one little planet to bring to birth.\nAnd presently another music, which some--not many perhaps yet, in\ncomparison with its population--are able to hear. The music of a more\ninward life, a sort of fugue in which the eternal and temporal are\nmingled; and here and there some, already, who respond to it. Those who\nhear it would not all agree as to the nature of the melody; but all\nwould agree that it is something different in kind from the rhythm of\nlife and death. And in their surrender to this--to which, as they feel\nsure, the physical order too is really keeping time--they taste a larger\nlife; more universal, more divine. As Plotinus said, they are looking at\nthe Conductor in the midst; and, keeping time with Him, find the\nfulfilment both of their striving and of their peace.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: Von Huegel: \"Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of\nReligion,\" p. 60.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Ennead I, 6. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Jacob Boehme: \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Op. cit., loc. cit.]\n\n[Footnote 5: \"One Hundred Poems of Kabir,\" p. 31.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Bernard Bosanquet: \"What Religion Is\" p. 32.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Aug.: Conf. VII, 27.]\n\n[Footnote 8: \"My vision, becoming more purified, entered deeper and\ndeeper into the ray of that Supernal Light, which in itself is\ntrue\"--Par. XXXIII, 52.]\n\n[Footnote 9: \"The Tragic Sense of Life In Men and Peoples,\" p. 194.]\n\n[Footnote 10: T. Upton: \"The Bases of Religious Belief,\" p. 363.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Blake: \"Jerusalem,\" Cap. i.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Nicholson: \"The Divani Shamsi Tabriz,\" p. 141.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Ennead V. i. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Kabir, op. cit., p. 41.]\n\n[Footnote 15: \"Love, whoso loves thee cannot idle be, so sweet to him to\ntaste thee; but every hour he lives in longing that he may love thee\nmore straitly. For in thee the heart so joyful dwells, that he who feels\nit not can never say how sweet it is to taste thy savour\"--Jacopone da\nTodi: Lauda 101.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Isaiah xl, 29-31.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Aug.: Conf. X, 28.]\n\n[Footnote 18: \"Autobiography of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagore,\" Cap.\n12.]\n\n[Footnote 19: \"Le Journal Spirituel de Lucie-Christine,\" p. ii.]\n\n[Footnote 20: \"Autobiography of Maharishi Devendranath Tagore,\" Cap.\n20.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Ruysbroeck: \"The Book of the XII Beguines;\" Cap. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Overton: \"Life of Wesley.\" Cap. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 23: R.A. Nicholson: \"Studies In Islamic Mysticism,\" Cap. I.]\n\n[Footnote 24: \"Donne's Sermons,\" edited by L. Pearsall Smith, p. 236.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Ruysbroeck, \"The Sparkling Stone,\" Cap. 14.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Bishr-i-Yasin, cf. Nicholson, op. cit., loc. cit.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Ennead VI. 9. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 28: \"Revelations of Divine Love,\" Cap. II.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Pratt: \"The Religious Consciousness,\" Cap. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Hoeffding: \"Philosophy of Religion,\" Pt. II, A]\n\n[Footnote 31: Op. cit., Bk. 4, Cap. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 32: \"Summa contra Gentiles,\" L. III. Cap. 37.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Aug: Conf. VII, 10.]\n\n[Footnote 34: \"The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law,\" p.\n154.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Cf. Haldane, \"The Reign of Relativity,\" Cap. VI.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Von Huegel: \"Eternal Life,\" p. 385.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Ennead I. 4. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Boehme: \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Blake: \"Jerusalem\": To the Christians.]\n\n[Footnote 40: \"Some Gospel Treasures Opened,\" p. 600.]\n\n[Footnote 41: William Penn, \"No Cross, No Crown.\"]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHISTORY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\n\nWe have already agreed that, if we wish to grasp the real character of\nspiritual life, we must avoid the temptation to look at it as merely a\nhistorical subject. If it is what it claims to be, it is a form of\neternal life, as constant, as accessible to us here and now, as in any\nso-called age of faith: therefore of actual and present importance, or\nelse nothing at all. This is why I think that the approach to it through\nphilosophy and psychology is so much to be preferred to the approach\nthrough pure history. Yet there is a sense in which we must not neglect\nsuch history; for here, if we try to enter by sympathy into the past, we\ncan see the life of the Spirit emerging and being lived in all degrees\nof perfection and under many different forms. Here, through and behind\nthe immense diversity of temperaments which it has transfigured, we can\nbest realise its uniform and enduring character; and therefore our own\npossibility of attaining to it, and the way that we must tread so to do.\nHistory does not exhort us or explain to us, but exhibits living\nspecimens to us; and these specimens witness again and again to the fact\nthat a compelling power does exist in the world--little understood,\neven by those who are inspired by it--which presses men to transcend\ntheir material limitations and mental conflicts, and live a new creative\nlife of harmony, freedom and joy. Directly human character emerges as\none of man's prime interests, this possibility emerges too, and is never\nlost sight of again. Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, Greek, Alexandrian,\nMoslem and Christian all declare with more or less completeness a way of\nlife, a path, a curve of development which shall end in its attainment;\nand history brings us face to face with the real and human men and women\nwho have followed this way, and found its promise to be true.\n\nIt is, indeed, of supreme importance to us that these men and women did\ntruly and actually thus grow, suffer and attain: did so feel the\npressure of a more intense life, and the demand of a more authentic\nlove. Their adventures, whatsoever addition legend may have made to\nthem, belong at bottom to the realm of fact, of realistic happening, not\nof phantasy: and therefore speak not merely to our imagination but to\nour will. Unless the spiritual life were thus a part of history, it\ncould only have for us the interest of a noble dream: an interest\nactually less than that of great poetry, for this has at least been\ngiven to us by man's hard passionate work of expressing in concrete\nimage--and ever the more concrete, the greater his art--the results of\nhis transcendental contacts with Beauty, Power or Love. Thus, as the\ntracking-out of a concrete life, a Man, from Nazareth to Calvary, made\nof Christianity a veritable human revelation of God and not a Gnostic\nanswer to the riddle of the soul; so the real and solid men and women of\nthe Spirit--eating, drinking, working, suffering, loving, each in the\ncircumstances of their own time--are the earnests of our own latent\ndestiny and powers, the ability of the Christian to \"grow taller in\nChrist.\"[42] These powers--that ability--are factually present in the\nrace, and are totally independent of the specific religious system which\nmay best awaken, nourish, and cause them to grow.\n\nIn order, then, that we may be from the first clear of all suspicion of\nvague romancing about indefinite types of perfection and keep tight hold\non concrete life, let us try to re-enter history, and look at the\nquality of life exhibited by some of these great examples of dynamic\nspirituality, and the movements which they initiated. It is true that we\ncan only select from among them, but we will try to keep to those who\nhave followed on highest levels a normal course; the upstanding types,\nvarying much in temperament but little in aim and achievement, of that\nform of life which is re-made and controlled by the Spirit, entinctured\nwith Eternal Life. If such a use of history is indeed to be educative\nfor us, we must avoid the conventional view of it, as a mere chronicle\nof past events; and of historic personalities as stuffed specimens\nexhibited against a flat tapestried background, more or less\npicturesque, but always thought of in opposition to the concrete\nthickness of the modern world. We are not to think of spiritual epochs\nnow closed; of ages of faith utterly separated from us; of saints as\nsome peculiar species, God's pet animals, living in an incense-laden\natmosphere and less vividly human and various than ourselves. Such\nconceptions are empty of historical content in the philosophic sense;\nand when we are dealing with the accredited heroes of the Spirit--that\nis to say, with the Saints--they are particularly common and\nparticularly poisonous. As Benedetto Croce has observed, the very\ncondition of the existence of real history is that the deed celebrated\nmust live and be present in the soul of the historian; must be\nemotionally realized by him _now,_ as a concrete fact weighted with\nsignificance. It must answer to a present, not to a past interest of the\nrace, for thus alone can it convey to us some knowledge of its inward\ntruth.\n\nConsider from this point of view the case of Richard Rolle, who has been\ncalled the father of English mysticism. It is easy enough for those who\nregard spiritual history as dead chronicle and its subjects as something\ndifferent from ourselves, to look upon Rolle's threefold experience of\nthe soul's reaction to God--the heat of his quick love, the sweetness of\nhis spiritual intercourse, the joyous melody with which it filled his\naustere, self-giving life[43]--as the probable result of the reaction of\na neurotic temperament to mediaeval traditions. But if, for instance the\nOxford undergraduate of to-day realizes Rolle, not as a picturesque\nfourteenth-century hermit, but as a fellow-student--another Oxford\nundergraduate, separated from him only by an interval of time--who gave\nup that university and the career it could offer him, under the\ncompulsion of another Wisdom and another Love, then he re-enters the\nliving past. If, standing by him in that small hut in the Yorkshire\nwolds, from which the urgent message of new life spread through the\nnorth of England, he hears Rolle saying \"Nought more profitable, nought\nmerrier than grace of contemplation, the which lifteth us from low\nthings and presenteth us to God. What thing is grace but beginning of\njoy? And what is perfection of joy but grace complete?\"[44]--if, I say,\nhe so re-enters history that he can hear this as Rolle meant it, not as\na poetic phrase but as a living fact, indeed life's very secret--then,\nhis heart may be touched and he may begin to understand. And then it may\noccur to him that this ardour, and the sacrifice it impelled, the hard\nlife which it supported, witness to another level of being; reprove his\nown languor and comfort, his contentment with a merely physical mental\nlife, and are not wholly to be accounted for in terms of superstition\nor of pathology.\n\nWhen the living spirit in us thus meets the living spirit of the past,\nour time-span is enlarged, and history is born and becomes contemporary;\nthus both widening and deepening our vital experience. It then becomes\nnot only a real mode of life to us; but more than this, a mode of social\nlife. Indeed, we can hardly hope without this re-entrance into the time\nstream to achieve by ourselves, and in defiance of tradition, a true\nintegration of existence. Thus to defy tradition is to refuse all the\ngifts the past can make to us, and cut ourselves off from the cumulative\nexperiences of the race. The Spirit, as Croce[45] reminds us, is\nhistory, makes history, and is also itself the living result of all\npreceding history; since Becoming is the essential reality, the creative\nformula, of that life in which we find ourselves immersed.\n\nIt is from such an angle as this that I wish to approach the historical\naspect of the life of Spirit; re-entering the past by sympathetic\nimagination, refusing to be misled by superficial characteristics, but\nseeking the concrete factors of the regenerate life, the features which\npersist and have significance for it--getting, if we can, face to face\nwith those intensely living men and women who have manifested it. This\nis not easy. In studying all such experience, we have to remember that\nthe men and women of the Spirit are members of two orders. They have\nattachments both to time and to eternity. Their characteristic\nexperiences indeed are non-temporal, but their feet are on the earth;\nthe earth of their own day. Therefore two factors will inevitably appear\nin those experiences, one due to tradition, the other to the free\nmovements of creative life: and we, if we would understand, must\ndiscriminate between them. In this power of taking from the past and\npushing on to the future, the balance maintained between stability and\nnovelty, we find one of their abiding characteristics. When this balance\nis broken--when there is either too complete a submission to tradition\nand authority, or too violent a rejection of it--full greatness is not\nachieved.\n\nIn complete lives, the two things overlap: and so perfectly that no\nsharp distinction is made between the gifts of authority and of fresh\nexperience. Traditional formulae, as we all know, are often used because\nthey are found to tally with life, to light up dark corners of our own\nspirits and give names to experiences which we want to define.\nCeremonial deeds are used to actualize free contacts with Reality. And\nwe need not be surprised that they can do this; since tradition\nrepresents the crystallization, and handling on under symbols, of all\nthe spiritual experiences of the race.\n\nTherefore the man or woman of the Spirit will always accept and use some\ntradition; and unless he does so, he is not of much use to his\nfellow-men. He must not, then, be discredited on account of the\nsymbolic system he adopts; but must be allowed to tell his news in his\nown way. We must not refuse to find reality within the Hindu's account\nof his joyous life-giving communion with Ram, any more than we refuse to\nfind it within the Christian's description of his personal converse with\nChrist. We must not discredit the assurance which comes to the devout\nBuddhist who faithfully follows the Middle Way, or deny that Pagan\nsacramentalism was to its initiates a channel of grace. For all these\nare children of tradition, occupy a given place in the stream of\nhistory; and commonly they are better, not worse, for accepting this\nfact with all that it involves. And on the other hand, as we shall see\nwhen we come to discuss the laws of suggestion and the function of\nbelief, the weight of tradition presses the loyal and humble soul which\naccepts it, to such an interpretation of its own spiritual intuitions as\nits Church, its creed, its environment give to it. Thus St. Catherine of\nGenoa, St. Teresa, even Ruysbroeck, are able to describe their intuitive\ncommunion with God in strictly Catholic terms; and by so doing renew,\nenrich and explicate the content of those terms for those who follow\nthem. Those who could not harmonize their own vision of reality with the\ncurrent formulae--Fox, Wesley or Blake, driven into opposition by the\nsterility of the contemporary Church--were forced to find elsewhere some\ntradition through which to maintain contact with the past. Fox found it\nin the Bible; Wesley in patristic Christianity. Even Blake's prophetic\nsystem, when closely examined, is found to have many historic and\nChristian connections. And all these regarded themselves far less as\nbringers-in of novelty, than as restorers of lost truth. So we must be\nprepared to discriminate the element of novelty from the element of\nstability; the reality of the intuition, the curve of growth, the moral\nsituation, from the traditional and often symbolic language in which it\nis given to us. The comparative method helps us towards this; and is\nthus not, as some would pretend, the servant of scepticism, but rightly\nused the revealer of the Spirit of Life in its variety of gifts. In this\nconnection we might remember that time--like space--is only of secondary\nimportance to us. Compared with the eons of preparation, the millions of\nyears of our animal and sub-human existence, the life of the Spirit as\nit appears in human history might well be regarded as simultaneous\nrather than successive. We may borrow the imagery of Donne's great\ndiscourse on Eternity and say, that those heroic livers of the spiritual\nlife whom we idly class in comparison with ourselves as antique, or\nmediaeval men, were \"but as a bed of flowers some gathered at six, some\nat seven, some at eight--all in one morning in respect of this day.\"[46]\n\nSuch a view brings them more near to us, helps us to neglect mere\ndifferences of language and appearance, and grasp the warmly living and\ncontemporary character of all historic truth. It preserves us, too, from\nthe common error of discriminating between so-called \"ages of faith\" and\nour own. The more we study the past, the more clearly we recognize that\nthere are no \"ages of faith.\" Such labels merely represent the arbitrary\ncuts which we make in the time-stream, the arbitrary colours which we\ngive to it. The spiritual man or woman is always fundamentally the same\nkind of man or woman; always reaching out with the same faith and love\ntowards the heart of the same universe, though telling that faith and\nlove in various tongues. He is far less the child of his time, than the\ntransformer of it. His this-world business is to bring in novelty, new\nreality, fresh life. Yet, coming to fulfil not to destroy, he uses for\nthis purpose the traditions, creeds, even the institutions of his day.\nBut when he has done with them, they do not look the same as they did\nbefore. Christ himself has been well called a Constructive\nRevolutionary,[47] yet each single element of His teaching can be found\nin Jewish tradition; and the noblest of His followers have the same\ncharacter. Thus St. Francis of Assisi only sought consistently to apply\nthe teaching of the New Testament, and St. Teresa that of the Carmelite\nRule. Every element of Wesleyanism is to be found in primitive\nChristianity; and Wesleyanism is itself the tradition from which the new\nvigour of the Salvation Army sprang. The great regenerators of history\nare always in fundamental opposition to the common life of their day,\nfor they demand by their very existence a return to first principles, a\nrevolution in the ways of thinking and of acting common among men, a\nheroic consistency and single-mindedness: but they can use for their own\nfresh constructions and contacts with Eternal Life the material which\nthis life offers to them. The experiments of St. Benedict, St. Francis,\nFox or Wesley, were not therefore the natural products of ages of faith.\nThey each represented the revolt of a heroic soul against surrounding\napathy and decadence; an invasion of novelty; a sharp break with\nsociety, a new use of antique tradition depending on new contacts with\nthe Spirit. Greatness is seldom in harmony with its own epoch, and\nspiritual greatness least of all. It is usually startlingly modern, even\neccentric at the time at which it appears. We are accustomed to think of\n\"The Imitation of Christ\" as the classic expression of mediaeval\nspirituality. But when Thomas a Kempis wrote his book, it was the\nmanifesto of that which was called the Modern Devotion; and represented\na new attempt to live the life of the Spirit, in opposition to\nsurrounding apathy.\n\nWhen we re-enter the past, what we find, there is the persistent\nconflict between this novelty and this apathy; that is to say between\nman's instinct for transcendence, in which we discern the pressure of\nthe Spirit and the earnest of his future, and his tendency to lag\nbehind towards animal levels, in which we see the influence of his\nracial past. So far as the individual is concerned, all that religion\nmeans by grace is resumed under the first head, much that it means by\nsin under the second head. And the most striking--though not the\nonly--examples of the forward reach of life towards freedom (that is, of\nconquering grace) are those persons whom we call men and women of the\nSpirit. In them it is incarnate, and through them, as it were, it\nspreads and gives the race a lift: for their transfiguration is never\nfor themselves alone, they impart it to all who follow them. But the\ndownward falling movement ever dogs the emerging life of spirit; and\ntends to drag back to the average level the group these have vivified,\nwhen their influence is withdrawn. Hence the history of the Spirit--and,\nincidentally, the history of all churches--exhibits to us a series of\nstrong movements towards completed life, inspired by vigorous and\ntranscendent personalities; thwarted by the common indolence and\ntendency to mechanization, but perpetually renewed. We have no reason to\nsuppose that this history is a closed book, or that the spiritual life\nstruggling to emerge among ourselves will follow other laws.\n\nWe desire then, if we can, to discover what it was that these\ntranscendent personalities possessed. We may think, from the point at\nwhich we now stand, that they had some things which were false, or, at\nleast, were misinterpreted by them. We cannot without insincerity make\ntheir view of the universe our own. But, plainly, they also possessed\ntruths and values which most of us have not: they obtained from their\nreligion, whether we allow that it had as creed an absolute or a\nsymbolic value, a power of living, a courage and clear vision, which we\ndo not as a rule obtain. When we study the character and works of these\nmen and women, observing their nobility, their sweetness, their power of\nendurance, their outflowing love, we must, unless we be utterly\ninsensitive, perceive ourselves to be confronted by a quality of being\nwhich we do not possess. And when we are so fortunate as to meet one of\nthem in the flesh, though his conduct is commonly more normal than our\nown, we know then with Plotinus that the soul _has_ another life. Yet\nmany of us accept the same creedal forms, use the same liturgies,\nacknowledge the same scale of values and same moral law. But as\nsomething, beyond what the ordinary man calls beauty rushes out to the\ngreat artist from the visible world, and he at this encounter becomes\nmore vividly alive; so for these there was and is in religion a new,\nintenser life which they can reach. They seem to represent favourable\nvariations, genuine movements of man towards new levels; a type of life\nand of greatness, which remains among the hoarded possibilities of the\nrace.\n\nNow the main questions which we have to ask of history fall into two\ngroups:\n\nFirst, _Type._ What are the characters which mark this life of the\nSpirit?\n\nSecondly, _Process._ What is the line of development by which the\nindividual comes to acquire and exhibit these characters?\n\nFirst, then, the _Spiritual Type._\n\nWhat we see above all in these men and women, so frequently repeated\nthat we may regard it as classic, is a perpetual serious heroic effort\nto integrate life about its highest factors. Their central quality and\nreal source of power is this single-mindedness. They aim at God: the\nphrase is Ruysbroeck's, but it pervades the real literature of the\nSpirit. Thus it is the first principle of Hinduism that \"the householder\nmust keep touch with Brahma in all his actions.\"[48] Thus the Sufi says\nhe has but two laws--to look in one direction and to live in one\nway.[49] Christians call this, and with reason, the Imitation of Christ;\nand it was in order to carry forward this imitation more perfectly that\nall the great Christian systems of spiritual training were framed. The\nNew Testament leaves us in no doubt that the central fact of Our Lord's\nlife was His abiding sense of direct connection with and responsibility\nto the Father; that His teaching and works of charity alike were\ninspired by this union; and that He declared it, not as a unique fact,\nbut as a possible human ideal. This Is not a theological, but a\nhistorical statement, which applies, in its degree to every man and\nwoman who has been a follower of Christ: for He was, as St. Paul has\nsaid, \"the eldest in a vast family of brothers.\" The same single-minded\neffort and attainment meet us in other great faiths; though these may\nlack a historic ideal of perfect holiness and love. And by a paradox\nrepeated again and again in human history, it is this utter devotion to\nthe spiritual and eternal which is seen to bring forth the most abundant\nfruits in the temporal sphere; giving not only the strength to do\ndifficult things, but that creative charity which \"wins and redeems the\nunlovely by the power of its love.\"[50] The man or woman of prayer, the\ncommunity devoted to it, tap some deep source of power and use it in the\nmost practical ways. Thus, the only object of the Benedictine rule was\nthe fostering of goodness in those who adopted it, the education of the\nsoul; and it became one of the chief instruments in the civilization of\nEurope, carrying forward not only religion, but education, pure\nscholarship, art, and industrial reform. The object of St. Bernard's\nreform was the restoration of the life of prayer. His monks, going out\ninto the waste places with no provision but their own faith, hope and\ncharity, revived agriculture, established industry, literally compelled\nthe wilderness to flower for God. The Brothers of the Common Life\njoined together, in order that, living simply and by their own industry,\nthey might observe a rule of constant prayer: and they became in\nconsequence a powerful educational influence. The object of Wesley and\nhis first companions was by declaration the saving of their own souls\nand the living only to the glory of God; but they were impelled at once\nby this to practical deeds of mercy, and ultimately became the\nregenerators of religion in the English-speaking world.\n\nIt is well to emphasize this truth, for it conveys a lesson which we can\nlearn from history at the present time with much profit to ourselves. It\nmeans that reconstruction of character and reorientation of attention\nmust precede reconstruction of society; that the Sufi is right when he\ndeclares that the whole secret lies in looking in one direction and\nliving in one way. Again and again it has been proved, that those who\naim at God do better work than those who start with the declared\nintention of benefiting their fellow-men. We must _be_ good before we\ncan _do_ good; be real before we can accomplish real things. No\ngeneralized benevolence, no social Christianity, however beautiful and\ndevoted, can take the place of this centring of the spirit on eternal\nvalues; this humble, deliberate recourse to Reality. To suppose that it\ncan do so, is to fly in the face of history and mistake effect for\ncause.\n\nThis brings us to the _Second Character_: the rich completeness of the\nspiritual life, the way in which it fuses and transfigures the\ncomplementary human tendencies to contemplation and action, the\nnon-successive and successive aspects of reality. \"The love of God,\"\nsaid Ruysbroeck, \"is an indrawing _and_ outpouring tide\";[51] and\nhistory endorses this. In its greatest representatives, the rhythm of\nadoration and work is seen in an accentuated form. These people seldom\nor never answer to the popular idea of idle contemplatives. They do not\nwithdraw from the stream of natural life and effort, but plunge into it\nmore deeply, seek its heart. They have powers of expression and\ncreation, and use them to the full. St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Bernard,\nSt. Francis, St. Teresa, St. Ignatius organizing families which shall\nincarnate the gift of new life; Fox, Wesley and Booth striving to save\nother men; Mary Slessor driven by vocation from the Dundee mill to the\nAfrican swamps--these are characteristic of them. We perceive that they\nare not specialists, as more earthly types of efficiency are apt to be.\nTheirs are rich natures, their touch on existence has often an artistic\nquality, St. Paul in his correspondence could break into poetry, as the\nonly way of telling the truth. St. Jerome lived to the full the lives of\nscholar and of ascetic. St. Francis, in his perpetual missionary\nactivities, still found time for his music songs; St. Hildegarde and St.\nCatherine of Siena had their strong political interests; Jacopone da\nTodi combined the careers of contemplative politician and poet. So too\nin practical matters. St. Catherine of Genoa was one of the first\nhospital administrators, St. Vincent de Paul a genius in the sphere of\norganized charity, Elizabeth Fry in that of prison reform. Brother\nLaurence assures us that he did his cooking the better for doing it in\nthe Presence of God. Jacob Boehme was a hard-working cobbler, and\nafterwards as a writer showed amazing powers of composition. The\nperpetual journeyings and activities of Wesley reproduced in smaller\ncompass the career of St. Paul: he was also an exact scholar and a\npractical educationist. Mary Slessor showed the quality of a ruler as\nwell as that of a winner of souls. In the intellectual region, Richard\nof St. Victor was supreme in contemplation, and also a psychologist far\nin advance of his time. We are apt to forget the mystical side of\nAquinas; who was poet and contemplative as well as scholastic\nphilosopher.\n\nAnd the third feature we notice about these men and women is, that this\nnew power by which they lived was, as Ruysbroeck calls it, \"a spreading\nlight.\"[52] It poured out of them, invading and illuminating other men:\nso that, through them, whole groups or societies were re-born, if only\nfor a time, on to fresh levels of reality, goodness and power. Their own\nintense personal experience was valid not only for themselves. They\nbelonged to that class of natural, leaders who are capable,--of\ninfecting the herd with their own ideals; leading it to new feeding\ngrounds, improving the common level It is indeed the main social\nfunction of the man or woman of the Spirit to be such a crowd-compeller\nIn the highest sense; and, as the artist reveals new beauty to his\nfellow-men, to stimulate in their neighbours the latent human capacity\nfor God. In every great surge forward to new life, we can trace back the\nradiance to such a single point of light; the transfiguration of an\nindividual soul. Thus Christ's communion with His Father was the\nlife-centre, the point of contact with Eternity, whence radiated the joy\nand power of the primitive Christian flock: the classic example of a\ncorporate spiritual life. When the young man with great possessions\nasked Jesus, \"What shall I do to be saved?\" Jesus replied in effect,\n\"Put aside all lesser interests, strip off unrealities, and come, give\nyourself the chance of catching the Infection of holiness from Me.\"\nWhatever be our view of Christian dogma, whatever meaning we attach to\nthe words \"redemption\" and \"atonement,\" we shall hardly deny that in the\nlife and character of the historic Christ something new was thus evoked\nfrom, and added to, humanity. No one can read with attention the Gospel\nand the story of the primitive Church, without being struck by the\nconsciousness of renovation, of enhancement, experienced by all who\nreceived the Christian secret in its charismatic stage. This new factor\nis sometimes called re-birth, sometimes grace, sometimes the power of\nthe Spirit, sometimes being \"in Christ.\" We misread history if we regard\nit either as a mere gust of emotional fervour, or a theological idea, or\ndiscount the \"miracles of healing\" and other proofs of enhanced power by\nwhich it was expressed. Everything goes to prove that the \"more abundant\nlife\" offered by the Johannine Christ to His followers, was literally\nexperienced by them; and was the source of their joy, their enthusiasm,\ntheir mutual love and power of endurance.\n\nOn lower levels, and through the inspiration of lesser teachers, history\nshows us the phenomena of primitive Christianity repeated again and\nagain; both within and without the Christian circle of ideas. Every\nreligion looks for, and most have possessed, some revealer of the\nSpirit; some Prophet, Buddha, Mahdi, or Messiah. In all, the\ncharacteristic demonstrations of the human power of transcendence--a\nsupernatural life which can be lived by us--have begun in one person,\nwho has become a creative centre mediating new life to his fellow-men:\nas were Buddha and Mohammed for the faiths which they founded. Such\nlives as those of St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Francis, Fox, Wesley,\nBooth are outstanding examples of the operation of this law. The parable\nof the leaven is in fact an exact description of the way in which the\nspiritual consciousness--the supernatural urge--is observed to spread in\nhuman society. It is characteristic of the regenerate type, that he\nshould as it were overflow his own boundaries and energize other souls:\nfor the gift of a real and harmonized life pours out inevitably from\nthose who possess it to other men. We notice that the great mystics\nrecognize again and again such a fertilizing and creative power, as a\nmark of the soul's full vitality. It is not the personal rapture of the\nspiritual marriage, but rather the \"divine fecundity\" of one who is a\nparent of spiritual children; which seems to them the goal of human\ntranscendence, and evidence of a life truly lived on eternal levels, in\nreal union with God. \"In the fourth and last degree of love the soul\nbrings forth its children,\" says Richard of St. Victor.[53] \"The last\nperfection to supervene upon a thing,\" says Aquinas, \"is its becoming\nthe cause of other things.\"[54] In a word, it is creative. And the\nspiritual life as we see it in history is thus creative; the cause of\nother things.\n\nHistory is full of examples of this law: that the man or woman of the\nspirit is, fundamentally, a life-giver; and all corporate achievement of\nthe life of the spirit flows from some great apostle or initiator, is\nthe fruit of discipleship. Such corporate achievement is a form of group\nconsciousness, brought into being through the power and attraction of a\nfully harmonized life, infecting others with its own sharp sense of\nDivine reality. Poets and artists thus infect in a measure all those\nwho yield to their influence. The active mystic, who is the poet of\nEternal Life, does it in a supreme degree. Such a relation of master and\ndisciples is conspicuous in every true spiritual revival; and is the\nlink between the personal and corporate aspects of regeneration. We see\nit in the little flock that followed Christ, the Little Poor Men who\nfollowed Francis, the Friends of Fox, the army of General Booth. Not\nChristianity alone, but Hindu and Moslem history testify to this\nnecessity. The Hindu who is drawn to the spiritual life must find a\n_guru_ who can not only teach its laws but also give its atmosphere; and\nmust accept his discipline in a spirit of obedience. The S[=u]fi\nneophyte is directed to place himself in the hands of his _sheikh_ \"as a\ncorpse in the hands of the washer\"; and all the great saints of Islam\nhave been the inspiring centres of more or less organized groups.\n\nHistory teaches us, in fact, that God most often educates men through\nmen. We most easily recognize Spirit when it is perceived transfiguring\nhuman character, and most easily achieve it by means of sympathetic\ncontagion. Though the new light may flash, as it seems, directly into\nthe soul of the specially gifted or the inspired, this spontaneous\noutbreaking of novelty is comparatively rare; and even here, careful\nanalysis will generally reveal the extent in which environment,\ntradition, teaching literary or oral, have prepared the way for it.\nThere is no aptitude so great that it can afford to dispense with human\nexperience and education. Even the noblest of the sons and daughters of\nGod are also the sons and daughters of the race; and are helped by those\nwho go before them. And as regards the generality, not isolated effort\nbut the love and sincerity of the true spiritual teacher--and every man\nand woman of the Spirit is such a teacher within his own sphere of\ninfluence--the unselfconscious trust of the disciple, are the means by\nwhich the secret of full life has been handed on. \"One loving spirit,\"\nsaid St. Augustine, \"sets another on fire\"; and expressed in this phrase\nthe law which governs the spiritual history of man. This law finds\nnotable expression in the phenomena of the Religious Order; a type of\nassociation, found in more or less perfection in every great religion,\nwhich has not received the attention it deserves from students of\npsychology. If we study the lives of those who founded these\nOrders--though such a foundation was not always intended by them--we\nnotice one general characteristic: each was an enthusiast, abounding in\nzest and hope, and became in his lifetime a fount of regeneration, a\nsource of spiritual infection, for those who came under his influence.\nIn each the spiritual world was seen \"through a temperament,\" and so\nmediated to the disciples; who shared so far as they were able the\nmaster's special secret and attitude to life. Thus St. Benedict's sane\nand generous outlook is crystallized in the Benedictine rule. St.\nFrancis' deep sense of the connection between poverty and freedom gave\nFranciscan regeneration its peculiar character. The heroisms of the\nearly Jesuit missionaries reflected the strong courageous temper of St.\nIgnatius. The rich contemplative life of Carmel is a direct inheritance\nfrom St. Teresa's mystical experience. The great Orders in their purity\nwere families, inheriting and reproducing the salient qualities of their\npatriarch; who gave, as a father to his children, life stamped with his\nown characteristics.\n\nYet sooner or later after the withdrawal of its founder, the group\nappears to lose its spontaneous and enthusiastic character. Zest fails.\nUnless a fresh leader be forthcoming, it inevitably settles down again\ntowards the general level of the herd. Thence it can only be roused by\nmeans of \"reforms\" or \"revivals,\" the arrival of new, vigorous leaders,\nand the formation of new enthusiastic groups: for the bulk of men as we\nknow them cannot or will not make the costing effort needed for a\nfirst-hand participation in eternal life. They want a \"crowd-compeller\"\nto lift them above themselves. Thus the history of Christianity is the\nhistory of successive spiritual group-formations, and their struggle to\nsurvive; from the time when Jesus of Nazareth formed His little flock\nwith the avowed aim of \"bringing in the Kingdom of God\"--transmuting the\nmentality of the race, and so giving it more abundant life.\n\nChristians appeal to the continued teaching and compelling power of\ntheir Master, the influence and infection of His spirit and atmosphere,\nas the greatest of the regenerative forces still at work within life:\nand this is undoubtedly true of those devout spirits able to maintain\ncontact with the eternal world in prayer. The great speech of Serenus de\nCressy in \"John Inglesant\" described once for all the highest type of\nChristian spirituality.[55] But in practice this link and this influence\nare too subtle for the mass of men. They must constantly be\nre-experienced by ardent and consecrated souls; and by them be mediated\nto fresh groups, formed within or without the institutional frame. Thus\nin the thirteenth century St. Francis, and in the fourteenth the Friends\nof God, created a true spiritual society within the Church, by restoring\nin themselves and their followers the lost consistency between Christian\nidea and Christian life. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,\nFox and Wesley possessed by the same essential vision, broke away from\nthe institution which was no longer supple enough to meet their needs,\nand formed their fresh groups outside the old herd.\n\nWhen such creative personalities appear and such groups are founded by\nthem, the phenomena of the spiritual life reappear in their full vigour,\nand are disseminated. A new vitality, a fresh power of endurance, is\nseen in all who are drawn within the group and share its mind. This is\nwhat St. Paul seems to have meant, when he reminded his converts that\nthey had the mind of Christ. The primitive friars, living under the\ninfluence of Francis, did practice the perfect poverty which is also\nperfect joy. The assured calm and willing sufferings of the early\nChristians were reproduced in the early Quakers, secure in their\npossession of the inner light. We know very well the essential\ncharacters of this fresh mentality; the power, the enthusiasm, the\nradiant joy, the indifference to pain and hardship it confers. But we\ncan no more produce it from these raw materials than the chemist's\ncrucible can produce life. The whole experience of St. Francis is\nimplied in the Beatitudes. The secret of Elizabeth Fry is the secret of\nSt. John. The doctrine of General Booth is fully stated by St. Paul. But\nit was not by referring inquirers to the pages of the New Testament that\nthe first brought men fettered by things to experience the freedom of\npoverty; the second faced and tamed three hundred Newgate criminals, who\nseemed at her first visit \"like wild beasts\"; or the third created\narmies of the redeemed from the dregs of the London Slums. They did\nthese things by direct personal contagion; and they will be done among\nus again when the triumphant power of Eternal Spirit is again exhibited,\nnot in ideas but in human character.\n\nI think, then, that history justifies us in regarding the full living of\nthe spiritual life as implying at least these three characters. First,\nsingle-mindedness: to mean only God. Second, the full integration of the\ncontemplative and active sides of existence, lifted up, harmonized, and\ncompletely consecrated to those interests which the self recognizes as\nDivine. Third, the power of reproducing this life; incorporating it in a\ngroup. Before we go on, we will look at one concrete example which\nillustrates all these points. This example is that of St. Benedict and\nthe Order which he founded; for in the rounded completeness of his life\nand system we see what should be the normal life of the Spirit, and its\nresult.\n\nBenedict was born in times not unlike our own, when wars had shaken\ncivilization, the arts of peace were unsettled, religion was at a low\nebb. As a young man, he experienced an intense revulsion from the\nvicious futility of Roman society, fled into the hills, and lived in a\ncave for three years alone with his thoughts of God. It would be easy to\nregard him as an eccentric boy: but he was adjusting himself to the real\ncentre of his life. Gradually others who longed for a more real\nexistence joined him, and he divided them into groups of twelve, and\nsettled them in small houses; giving them a time-table by which to live,\nwhich should make possible a full and balanced existence of body, mind\nand soul. Thanks to those years of retreat and preparation, he knew what\nhe wanted and what he ought to do; and they ushered in a long life of\nintense mental and spiritual activity. His houses were schools, which\ntaught the service of God and the perfecting of the soul as the aims of\nlife. His rule, in which genial human tolerance, gentle courtesy, and a\nprofound understanding of men are not less marked than lofty\nspirituality, is the classic statement of all that the Christian\nspiritual life implies and should be.[56]\n\nWhat, then, is the character of the life which St. Benedict proposed as\na remedy for the human failure and disharmony that he saw around him? It\nwas framed, of course, for a celibate community: but it has many\npermanent features which are unaffected by his limitation. It offers\nbalanced opportunities of development to the body, the mind and the\nspirit; laying equal emphasis on hard work, study, and prayer. It aims\nat a robust completeness, not at the production of professional\nascetics; indeed, its Rule says little about physical austerities,\ninsists on sufficient food and rest, and countenances no extremes.\nAccording to Abbot Butler, St. Benedict's day was divided into three and\na half hours for public worship, four and a half for reading and\nmeditation, six and a half for manual work, eight and a half for sleep,\nand one hour for meals. So that in spite of the time devoted to\nspiritual and mental interests, the primitive Benedictine did a good\nday's work and had a good night's rest at the end of it. The work might\nbe anything that wanted doing, so long as the hours of prayer were not\ninfringed. Agriculture, scholarship, education, handicrafts and art have\nall been done perfectly by St. Benedict's sons, working and willing in\nquiet love. This is what one of the greatest constructive minds of\nChristendom regarded as a reasonable way of life; a frame within which\nthe loftiest human faculties could grow, and man's spirit achieve that\nharmony with God which is its goal. Moreover, this life was to be\nsocial. It was in the beginning just the busy useful life of an Italian\nfarm, lived in groups--in monastic families, under the rule and\ninspiration not of a Master but of an Abbot; a Father who really was the\nspiritual parent of his monks, and sought to train them in the humility,\nobedience, self-denial and gentle suppleness of character which are the\nauthentic fruits of the Spirit. This ideal, it seems to me, has\nsomething still to say to us; some reproof to administer to our hurried\nand muddled existence, our confusion of values, our failure to find time\nfor reality. We shall find in it and its creator, if we look, all those\nmarks of the regenerate life of the Spirit which history has shown to us\nas normal: namely the transcendent aim, the balanced career of action\nand contemplation, the creative power, and above all the principle of\nsocial solidarity and discipleship.\n\nWe go on to ask history what it has to tell us on the second point, the\nprocess by which the individual normally develops this life of the\nSpirit, the serial changes it demands; for plainly, to know this is of\npractical importance to us. The full inwardness of these changes will be\nconsidered when we come to the personal aspect of the spiritual life.\nNow we are only concerned to notice that history tends to establish the\nconstant recurrence of a normal process, recognizable alike in great and\nsmall personalities under the various labels which have been given to\nit, by which the self moves from its usually exclusive correspondence\nwith the temporal order to those full correspondences with reality, that\nunion with God, characteristic of the spiritual life. This life we must\nbelieve in some form and degree to be possible for all; but we study it\nbest on heroic levels, for here its moments are best marked and its\nfullest records survive.\n\nThe first moment of this process seems to be, that man falls out of love\nwith life as he has commonly lived it, and the world as he has known it.\nDissatisfaction and disillusion possess him; the negative marks of his\nnascent intuition of another life, for which he is intended but which he\nhas not yet found. We see this initial phase very well in St. Benedict,\ndisgusted by the meaningless life of Roman society; in St. Francis,\nabandoning his gay and successful social existence; in Richard Rolle,\nturning suddenly from scholarship to a hermit's life; in the restless\nmisery of St. Catherine of Genoa; in Fox, desperately seeking \"something\nthat could speak to his condition\"; and also in two outstanding\nexamples from modern India, those of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagore\nand the Sadhu Sundar Singh. This dissatisfaction, sometimes associated\nwith the negative vision or conviction of sin, sometimes with the\npositive longing for holiness and peace, is the mental preparation of\nconversion; which, though not a constant, is at least a characteristic\nfeature of the beginning of the spiritual life as seen in history. We\nmight, indeed, expect some crucial change of attitude, some inner\ncrisis, to mark the beginning of a new life which is to aim only at God.\nHere too we find one motive of that movement of world-abandonment which\nso commonly follows conversion, especially in heroic souls. Thus St.\nPaul hides himself in Arabia; St. Benedict retires for three years to\nthe cave at Subiaco; St. Ignatius to Manresa. Gerard Groot, the\nbrilliant and wealthy young Dutchman who founded the brotherhood of the\nCommon Life, began his new life by self-seclusion in a Carthusian cell.\nSt. Catherine of Siena at first lived solitary in her own room. St.\nFrancis with dramatic completeness abandoned his whole past, even the\nclothing that was part of it. Jacopone da Todi, the prosperous lawyer\nconverted to Christ's poverty, resorted to the most grotesque devices to\nexpress his utter separation from the world. Others, it is true, have\nchosen quieter methods, and found in that which St. Catherine calls the\ncell of self-knowledge the solitude they required; but _some_ decisive\nbreak was imperative for all. History assures us that there is no easy\nsliding into the life of the Spirit.\n\nA secondary cause of such world refusal is the first awakening of the\ncontemplative powers; the intuition of Eternity, hitherto dormant, and\nfelt at this stage to be--in its overwhelming reality and appeal--in\nconflict with the unreal world and unsublimated active life. This is the\ncontrolling idea of the hermit and recluse. It is well seen in St.\nTeresa; whom her biographers describe as torn, for years, between the\ninterests of human intercourse and the imperative inner voice urging her\nto solitary self-discipline and prayer. So we may say that in the\nbeginning of the life of the Spirit, as history shows it to us, if\ndisillusion marks the first moment, some measure of asceticism, of\nworld-refusal and painful self-schooling, is likely to mark the second\nmoment.\n\nWhat we are watching is the complete reconstruction of personality; a\npersonality that has generally grown into the wrong shape. This is\nlikely to be a hard and painful business; and indeed history assures us\nthat it is, and further that the spiritual life is never achieved by\ntaking the line of least resistance and basking in the divine light.\nWith world-refusal, then, is intimately connected stern moral conflict;\noften lasting for years, and having as its object the conquest of\nselfhood in all its insidious forms. \"Take one step out of yourself,\"\nsay the S[=u]fis, \"and you will arrive at God.\"[57] This one step is the\nmost difficult act of life; yet urged by love, man has taken it again\nand again. This phase is so familiar to every reader of spiritual\nbiography, that I need not insist upon it. \"In the field of this body,\"\nsays Kabir, \"a great war goes forward, against passion, anger, pride and\ngreed. It is in the Kingdom of Truth, Contentment and Purity that this\nbattle is raging, and the sword that rings forth most loudly is the\nsword of His Name.\"[58] \"Man,\" says Boehme, \"must here be at war with\nhimself if he wishes to be a heavenly citizen ... fighting must be the\nwatchword, not with tongue and sword, but with mind and spirit; and not\nto give over.\"[59] The need of such a conflict, shown to us in history,\nis explained on human levels by psychology. On spiritual levels it is\nmade plain to all whose hearts are touched by the love of God. By this\nway all must pass who achieve the life of the Spirit; subduing to its\npurposes their wayward wills, and sublimating in its power their\nconflicting animal impulses. This long effort brings, as its reward a\nunification of character, an inflow of power: from it we see the mature\nman or woman of the Spirit emerge. In St. Catherine of Genoa this\nconflict lasted for four years, after which the thought of sin ceased to\nrule her consciousness.[60] St. Teresa's intermittent struggles are\nsaid to have continued for thirty years. John Wesley, always deeply\nreligious, did not attain the inner stability he calls assurance till he\nwas thirty-five years old. Blake was for twenty years in mental\nconflict, shut off from the sources of his spiritual life. So slowly do\ngreat personalities come to their full stature, and subdue their\nvigorous impulses to the one ruling idea.\n\nThe ending of this conflict, the self's unification and establishment in\nthe new life, commonly means a return more or less complete to that\nworld from which the convert had retreated; taking up of the fully\nenergized and fully consecrated human existence, which must express\nitself in work no less than in prayer; an exhibition too of the capacity\nfor leadership which is the mark of the regenerate mind. Thus the \"first\nreturn\" of the Buddhist saint is \"from the absolute world to the world\nof phenomena to save all sentient beings.\"[61] Thus St. Benedict's and\nSt. Catherine of Siena's three solitary years are the preparation for\ntheir great and active life works. St. Catherine of Genoa, first a\ndisappointed and world-weary woman and then a penitent, emerges as a\nbusy and devoted hospital matron and inspired teacher of a group of\ndisciples. St. Teresa's long interior struggles precede her vigorous\ncareer as founder and reformer; her creation of spiritual families, new\ncentres of contemplative life. The vast activities of Fox and Wesley\nwere the fruits first of inner conflict, then of assurance--the\nexperience of God and of the self's relation to Him. And on the highest\nlevels of the spiritual life as history shows them to us, this\nexperience and realization, first of profound harmony with Eternity and\nits interests, next of a personal relation of love, last of an\nindwelling creative power, a givenness, an energizing grace, reaches\nthat completeness to which has been given the name of union with God.\n\nThe great man or woman of the Spirit who achieves this perfect\ndevelopment is, it is true, a special product: a genius, comparable with\ngreat creative personalities in other walks of life. But he neither\ninvalidates the smaller talent nor the more general tendency in which\nhis supreme gift takes its rise. Where he appears, that tendency is\nvigorously stimulated. Like other artists, he founds a school; the\nspiritual life flames up, and spreads to those within his circle of\ninfluence. Through him, ordinary men, whose aptitude for God might have\nremained latent, obtain a fresh start; an impetus to growth. There is a\nsense in which he might say with the Johannine Christ, \"He that\nreceiveth me receiveth Him that sent me\"; for yielding to his magnetism,\nmen really yield to the drawing of the Spirit itself. And when they do\nthis, their lives are found to reproduce--though with less\nintensity--the life history of their leader. Therefore the main\ncharacters of that life history, that steady undivided process of\nsublimation; are normal human characters. We too may heal the discords\nof our moral nature, learn to judge existence in the universal light,\nbring into consciousness our latent transcendental sense, and keep\nourselves so spiritually supple that alike in times of stress and hours\nof prayer and silence we are aware of the mysterious and energizing\ncontact of God. Psychology suggests to us that the great spiritual\npersonalities revealed in history are but supreme instances of a\nsearching self-adjustment and of a way of life, always accessible to\nlove and courage, which all men may in some sense undertake.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 42: Everard, \"Some Gospel Treasures Opened,\" p. 555]\n\n[Footnote 43: _Canor Dulcor, Canor;_ cf. Rolle: \"The Fire of Love,\" Bk.\n1, Cap. 14]\n\n[Footnote 44: Rolle: \"The Mending of Life,\" Cap. XII.]\n\n[Footnote 45: Benedetto Croce: \"Theory and History of Historiography,\"\ntrans. by Douglas Ainslie, p. 25.]\n\n[Footnote 46: \"Donne's Sermons,\" p. 236.]\n\n[Footnote 47: B.H. Streeter, in \"The Spirit,\" p. 349 _seq_.]\n\n[Footnote 48: \"Autobiography of Maharishi Devendranath Tagore,\" Cap.\n23.]\n\n[Footnote 49: R.A. Nicholson: \"Studies in Islamic Mysticism,\" Cap. i.]\n\n[Footnote 50: Baron von Huegel In the \"Hibbert Journal,\" July, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Ruysbroeck: \"The Sparkling Stone,\" Cap. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Ruysbroeck: \"The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,\" Bk.\nII, Cap. 39.]\n\n[Footnote 53: R. of St. Victor: \"De Quatuor Gradibus Violentae\nCharitatis\" (Migne, Pat. Lat.) T. 196, Col. 1216.]\n\n[Footnote 54: \"Summa Contra Gentiles,\" Bk. III, Cap. 21.]\n\n[Footnote 55: J.E. Shorthouse: \"John Inglesant,\" Cap. 19.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Cf. Delatte: \"The Rule of St. Benedict\"; and C. Butler:\n\"Benedictine Monachism.\"]\n\n[Footnote 57: R.A. Nicholson: \"Studies in Islamic Mysticism,\" Cap. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 58: \"One Hundred Poems of Kabir,\" p. 44.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Boehme: \"Six Theosophic Points,\" p. 111.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Cf. Von Huegel: \"The Mystical Element of Religion,\" Vol. I,\nPt. II.]\n\n[Footnote 61: McGovern: \"An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism,\" p. 175.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\n(I) THE ANALYSIS OF MIND\n\n\nHaving interrogated history in our attempt to discover the essential\ncharacter of the life of the Spirit, wherever it is found, we are now to\nsee what psychology has to tell us or hint to us of its nature; and of\nthe relation in which it stands to the mechanism of our psychic life. It\nis hardly necessary to say that such an inquiry, fully carried out,\nwould be a life-work. Moreover, it is an inquiry which we are not yet in\na position to undertake. True, more and more material is daily becoming\navailable for it: but many of the principles involved are, even yet,\nobscure. Therefore any conclusions at which we may arrive can only be\ntentative; and the theories and schematic representations that we shall\nbe obliged to use must be regarded as mere working diagrams--almost\ncertainly of a temporary character--but useful to us, because they do\ngive us an interpretation of inner experience with which we can deal. I\nneed not emphasize the extent in which modern developments of psychology\nare affecting our conceptions of the spiritual life, and our reading of\nmany religious phenomena on which our ancestors looked with awe. When we\nhave eliminated the more heady exaggerations of the psycho-analysts, and\nthe too-violent simplifications of the behaviourists, it remains true\nthat many problems have lately been elucidated in an unexpected, and\nsome in a helpful, sense. We are learning in particular to see in true\nproportion those abnormal states of trance and ecstasy which were once\nregarded as the essentials, but are now recognized as the by-products,\nof the mystical life. But a good deal that at first sight seems\nstartling, and even disturbing to the religious mind, turns out on\ninvestigation to be no more than the re-labelling of old facts, which\nbehind their new tickets remain unchanged. Perhaps no generation has\never been so much at the mercy of such labels as our own. Thus many\npeople who are inclined to jibe at the doctrine of original sin welcome\nit with open arms when it is reintroduced as the uprush of primitive\ninstinct. Opportunity of confession to a psychoanalyst is eagerly sought\nand gladly paid for, by troubled spirits who would never resort for the\nsame purpose to a priest. The formulae of auto-suggestion are freely used\nby those who repudiate vocal prayer and acts of faith with scorn. If,\nthen, I use for the purpose of exposition some of those labels which are\naffected by the newest schools, I do so without any suggestion that they\nrepresent the only valid way of dealing with the psychic life of man.\nIndeed, I regard these labels as little more than exceedingly clever\nguesses at truth. But since they are now generally current and often\nsuggestive, it is well that we should try to find a place for spiritual\nexperience within the system which they represent; thus carrying through\nthe principle on which we are working, that of interpreting the abiding\nfacts of the spiritual life, so far as we can, in the language of the\npresent day.\n\nFirst, then, I propose to consider the analysis of mind, and what It has\nto tell us about the nature of Sin, of Salvation, of Conversion; what\nlight it casts on the process of purgation or self-purification which is\ndemanded by all religions of the Spirit; what are the respective parts\nplayed by reason and instinct in the process of regeneration; and the\nimportance for religious experience of the phenomena of apperception.\n\nWe need not at this point consider again all that we mean by the life of\nthe Spirit. We have already considered it as it appears in history--its\ninexhaustible variety, its power, nobility, and grace. We need only to\nremind ourselves that what we have got to find room for in our\npsychological scheme is literally, a changed and enhanced life; a life\nwhich, immersed in the stream of history, is yet poised on the eternal\nworld. This life involves a complete re-direction of our desires and\nimpulses, a transfiguration of character; and often, too, a sense of\nsubjugation to superior guidance, of an access of impersonal strength,\nso overwhelming as to give many of its activities an inspirational or\nautomatic character. We found that this life was marked by a rhythmic\nalternation between receptivity and activity, more complete and\npurposeful than the rhythm of work and rest which conditions, or should\ncondition, the healthy life of sense. This re-direction and\ntransfiguration, this removal to a higher term of our mental rhythm, are\nof course psychic phenomena; using this word in a broad sense, without\nprejudice to the discrimination of any one aspect of it as spiritual.\nAll that we mean at the moment is, that the change which brings in the\nspiritual life is a change in the mind and heart of man, working in the\nstuff of our common human nature, and involving all that the modern\npsychologist means by the word psyche.\n\nWe begin therefore with the nature of the psyche as this modern,\ngrowing, changing psychology conceives it; for this is the raw material\nof regenerate man. If we exclude those merely degraded and pathological\ntheories which have resulted from too exclusive a study of degenerate\nminds, we find that the current conception of the psyche--by which of\ncourse I do not mean the classic conceptions of Ward or even William\nJames--was anticipated by Plotinus, when he said in the Fourth Ennead,\nthat every soul has something of the lower life for the purposes of the\nbody and of the higher for the purposes of the Spirit, and yet\nconstitutes a unity; an unbroken series of ascending values and powers\nof response, from the levels of merely physical and mainly unconscious\nlife to those of the self-determining and creative consciousness.[62] We\nfirst discover psychic energy as undifferentiated directive power,\ncontrolling response and adaption to environment; and as it develops,\never increasing the complexity of its impulses and habits, yet never\nabandoning anything of its past. Instinct represents the correspondence\nof this life-force with mere nature, its effort as it were to keep its\nfooting and accomplish its destiny in the world of time. Spirit\nrepresents this same life acting on highest levels, with most vivid\npurpose; seeking and achieving correspondence with the eternal world,\nand realities of the loftiest order yet discovered to be accessible to\nus. We are compelled to use words of this kind; and the proceeding is\nharmless enough so long as we remember that they are abstractions, and\nthat we have no real reason to suppose breaks in the life process which\nextends from the infant's first craving for food and shelter to the\nsaint's craving for the knowledge of God. This urgent, craving life is\nthe dominant characteristic of the psyche. Thought is but the last come\nand least developed of its powers; one among its various responses to\nenvironment, and ways of laying hold on experience.\n\nThis conception of the multiplicity in unity of the psyche, conscious\nand unconscious, is probably one of the most important results of\nrecent psychological advance. It means that we cannot any longer in the\ngood old way rule off bits or aspects of it, and call them intellect,\nsoul, spirit, conscience and so forth; or, on the other hand, refer to\nour \"lower\" nature as if it were something separate from ourselves. I am\nspirit when I pray, if I pray rightly. I am my lower nature, when my\nthoughts and deeds are swayed by my primitive impulses and physical\nlongings, declared or disguised. I am most wholly myself when that\nimpulsive nature and that craving spirit are welded into one, subject to\nthe same emotional stimulus, directed to one goal. When theologians and\npsychologists, ignoring this unity of the self, set up arbitrary\ndivisions--and both classes are very fond of doing so--they are merely\nmaking diagrams for their own convenience. We ourselves shall probably\nbe compelled to do this: and the proceeding is harmless enough, so long\nas we recollect that these diagrams are at best symbolic pictures of\nfact. Specially is it necessary to keep our heads, and refuse to be led\naway by the constant modern talk of the primitive, unconscious,\nforeconscious instinctive and other minds which are so prominent in\nmodern psychological literature, or by the spatial suggestions of such\nterms as threshold, complex, channel of discharge: remembering always\nthe central unity and non-material nature of that many-faced psychic\nlife which is described under these various formulae.\n\nIf we accept this central unity with all its implications, it follows\nthat we cannot take our superior and conscious faculties, set them\napart, and call them \"ourselves\"; refusing responsibility for the more\nanimal and less fortunate tendencies and instincts which surge up with\nsuch distressing ease and frequency from the deeps, by attributing these\nto nature or heredity. Indeed, more and more does it become plain that\nthe sophisticated surface-mind which alone we usually recognize is the\nsmallest, the least developed, and in some respects still the least\nimportant part of the real self: that whole man of impulse, thought and\ndesire, which it is the business of religion to capture and domesticate\nfor God. That whole man is an animal-spirit, a living, growing, plastic\nunit; moving towards a racial future yet unperceived by us, and carrying\nwith him a racial past which conditions at every moment his choices,\nimpulses and acts. Only the most rigid self-examination will disclose to\nus the extent in which the jungle and the Stone Age are still active in\nour games, our politics and our creeds; how many of our motives are\nstill those of primitive man, and how many of our social institutions\noffer him a discreet opportunity of self-expression.\n\nHere, as it seems to me, is a point at which the old thoughts of\nreligion and the new thoughts of psychology may unite and complete one\nanother. Here the scientific conception of the psyche is merely\nrestating the fundamental Christian paradox, that man is truly one, a\nliving, growing spirit, the creature and child of the Divine Life; and\nyet that there seem to be in him, as it were, two antagonistic\nnatures--that duality which St. Paul calls the old Adam and the new\nAdam. The law of the flesh and the law of the spirit, the\nearthward-tending life of mere natural impulse and the quickening life\nof re-directed desire, the natural and the spiritual man, are\nconceptions which the new psychologist can hardly reject or despise.\nTrue, religion and psychology may offer different rationalizations of\nthe facts. That which one calls original sin, the other calls the\ninstinctive mind: but the situation each puts before us is the same. \"I\nfind a law,\" says St. Paul, \"that when I would do good evil is present\nwith me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man _but_ I\nsee another law in my members warring against the law of my mind....\nWith the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law\nof sin.\" Without going so far as a distinguished psychoanalyst who said\nin my hearing, \"If St. Paul had come to me, I feel I could have helped\nhim,\" I think it is clear that we are learning to give a new content to\nthis, and many other sayings of the New Testament. More and more\npsychology tends to emphasize the Pauline distinction; demonstrating\nthat the profound disharmony existing in most civilized men between the\nimpulsive and the rational life, the many conflicts which sap his\nenergy, arise from the persistence within us of the archaic and\nprimitive alongside the modern mind. It demonstrates that the many\nstages and constituents of our psychic past are still active in each one\nof us; though often below the threshold of consciousness. The blindly\ninstinctive life, with its almost exclusive interests in food, safety\nand reproduction; the law of the flesh in its simplest form, carried\nover from our pre-human ancestry and still capable of taking charge when\nwe are off our guard. The more complex life of the human primitive; with\nits outlook of wonder, self-interest and fear, developed under\nconditions of ignorance, peril and perpetual struggle for life. The\nhistory of primitive man covers millions of years: the history of\ncivilized man, a few thousand at the most. Therefore it is not\nsurprising that the primitive outlook should have bitten hard into the\nplastic stuff of the developing psyche, and forms still the infantile\nfoundation of our mental life. Finally, there is the rational life, so\nfar as the rational is yet achieved by us; correcting, conflicting with,\nand seeking to refine and control the vigour of primitive impulse.\n\nBut if it is to give an account of all the facts psychology must also\npoint out, and find place for, the last-comer in the evolutionary\nseries: the rare and still rudimentary achievement of the spiritual\nconsciousness, bearing witness that we are the children of God, and\npointing, not backward to the roots but onward to the fruits of human\ngrowth. But it cannot allow us to think of this spiritual life as\nsomething separate from, and wholly unconditioned by, our racial past.\nWe must rather conceive it as the crown of our psychic evolution, the\nend of that process which began in the dawn of consciousness and which\nSt. Paul calls \"growing up into the stature of Christ.\" Here psychology\nis in harmony with the teaching of those mystics who invite us to\nrecognize, not a completed spirit, but rather a seed within us. In the\nspiritual yearnings, the profound and yet uncertain stirrings of the\nreligious consciousness, its half-understood impulses to God, we\nperceive the floating-up into the conscious field of this deep germinal\nlife. And psychology warns us, I think, that in our efforts to forward\nthe upgrowth of this spiritual life, we must take into account those\nearlier types of reaction to the universe which still continue\nunderneath our bright modern appearance, and still inevitably condition\nand explain so many of our motives and our deeds. It warns us that the\npsychic growth of humanity is slow and uneven; and that every one of us\nstill retains, though not always it is true in a recognizable form, many\nof the characters of those stages of development through which the race\nhas passed--characters which inevitably give their colour to our\nreligious no less than to our social life.\n\n\"I desire,\" says a Kempis, \"to enjoy thee inwardly but I cannot take\nthee. I desire to cleave to heavenly things but fleshly things and\nunmortified passions depress me. I will in my mind be above all things\nbut in despite of myself I am constrained to be beneath, so I unhappy\nman fight with myself and am made grievous to myself while the spirit\nseeketh what is above and the flesh what is beneath. O what I suffer\nwithin while I think on heavenly things in my mind; the company of\nfleshly things cometh against me when I pray.\"[63]\n\n\"Oh Master,\" says the Scholar in Boehme's great dialogue, \"the creatures\nthat live in me so withhold me, that I cannot wholly yield and give\nmyself up as I willingly would.\"[64]\n\nNo psychologist has come nearer to a statement of the human situation\nthan have these old specialists in the spiritual life.\n\nThe bearing of all this on the study of organized religion is of course\nof great importance; and will be discussed in a subsequent section. All\nthat I wish to point out now is that the beliefs, and the explanations\nof action, put forward by our rationalizing surface consciousness are\noften mere veils which drape the crudeness of our real desires and\nreactions to life; and that before life can be reintegrated about its\nhighest centres, these real beliefs and motives must be tracked down,\nand their humiliating character acknowledged. The ape and the tiger, in\nfact, are not dead in any one of us. In polite persons they are caged,\nwhich Is a very different thing: and a careful introspection will teach\nus to recognize their snarls and chatterings, their urgent requests for\nmore mutton chops or bananas, under the many disguises which they\nassume--disguises which are not infrequently borrowed from ethics or\nfrom religion. Thus a primitive desire for revenge often masquerades as\njustice, and an unedifying interest in personal safety can be discerned\nin at least some interpretations of atonement, and some aspirations\ntowards immortality.[65]\n\nI now go on to a second point. It will already be clear that the modern\nconception of the many-levelled psyche gives us a fresh standpoint from\nwhich to consider the nature of Sin. It suggests to us, that the essence\nof much sin is conservatism, or atavism: that it is rooted in the\ntendency of the instinctive life to go on, in changed circumstances,\nacting in the same old way. Virtue, perfect rightness of correspondence\nwith our present surroundings, perfect consistency of our deeds with our\nbest ideas, is hard work. It means the sublimation of crude instinct,\nthe steady control of impulse by such reason as we possess; and\nperpetually forces us to use on new and higher levels that machinery of\nhabit-formation, that power of implanting tendencies in the plastic\npsyche, to which man owes his earthly dominance. When our unstable\npsychic life relaxes tension and sinks to lower levels than this, and\nit Is always tending so to do, we are relapsing to antique methods of\nresponse, suitable to an environment which is no longer there. Few\npeople go through life without knowing what it is to feel a sudden, even\nmurderous, impulse to destroy the obstacle in their path; or seize, at\nall costs, that which they desire. Our ancestors called these uprushes\nthe solicitations of the devil, seeking to destroy the Christian soul;\nand regarded them with justice as an opportunity of testing our\nspiritual strength. It is true that every man has within him such a\ntempting spirit; but its characters can better be studied in the\nZoological Gardens than in the convolutions of a theological hell.\n\"External Reason,\" says Boehme, \"supposes that hell is far from us. But\nit is near us. Every one carries it in himself.\"[66] Many of our vices,\nin fact, are simply savage qualities--and some are even savage\nvirtues--in their old age. Thus in an organized society the\nacquisitiveness and self-assertion proper to a vigorous primitive\ndependent on his own powers survive as the sins of envy and\ncovetousness, and are seen operating in the dishonesty of the burglar,\nthe greed and egotism of the profiteer: and, on the highest levels, the\ngreat spiritual sin of pride may be traced back to a perverted\nexpression of that self-regarding instinct without which the individual\ncould hardly survive.\n\nWhen therefore qualities which were once useful on their own level are\noutgrown but unsublimated, and check the movement towards life's\nspiritualization, then--whatever they may be--they belong to the body of\ndeath, not to the body of life, and are \"sin.\" \"Call sin a lump--none\nother thing than thyself,\" says \"The Cloud of Unknowing.\"[67]\nCapitulation to it is often brought about by mere slackness, or, as\nreligion would say, by the mortal sin of sloth; which Julian of Norwich\ndeclares to be one of the two most deadly sicknesses of the soul.\nSometimes; too, sin is deliberately indulged in because of the perverse\nsatisfaction which this yielding to old craving gives us. The\nviolent-tempered man becomes once more a primitive, when he yields to\nwrath. A starved and repressed side of his nature--the old Adam, in\nfact--leaps up into consciousness and glories in its strength. He\nobtains from the explosion an immense feeling of relief; and so too with\nthe other great natural passions which our religious or social morality\nkeeps in check. Even the saints have known these revenges of natural\ninstincts too violently denied. Thoughts of obscene words and gestures\ncame unasked to torment the pure soul of Catherine of Siena.[68] St.\nTeresa complained that the devil sometimes sent her so offensive a\nspirit of bad temper that she could eat people up.[69] Games and sport\nof a combative or destructive kind provide an innocent outlet for a\ncertain amount of this unused ferocity; and indeed the chief function of\ngames in the modern state is to help us avoid occasions of sin. The\nsinfulness of any deed depends, therefore, on this theory, on the extent\nin which it involves retrogression from the point we have achieved:\nfailure to correspond with the light we possess. The inequality of the\nmoral standard all over the world is a simple demonstration of this\nfact: for many a deed which is innocent in New Guinea, would in London\nprovoke the immediate attention of the police.\n\nDoes not this view of sin, as primarily a fall-back to past levels of\nconduct and experience, a defeat of the spirit of the future in its\nconflict with the undying past, give us a fresh standpoint from which to\nlook at the idea of Salvation? We know that all religions of the spirit\nhave based their claim upon man on such an offer of salvation: on the\nconviction that there is something from which he needs to be rescued, if\nhe is to achieve a satisfactory life. What is it, then, from which he\nmust be saved?\n\nI think that the answer must be, from conflict: the conflict between the\npull-back of his racial origin and the pull-forward of his spiritual\ndestiny, the antagonism between the buried Titan and the emerging soul,\neach tending towards adaptation to a different order of reality. We may\nas well acknowledge that man as he stands is mostly full of conflicts\nand resistances: that the trite verse about \"fightings and fears\nwithin, without\" does really describe the unregenerate yet sensitive\nmind with its ineffective struggles, its inveterate egotism, its\ninconsistent impulses and loves. Man's young will and reason need some\nreinforcement, some helping power, if they are to conquer and control\nhis archaic impulsive life. And this salvation, this extrication from\nthe wrongful and atavistic claims of primitive impulse in its many\nstrange forms, is a prime business of religion; sometimes achieved in\nthe sudden convulsion we call conversion, and sometimes by the slower\nprocess of education. The wrong way to do it is seen in the methods of\nthe Puritan and the extreme ascetic, where all animal impulse is\nregarded as \"sin\" and repressed: a proceeding which involves the risk of\ngrave physical and mental disorder, and produces even at the best a\nbloodless pietism. The right way to do it was described once for all by\nJacob Boehme, when he said that it was the business of a spiritual man\nto \"harness his fiery energies to the service of the light--\" that is to\nsay, change the direction of our passionate cravings for satisfaction,\nharmonize and devote them to spiritual ends. This is true regeneration:\nthis is the salvation offered to man, the healing of his psychic\nconflict by the unification of his instinctive and his ideal life. The\nvoice which St. Mechthild heard, saying \"Come and be reconciled,\"\nexpresses the deepest need of civilized but unspiritualized humanity.\n\nThis need for the conversion or remaking of the instinctive life,\nrather than the achievement of mere beliefs, has always been appreciated\nby real spiritual teachers; who are usually some generations in advance\nof the psychologists. Here they agree in finding the \"root of evil,\" the\nheart of the \"old man\" and best promise of the \"new.\" Here is the raw\nmaterial both of vice and of virtue--namely, a mass of desires and\ncravings which are in themselves neither moral nor immoral, but natural\nand self-regarding. \"In will, imagination and desire,\" says William Law,\n\"consists the life or fiery driving of every intelligent creature.\"[70]\nThe Divine voice which said to Jacopone da Todi \"Set love in order, thou\nthat lovest Me!\" declared the one law of mental growth.[71] To use for a\nmoment the language of mystical theology, conversion, or repentance, the\nfirst step towards the spiritual life, consists in a change in the\ndirection of these cravings and desires; purgation or purification, in\nwhich the work begun in conversion is made complete, in their steadfast\nsetting in order or re-education, and that refinement and fixation of\nthe most desirable among them which we call the formation of habit, and\nwhich is the essence of character building. It is from this hard,\nconscious and deliberate work of adapting our psychic energy to new and\nhigher correspondences, this costly moral effort and true\nself-conquest, that the spiritual life in man draws its earnestness,\nreality and worth.\n\n\"Oh, Academicus,\" says William Law, in terms that any psychologist would\nendorse, \"forget your scholarship, give up your art and criticism, be a\nplain man; and then the first rudiments of sense may teach you that\nthere, and there only, can goodness be, where it comes forth as a birth\nof Life, and is the free natural work and fruit of that which lives\nwithin us. For till goodness thus comes from a Life within us, we have\nin truth none at all. For reason, with all its doctrine, discipline, and\nrules, can only help us to be so good, so changed, and amended, as a\nwild beast may be, that by restraints and methods is taught to put on a\nsort of tameness, though its wild nature is all the time only\nrestrained, and in a readiness to break forth again as occasion shall\noffer.\"[72] Our business, then, is not to restrain, but to put the wild\nbeast to work, and use its mighty energies; for thus only shall we find\nthe power to perform hard acts. See the young Salvation Army convert\nturning over the lust for drink or sexual satisfaction to the lust to\nsave his fellow-men. This transformation or sublimation is not the work\nof reason. His instinctive life, the main source of conduct, has been\ndirected into a fresh channel of use.\n\nWe may now look a little more closely at the character and\npotentialties of our instinctive life: for this life is plainly of the\nhighest importance to us, since it will either energize or thwart all\nthe efforts of the rational self. Current psychology, even more plainly\nthan religion, encourages us to recognize in this powerful instinctive\nnature the real source of our conduct, the origin of all those dynamic\npersonal demands, those impulses to action, which condition the full and\nsuccessful life of the natural man. Instincts in the animal and the\nnatural man are the methods by which the life force takes care of its\nown interests, insures its own full development, its unimpeded forward\ndrive. In so far as we form part of the animal kingdom our own safety,\nproperty, food, dominance, and the reproduction of our own type, are\ninevitably the first objects of our instinctive care. Civilized life has\ndisguised some of these crude demands and the behaviour which is\ninspired by them, but their essential character remains unchanged. Love\nand hate, fear and wonder, self-assertion and self-abasement, the\ngregarious, the acquisitive, the constructive tendencies, are all\nexpressions of instinctive feeling; and can be traced back to our\nsimplest animal needs.\n\nBut instincts are not fixed tendencies: they are adaptable. This can be\nseen clearly in the case of animals whose environment Is artificially\nchanged. In the dog, for instance, loyalty to the interests of the pack\nhas become loyalty to his master's household. In man, too, there has\nalready been obvious modification and sublimation of many instincts.\nThe hunting impulse begins in the jungle, and may end in the\nphilosopher's exploration of the Infinite. It is the combative instinct\nwhich drives the reformer headlong against the evils of the world, as it\nonce drove two cave men at each others' throats. Love, which begins in\nthe mergence of two cells, ends in the saint's supreme discovery, \"Thou\nart the Love wherewith the heart loves Thee.\"[73] The much advertized\nherd instinct may weld us into a mob at the mercy of unreasoning\npassions; but it can also make us living members of the Communion of\nSaints. The appeals of the prophet and the revivalist, the Psalmist's\n\"Taste and see,\" the Baptist's \"Change your hearts,\" are all invitations\nto an alteration in the direction of desire, which would turn our\ninstinctive energies in a new direction and begin the domestication of\nthe human soul for God.\n\nThis, then, is the real business of conversion and of the character\nbuilding that succeeds it; the harnessing of instinct to idea and its\ndirection into new and more lofty channels of use, transmuting the\nturmoil of man's merely egoistic ambitions, anxieties and emotional\ndesires into fresh forms of creative energy, and transferring their\ninterest from narrow and unreal to universal objectives. The seven\ndeadly sins of Christian ethics--Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Sloth,\nGluttony, and Lust--represent not so much deliberate wrongfulness, as\nthe outstanding forms of man's uncontrolled and self-regarding\ninstincts; unbridled self-assertion, ruthless acquisitiveness, and\nundisciplined indulgence of sense. The traditional evangelical virtues\nof Poverty, Chastity and Obedience which sum up the demands of the\nspiritual life exactly oppose them. Over against the self-assertion of\nthe proud and angry is set the ideal of humble obedience, with its wise\nsuppleness and abnegation of self-will. Over against the acquisitiveness\nof the covetous and envious is set the ideal of inward poverty, with its\nliberation from the narrow self-interest of I, Me and Mine. Over against\nthe sensual indulgence of the greedy, lustful and lazy is set the ideal\nof chastity, which finds all creatures pure to enjoy, since it sees them\nin God, and God in all creatures. Yet all this, rightly understood, is\nno mere policy of repression. It is rather a rational policy of release,\nfreeing for higher activities instinctive force too often thrown away.\nIt is giving the wild beast his work to do, training him. Since the\ninstincts represent the efforts of this urgent life in us to achieve\nself-protection and self-realization, it is plain that the true\nregeneration of the psyche, its redirection from lower to higher levels,\ncan never be accomplished without their help. We only rise to the top of\nour powers when the whole man acts together, urged by an enthusiasm or\nan instinctive need.\n\nFurther, a complete and ungraduated response to stimulus--an\n\"all-or-none reaction\"--is characteristic of the instinctive life and of\nthe instinctive life alone. Those whom it rules for the time give\nthemselves wholly to it; and so display a power far beyond that of the\ncritical and the controlled. Thus, fear or rage will often confer\nabnormal strength and agility. A really dominant instinct is a veritable\nsource of psycho-physical energy, unifying and maintaining in vigour all\nthe activities directed to its fulfilment.[74] A young man in love is\nstimulated not only to emotional ardour, but also to hard work in the\ninterests of the future home. The explorer develops amazing powers of\nendurance; the inventor in the ecstasy of creation draws on deep vital\nforces, and may carry on for long periods without sleep or food. If we\napply this law to the great examples of the spiritual life, we see in\nthe vigour and totality of their self-giving to spiritual interests a\nmark of instinctive action; and in the power, the indifference to\nhardship which these selves develop, the result of unification, of an\n\"all-or-none\" response to the religious or philanthropic stimulus. It\nhelps us to understand the cheerful austerities of the true ascetic; the\nsuperhuman achievement of St. Paul, little hindered by the \"thorn in the\nflesh\"; the career of St. Joan of Arc; the way in which St. Teresa or\nSt. Ignatius, tormented by ill-health, yet brought their great\nconceptions to birth; the powers of resistance displayed by George Fox\nand other Quaker saints. It explains Mary Slessor living and working\nbare-foot and bare-headed under the tropical sun, disdaining the use of\nmosquito nets, eating native food, and taking with impunity daily risks\nfatal to the average European.[75] It shows us, too, why the great\nheroes of the spiritual life so seldom think out their positions, or\nhusband their powers. They act because they are impelled: often in\ndefiance of all prudent considerations! yet commonly with an amazing\nsuccess. Thus General Booth has said that he was driven by \"the impulses\nand urgings of an undying ambition\" to save souls. What was this impulse\nand urge? It was the instinctive energy of a great nature in a\nsublimated form. The level at which this enhanced power is experienced\nwill determine its value for life; but its character is much the same in\nthe convert at a revival, in the postulant's vivid sense of vocation and\nconsequent break with the world? in the disinterested man of science\nconsecrated to the search for truth, and in the apostle's self-giving to\nthe service of God, with its answering gift of new strength and\nfruitfulness. Its secret, and indeed the secret of all transcendence is\nimplied In the direction of the old English mystic: \"Mean God all, all\nGod, so that nought work in thy wit and in thy will, but only God,\"[76]\nThe over-belief, the religious formula in which this instinctive\npassion is expressed, is comparatively unimportant The revivalist,\nwholly possessed by concrete and anthropomorphic ideas of God which are\nimpossible to a man of different--and, as we suppose,\nsuperior--education, can yet, because of the burning reality with which\nhe lives towards the God so strangely conceived, infect those with whom\nhe comes in contact with the spiritual life.\n\nWe are now in a position to say that the first necessity of the life of\nthe Spirit is the sublimation of the instinctive life, involving the\ntransfer of our interest and energy to new objectives, the giving of our\nold vigour to new longings and new loves. It appears that the invitation\nof religion to a change of heart, rather than a change of belief, is\nfounded on solid psychological laws. I need not dwell on the way in\nwhich Divine love, as the saints have understood it, answers to the\ncomplete sublimation of our strongest natural passion; or the extent in\nwhich the highest experiences of the religious life satisfy man's\ninstinctive craving for self-realization within a greater Reality, how\nhe feels himself to be fed with a mysterious food, quickened by a fresh\ndower of life, assured of his own safety within a friendly universe,\ngiven a new objective for his energy. It is notorious that one of the\nmost striking things about a truly spiritual man is, that he has\nachieved a certain stability which others lack. In him, the central\ncraving of the psyche for more life and more love has reached its\nbourne; instead of feeding upon those secondary objects of desire which\nmay lull our restlessness but cannot heal it He loves the thing which he\nought to love, wants to do the deeds which he ought to do, and finds all\naspects of his personality satisfied in one objective. Every one has\nreally a forced option between the costly effort to achieve this\nsublimation of impulse, this unification of the self on spiritual\nlevels, and the quiet evasion of it which is really a capitulation to\nthe animal instincts and unordered cravings of our many-levelled being.\nWe cannot stand still; and this steady downward pull keeps us ever in\nmind of all the backward-tending possibilities collectively to be\nthought of as sin, and explains to us why sloth, lack of spiritual\nenergy, is held by religion to be one of the capital forms of human\nwrongness.\n\nI go on to another point, which I regard as of special importance.\n\nIt must not be supposed that the life of the Spirit begins and with the\nsublimation of, the instinctive and emotional life; though this is\nindeed for it a central necessity. Nor must we take it for granted that\nthe apparent redirection of impulse to spiritual objects is always and\ninevitably an advance. All who are or may be concerned with the\nspiritual training, help, and counselling of others ought clearly to\nrecognize that there are elements in religious experience which\nrepresent, not a true sublimation, but either disguised primitive\ncravings and ideas, or uprushes from lower instinctive levels: for these\nexperiences have their special dangers. As we shall see when we come to\ntheir more detailed study, devotional practices tend to produce that\nstate which psychologists call mobility of the threshold of\nconsciousness; and may easily permit the emergence of natural\ninclinations and desires, of which the self does not recognize the real\ncharacter. As a matter of fact, a good deal of religious emotion is of\nthis kind. Instances are the childish longing for mere protection, for a\nsort of supersensual petting, the excessive desire for shelter and rest,\nvoiced in too many popular hymns; the subtle form of self-assertion\nwhich can be detected in some claims to intercourse with God--e.g. the\ncelebrated conversation of Angela of Foligno with the Holy Ghost;[77]\nthe thinly veiled human feelings which find expression in the personal\nraptures of a certain type of pious literature, and in what has been\nwell described as the \"divine duet\" type of devotion. Many, though not\nall of the supernormal phenomena of mysticism are open to the same\nsuspicion: and the Church's constant insistence on the need of\nsubmitting these to some critical test before, accepting them at face\nvalue, is based on a most wholesome scepticism. Though a sense of meek\ndependence on enfolding love and power is the very heart of religion,\nand no intense spiritual life is possible unless it contain a strong\nemotional element, it is of first importance to be sure that its\naffective side represents a true sublimation of human feelings and\ndesires, and not merely an oblique indulgence of lower cravings.\n\nAgain, we have to remember that the instinctive self, powerful though it\nbe? does not represent the sum total of human possibility. The maximum\nof man's strength is not reached until all the self's powers, the\ninstinctive and also the rational, are united and set on one objective;\nfor then only is he safe from the insidious inner conflict between\nnatural craving and conscious purpose which saps his energies, and is\nwelded into a complete and harmonious instrument of life, \"The source of\npower,\" says Dr. Hadfield in \"The Spirit,\" \"lies not in instinctive\nemotion alone, but in instinctive emotion expressed in a way with which\nthe whole man can, for the time being at least, identify himself.\nUltimately, this is impossible without the achievement of a harmony of\nall the instincts _and_ the approval of the reason.\"[78]\n\nThus we see that any unresolved conflict or divorce between the\nreligious instinct and the intellect will mar the full power of the\nspiritual life: and that an essential part of the self's readjustment to\nreality must consist in the uniting of these partners, as intellect and\nintuition are united in creative art. The noblest music, most satisfying\npoetry are neither the casual results of uncriticized inspiration nor\nthe deliberate fabrications of the brain, but are born of the perfect\nfusion of feeling and of thought; for the greatest and most fruitful\nminds are those which are rich and active on both levels--which are\nperpetually raising blind impulse to the level of conscious purpose,\nuniting energy with skill, and thus obtaining the fiery energies of the\ninstinctive life for the highest uses. So too the spiritual life is only\nseen in its full worth and splendour when the whole man is subdued to\nit, and one object satisfies the utmost desires of heart and mind. The\nspiritual impulse must not be allowed to become the centre of a group of\nspecialized feelings, a devotional complex, in opposition to, or at\nleast alienated from, the intellectual and economic life. It must on the\ncontrary brim over, invading every department of the self. When the\nmind's loftiest and most ideal thought, its conscious vivid aspiration,\nhas been united with the more robust qualities of the natural man; then,\nand only then, we have the material for the making of a possible saint.\n\nWe must also remember that, important as our primitive and instinctive\nlife may be--and we should neither despise nor neglect it--its religious\nimpulses, taken alone, no more represent the full range of man's\nspiritual possibilities than the life of the hunting tribe or the\nAfrican kraal represent his full social possibilities. We may, and\nshould, acknowledge and learn from our psychic origins. We must never be\ncontent to rest in them. Though in many respects, mental as well as\nphysical, we are animals still; yet we are animals with a possible\nfuture in the making, both corporate and individual, which we cannot yet\ndefine. All other levels of life assure us that the impulsive nature is\npeculiarly susceptible to education. Not only can the whole group of\ninstincts which help self-fulfilment be directed to higher levels,\nunited and subdued to a dominant emotional interest; but merely\ninstinctive actions can, by repetition and control, be raised to the\nlevel of habit and be given improved precision and complexity. This, of\ncourse, is a primary function of devotional exercises; training the\nfirst blind instinct for God to the complex responses of the life of\nprayer. Instinct is at best a rough and ready tool of life: practice is\nrequired if it is to produce its best results. Observe, for instance,\nthe poor efforts of the young bird to escape capture; and compare this\nwith the finished performance of the parent.[79] Therefore in estimating\nman's capacity for spiritual response, we must reckon not only his\ninnate instinct for God, but also his capacity for developing this\ninstinct on the level of habit; educating and using its latent powers to\nthe best advantage. Especially on the contemplative side of life,\neducation does great things for us; or would do, if we gave it the\nchance. Here, then, the rational mind and conscious will must play their\npart in that great business of human transcendence, which is man's\nfunction within the universal plan.\n\nIt is true that the deep-seated human tendency to God may best be\nunderstood as the highest form of that out-going instinctive craving of\nthe psyche for more life and love which, on whatever level it be\nexperienced, is always one. But some external stimulus seems to be\nneeded, if this deep tendency is to be brought up into consciousness;\nand some education, if it is to be fully expressed. This stimulus and\nthis education, in normal cases, are given by tradition; that is to say,\nby religious belief and practice. Or they may come from the countless\nminor and cumulative suggestions which life makes to us, and which few\nof us have the subtlety to analyze. If these suggestions of tradition or\nenvironment are met by resistance, either of the moral or intellectual\norder, whilst yet the deep instinct for full life remains unsatisfied,\nthe result is an inner conflict of more or less severity; and as a rule,\nthis is only resolved and harmony achieved through the crisis of\nconversion, breaking down resistances, liberating emotion and\nreconciling inner craving with outer stimulus. There is, however,\nnothing spiritual in the conversion process itself. It has its parallel\nin other drastic readjustments to other levels of life; and is merely a\nmethod by which selves of a certain type seem best able to achieve the\nunion of feeling, thought, and will necessary to stability.\n\nNow we have behind us and within us all humanity's funded instinct for\nthe Divine, all the racial habits and traditions of response to the\nDivine. But its valid thought about the Divine comes as yet to very\nlittle. Thus we see that the author of \"The Cloud of Unknowing\" spoke as\na true psychologist when he said that \"a secret blind love pressing\ntowards God\" held more hope of success than mere thought can ever do;\n\"for He may well be loved but not thought--by love He may be gotten and\nholden, but by thought never.\"[80] Nevertheless, if that consistency of\ndeed and belief which is essential to full power is to be achieved by\nus, every man's conception of the God Whom he serves ought to be the\nvery best of which he is capable. Because ideas which we recognize as\npartial or primitive have called forth the richness and devotion of\nother natures, we are not therefore excused from trying all things and\nseeking a Reality which fulfils to the utmost our craving for truth and\nbeauty, as well, as our instinct for good. It is easy, natural, and\nalways comfortable for the human mind to sink back into something just a\nlittle bit below its highest possible. On one hand to wallow in easy\nloves, rest in traditional formulae, or enjoy a \"moving type of devotion\"\nwhich makes no intellectual demand. On the other, to accept without\ncriticism the sceptical attitude of our neighbours, and keep safely in\nthe furrow of intelligent agnosticism.\n\nReligious people have a natural inclination to trot along on mediocre\nlevels; reacting pleasantly to all the usual practices, playing down to\nthe hopes and fears of the primitive mind, its childish craving for\ncomfort and protection, its tendency to rest in symbols and spells, and\nsatisfying its devotional inclinations by any \"long psalter unmindfully\nmumbled in the teeth.\"[81] And a certain type of intelligent people have\nan equally natural tendency to dismiss, without further worry, the\ntraditional notions of the past. In so far as all this represents a\nslipping back in the racial progress, it has the character of sin: at\nany rate, it lacks the true character of spiritual life. Such life\ninvolves growth, sublimation, the constant and difficult redirection of\nenergy from lower to higher levels; a real effort to purge motive, see\nthings more truly, face and resolve the conflict between the deep\ninstinctive and the newer rational life. Hence, those who realize the\nnature of their own mental processes sin against the light if they do\nnot do with them the very best that they possibly can: and the penalty\nof this sin must be a narrowing of vision, an arrest. The laws of\napperception apply with at least as much force to our spiritual as to\nour sensual impressions: what we bring with us will condition what we\nobtain.\n\n\"We behold that which we are!\" said Ruysbroeck long ago.[82] The mind's\ncontent and its ruling feeling-tone, says psychology, all its memories\nand desires, mingle with all incoming impressions, colour them and\ncondition those which our consciousness selects. This intervention of\nmemory and emotion in our perceptions is entirely involuntary; and\nexplains why the devotee of any specific creed always finds in the pure\nimmediacy of religious experience the special marks of his own belief.\nIn most acts of perception--and probably, too, in the intuitional\nawareness of religious experience--that which the mind brings is bulkier\nif less important than that which it receives; and only the closest\nanalysis will enable us to separate these two elements. Yet this\nmachinery of apperception--humbling though its realization must be to\nthe eager idealist--does not merely confuse the issue for us; or compel\nus to agnosticism as to the true content of religious intuition. On the\ncontrary, its comprehension gives us the clue to many theological\npuzzles; whilst its existence enables us to lay hold of supersensual\nexperiences we should otherwise miss, because it gives to us the means\nof interpreting them. Pure immediacy, as such, is almost ungraspable by\nus. As man, not as pure spirit, the High Priest entered the Holy of\nHolies: that is to say, he took to the encounter of the Infinite the\nfinite machinery of sense. This limitation is ignored by us at our\nperil. The great mystics, who have sought to strip off all image and\nreach--as they say--the Bare Pure Truth, have merely become inarticulate\nin their effort to tell us what it was that they knew. \"A light I cannot\nmeasure, goodness without form!\" exclaims Jacopone da Todi.[83] \"The\nLight of the _World_--the Good _Shepherd_,\" says St. John, bringing a\nrichly furnished poetic consciousness to the vision of God; and at once\ngives us something on which to lay hold.\n\nGenerally speaking, it is only in so far as we bring with us a plan of\nthe universe that we can make anything of it; and only in so far as we\nbring with us some idea of God, some feeling of desire for Him, can we\napprehend Him--so true is it that we do, indeed, behold that which we\nare, find that which we seek, receive that for which we ask. Feeling,\nthought, and tradition must all contribute to the full working out of\nreligious experience. The empty soul facing an unconditioned Reality may\nachieve freedom but assuredly achieves nothing else: for though the\nself-giving of Spirit is abundant, we control our own powers of\nreception. This lays on each self the duty of filling the mind with the\nnoblest possible thoughts about God, refusing unworthy and narrow\nconceptions, and keeping alight the fire of His love. We shall find that\nwhich we seek: hence a richly stored religious consciousness, the lofty\nconceptions of the truth seeker, the vision of the artist, the boundless\ncharity and joy in life of the lover of his kind, really contribute to\nthe fulness of the spiritual life; both on its active and on its\ncontemplative side. As the self reaches the first degrees of the\nprayerful or recollected state, memory-elements, released from the\ncompetition of realistic experience, enter the foreconscious field.\nAmong these will be the stored remembrances of past meditations,\nreading, and experiences, all giving an affective tone conducive to new\nand deeper apprehensions. The pure in heart see God, because they bring\nwith them that radiant and undemanding purity: because the storehouse of\nancient memories, which each of us inevitably brings to that encounter,\nis free from conflicting desires and images, perfectly controlled by\nthis feeling-tone.\n\nIt is now clear that all which we have so far considered supports, from\nthe side of psychology, the demand of every religion for a drastic\noverhaul of the elements of character, a real repentance and moral\npurgation, as the beginning of all personal spiritual life. Man does\nnot, as a rule, reach without much effort and suffering the higher\nlevels of his psychic being. His old attachments are hard; complexes of\nwhich he is hardly aware must be broken up before he can use the forces\nwhich they enchain. He must, then, examine without flinching his\nimpulsive life, and know what is in his heart, before he is in a\nposition to change it. \"The light which shows us our sins,\" says George\nFox, \"is the light that heals us.\" All those repressed cravings, those\nquietly unworthy motives, those mean acts which we instinctively thrust\ninto the hiddenness and disguise or forget, must be brought to the\nsurface and, in the language of psychology, \"abreacted\"; in the language\nof religion, confessed. The whole doctrine of repentance really hinges\non this question of abreacting painful or wrongful experience instead of\nrepressing it. The broken and contrite heart is the heart of which the\nhard complexes have been shattered by sorrow and love, and their\nelements brought up into consciousness and faced: and only the self\nwhich has endured this, can hope to be established in the free Spirit.\nIt is a process of spiritual hygiene.\n\nPsycho-analysis has taught us the danger of keeping skeletons in the\ncupboards of the soul, the importance of tracking down our real motives,\nof facing reality, of being candid and fearless in self-knowledge. But\nthe emotional colour of this process when it is undertaken in the full\nconviction of the power and holiness of that life-force which we have\nnot used as well as we might, and with a humble and loving consciousness\nof our deficiency, our falling short, will be totally different from the\nfeeling state of those who conceive themselves to be searching for the\nmerely animal sources of their mental and spiritual life. \"Meekness in\nitself,\" says \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" \"is naught else but a true\nknowing and feeling of a man's self as he is. For surely whoso might\nverily see and feel himself as he is, he should verily be meek.\nTherefore swink and sweat all that thou canst and mayst for to get thee\na true knowing and feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow that\nsoon after that thou shalt have a true knowing and feeling of God as he\nis.\"[84]\n\nThe essence, then, of repentance and purification of character consists\nfirst in the identification, and next in the sublimation of our\ninstinctive powers and tendencies; their detachment from egoistic\ndesires and dedication to new purposes. We should not starve or repress\nthe abounding life within us; but, relieving it of its concentration on\nthe here-and-now, give its attention and its passion a wider circle of\ninterest over which to range, a greater love to which it can consecrate\nits growing powers. We do not yet know what the limit of such\nsublimation may be. But we do know that it is the true path of life's\nadvancement, that already we owe to it our purest loves, our loveliest\nvisions, and our noblest deeds. When such feeling, such vision and such\nact are united and transfigured in God, and find in contact with His\nliving Spirit the veritable sources of their power; then, man will have\nresolved his inner conflict, developed his true potentialities, and live\na harmonious because a spiritual life.\n\nWe end, therefore, upon this conception of the psyche as the living\nforce within us; a storehouse of ancient memories and animal tendencies,\nyet plastic, adaptable, ever pressing on and ever craving for more life\nand more love. Only the life of reality, the life rooted in communion\nwith God, will ever satisfy that hungry spirit, or provide an adequate\nobjective for its persistent onward push.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 62: Ennead IV. 8. 5.]\n\n[Footnote 63: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. 53.]\n\n[Footnote 64: Boehme, \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Unamuno has not hesitated to base the whole of religion on\nthe instinct of self-preservation: but this must I think be regarded as\nan exaggerated view. See \"The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in\nPeoples,\" Caps. 3 and 4.]\n\n[Footnote 66: Boehme: \"Six Theosophic Points,\" p. 98.]\n\n[Footnote 67: \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" Cap. 36.]\n\n[Footnote 68: E. Gardner: \"St. Catherine of Siena,\" p. 20.]\n\n[Footnote 69: \"Life of St. Teresa,\" by Herself, Cap. 30.]\n\n[Footnote 70: \"Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law\" p. 59.]\n\n[Footnote 71: Jacopone da Todi, Lauda 90.]\n\n[Footnote 72: \"Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law,\" p. 123.]\n\n[Footnote 73:\n\n \"Amor tu se'quel ama\n donde lo cor te ama.\"\n\n--Jacopone da Todi: Lauda 81.]\n\n[Footnote 74: Cf. Watts: \"Echo Personalities,\" for several illustrations\nof this law.]\n\n[Footnote 75: Livingstone: \"Mary Slessor of Calabar,\" p. 131.]\n\n[Footnote 76: \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" Cap, 40.]\n\n[Footnote 77: \"And very often did He say unto me, 'Bride and daughter,\nsweet art thou unto Me, I love thee better than any other who is in the\nvalley of Spoleto.'\" (\"The Divine Consolations of Blessed Angela of\nFoligno,\" p. 160.)]\n\n[Footnote 78: \"The Spirit,\" edited by B.H. Streeter, p. 93.]\n\n[Footnote 79: Cf. B. Russell: \"The Analysis of Mind,\" Cap. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 80: Op. cit., Cap. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 81: \"Cloud of Unknowing,\" Cap. 37.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Ruysbroeck: \"The Sparkling Stone,\" Cap. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 83: Lauda 91.]\n\n[Footnote 84: Op. cit., Cap. 13.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\n(II) CONTEMPLATION AND SUGGESTION\n\n\nIn the last chapter we considered what the modern analysis of mind had\nto tell us about the nature of the spiritual life, the meaning of sin\nand of salvation. We now go on to another aspect of this subject:\nnamely, the current conception of the unconscious mind as a dominant\nfactor of our psychic life, and of the extent and the conditions in\nwhich its resources can be tapped, and its powers made amenable to the\ndirection of the conscious mind. Two principal points must here be\nstudied. The first is the mechanism of that which is called autistic\nthinking and its relation to religious experience: the second, the laws\nof suggestion and their bearing upon the spiritual life. Especially must\nwe consider from this point of view the problems which are resumed under\nthe headings of prayer, contemplation, and grace. We shall find\nourselves compelled to examine the nature of meditation and\nrecollection, as spiritual persons have always practised them; and, to\ngive, if we can, a psychological account of many of their classic\nconceptions and activities. We shall therefore be much concerned with\nthose experiences which are often called mystical, but which I prefer to\ncall in general contemplative and intuitive; because they extend, as we\nshall find, without a break from the simplest type of mental prayer, the\nmost general apprehensions of the Spirit, to the most fully developed\nexamples of religious mono-ideism. To place all those intuitions and\nperceptions of which God or His Kingdom are the objects in a class apart\nfrom all other intuitions and perceptions, and call them \"mystical,\" is\nreally to beg the question from the start. The psychic mechanisms\ninvolved in them are seen in action in many other types of mental\nactivity; and will not, in my opinion, be understood until they are\nremoved from the category of the supernatural, and studied as the\nmovements of the one spirit of life--here directed towards a\ntranscendent objective. And further we must ever keep in mind, since we\nare now dealing with specific spiritual experiences, deeply exploring\nthe contemplative soul, that though psychology can criticize these\nexperiences, and help us to separate the wheat from the chaff--can tell\nus, too, a good deal about the machinery by which we lay hold of them,\nand the best way to use it--it cannot explain the experiences, pronounce\nupon their Object, or reduce that Object to its own terms.\n\nWe may some day have a valid psychology of religion, though we are far\nfrom it yet: but when we do, it will only be true within its own system\nof reference. It will deal with the fact of the spiritual life from one\nside only. And as a discussion of the senses and their experience\nexplains nothing about the universe by which these senses are impressed,\nso all discussion of spiritual faculty and experience remains within the\nhuman radius and neither invalidates nor accounts for the spiritual\nworld. When the psychologist has finished telling us all that he knows\nabout the rules which govern our mental life, and how to run it best, he\nis still left face to face with the mystery of that life, and of that\nhuman power of surrender to Spiritual Reality which is the very essence\nof religion. Humility remains, therefore, not only the most becoming but\nalso the most scientific attitude for investigators in this field. We\nmust, then, remember the inevitably symbolic nature of the language\nwhich we are compelled to use in our attempt to describe these\nexperiences; and resist all temptation to confuse the handy series of\nlabels with which psychology has furnished us, with the psychic unity to\nwhich they will be attached.\n\nPerhaps the most fruitful of all our recent discoveries in the mental\nregion will turn out to be that which is gradually revealing to us the\nextent and character of the unconscious mind; and the possibility of\ntapping its resources, bending its plastic shape to our own mould. It\nseems as though the laws of its being are at last beginning to be\nunderstood; giving a new content to the ancient command \"Know thyself.\"\nWe are learning that psycho-therapy, which made such immense strides\nduring the war, is merely one of the directions in which this knowledge\nmay be used, and this control exercised by us. That regnancy of spirit\nover matter towards which all idealists must look, is by way of coming\nat least to a partial fulfilment in this control of the conscious over\nthe unconscious, and thus over the bodily life. Such control is indeed\nan aspect of our human freedom, of the creative power which has been put\ninto our hands. In all this religion must be interested: because, once\nmore, it is the business of religion to regenerate the whole man and win\nhim for Reality.\n\nIf we could get rid of the idea that the unconscious is a separate, and\nin some sort hostile or animal entity set over against the conscious\nmind; and realize that it is, simply, our whole personality, with the\nexception of the scrap that happens at any moment to be in\nconsciousness--then, perhaps, we should more easily grasp the importance\nof exploring and mobilizing its powers. As it is, most of us behave like\nthe owners of a well-furnished room, who ignore every aspect of it\nexcept the window looking out upon the street. This we keep polished,\nand drape with the best curtains that we can afford. But the room upon\nwhich we sedulously turn our backs contains all that we have inherited,\nall that we have accumulated, many tools which are rusting for want of\nuse; machinery too which, left to itself, may function satisfactorily,\nor may get out of order and work to results that we neither desire nor\ndream. The room is twilit. Only by the window is a little patch of\nlight. Beyond this there is a fringe of vague, fluctuating, sometimes\nprismatic radiance: an intermediate region, where the images and things\nwhich most interest us have their place, just within range, or the\nfringe of the field of consciousness. In the darkest corners the\nmachinery that we do not understand, those possessions of which we are\nleast proud, and those pictures we hate to look at, are hidden away.\n\nThis little parable represents, more or less, that which psychology\nmeans by the conscious, foreconscious, and unconscious regions of the\npsyche. It must not be pressed, or too literally interpreted; but it\nhelps us to remember the graded character of our consciousness, its\nfluctuating level, and the fact that, as well as the outward-looking\nmind which alone we usually recognize, there is also the psychic matrix\nfrom which it has been developed, the inward-looking mind, caring for a\nvariety of interests of which we hardly, as we say, think at all. We\nknow as yet little about this mysterious psychic whole: the inner nature\nof which is only very incompletely given to us in the fluctuating\nexperiences of consciousness. But we do know that it, too, receives at\nleast a measure of the light and the messages coming in by the window of\nour wits: that it is the home of memory instinct and habit, the source\nof conduct, and that its control and modification form the major part of\nthe training of character. Further, it is sensitive, plastic, accessible\nto impressions, and unforgetting.\n\nConsider now that half-lit region which is called the foreconscious\nmind; for this is of special interest to the spiritual life. It is, in\npsychological language, the region of autistic as contrasted with\nrealistic thought.[85] That is to say, it is the agent of reverie and\nmeditation; it is at work in all our brooding states, from day-dream to\nartistic creation. Such autistic thought is dominated not by logic or\nwill, but by feeling. It achieves its results by intuition, and has its\nreasons which the surface mind knows not of. Here, in this\nfringe-region--which alone seems fully able to experience adoration and\nwonder, or apprehend the values we call holiness, beauty or love--is the\nsource of that intuition of the heart to which the mystic owes the love\nwhich is knowledge, and the knowledge which is love. Here is the true\nhome of inspiration and invention. Here, by a process which is seldom\nfully conscious save in its final stages, the poet's creations are\nprepared, and thence presented in the form of inspiration to the reason;\nwhich--if he be a great artist--criticizes them, before they are given\nas poems to the world. Indeed, in all man's apprehensions of the\ntranscendental these two states of the psyche must co-operate if he is\nto realize his full powers: and it is significant that to this\nforeconscious region religion, in its own special language, has always\ninvited him to retreat, if he would know his own soul and thus commune\nwith his God. Over and over again it assures him under various\nmetaphors, that he must turn within, withdraw from the window, meet the\ninner guest; and such a withdrawal is the condition of all\ncontemplation.\n\nConsider the opening of Jacob Boehme's great dialogue on the\nSupersensual Life.\n\n\"The Scholar said to his Master: How may I come to the supersensual\nlife, that I may see God and hear Him speak?\n\n\"His Master said: When thou canst throw thyself for a moment into that\nwhere no creature dwelleth, then thou hearest what God speaketh.\n\n\"The Scholar said: Is that near at hand or far off?\n\n\"The Master said: It is in thee, if thou canst for a while cease from\nall thinking and willing, thou shalt hear the unspeakable words of God.\n\n\"The Scholar said: How can I hear when I stand still from thinking and\nwilling?\n\n\"The Master said: When thou standest still from the thinking and willing\nof self, then the eternal hearing, seeing and speaking will be revealed\nin thee.\"[86]\n\nIn this passage we have a definite invitation to retreat from\nvolitional to affective thought: from the window to the quiet place\nwhere \"no creature dwelleth,\" and in Patmore's phrase \"the night of\nthought becomes the light of perception.\"[87] This fringe-region or\nforeconscious is in fact the organ of contemplation, as the realistic\noutward looking mind is the organ of action. Most men go through life\nwithout conceiving, far less employing, the rich possibilities which are\nimplicit in it. Yet here, among the many untapped resources of the self,\nlie our powers of response to our spiritual environment: powers which\nare kept by the tyrannical interests of everyday life below the\nthreshold of full consciousness, and never given a chance to emerge.\nHere take place those searching experiences of the \"inner life\" which\nseem moonshine or morbidity to those who have not known them.\n\nThe many people who complain that they have no such personal religious\nexperience, that the spiritual world is shut to them, are usually found\nto have expected this experience to be given to them without any\ndeliberate and sustained effort on their own part. They have lived from\nchildhood to maturity at the little window of consciousness and have\nnever given themselves the opportunity of setting up correspondences\nwith any other world than that of sense. Yet all normal men and women\npossess, at least in a rudimentary form, some intuition of the\ntranscendental; shown in their power of experiencing beauty or love. In\nsome it is dominant, emerging easily and without help; in others it is\nlatent and must be developed in the right way. In others again it may\nexist in virtual conflict with a strongly realistic outlook; gathering\nway until it claims its rights at last in a psychic storm. Its\nemergence, however achieved, is a part--and for our true life, by far\nthe most important part--of that outcropping and overflowing into\nconsciousness of the marginal faculties which is now being recognized as\nessential to all artistic and creative activities; and as playing, too,\na large part in the regulation of mental and bodily health.\n\nAll the great religions have implicitly understood--though without\nanalysis--the vast importance of these spiritual intuitions and\nfaculties lying below the surface of the everyday mind; and have\nperfected machinery tending to secure their release and their training.\nThis is of two kinds: first, religious ceremonial, addressing itself to\ncorporate feeling; next the discipline of meditation and prayer, which\neducates the individual to the same ends, gradually developing the\npowers of the foreconscious region, steadying them, and bringing them\nunder the control of the purified will. Without some such education,\nwidely as its details may vary, there can be no real living of the\nspiritual life.\n\n \"A going out into the life of sense\n Prevented the exercise of earnest realization.\"[88]\n\nPsychologists sometimes divide men into the two extreme classes of\nextroverts and introverts. The extrovert is the typical active; always\nleaning out of the window and setting up contacts with the outside\nworld. His thinking is mainly realistic. That is to say, it deals with\nthe data of sense. The introvert is the typical contemplative,\npredominantly interested in the inner world. His thinking is mainly\nautistic, dealing with the results of intuition and feeling, working\nthese up into new structures and extorting from them new experiences. He\nis at home in the foreconscious, has its peculiar powers under control;\nand instinctively obedient to the mystic command to sink into the ground\nof the soul, he leans towards those deep wells of his own being which\nplunge into the unconscious foundations of life. By this avoidance of\ntotal concentration on the sense world--though material obtained from it\nmust as a matter of fact enter into all, even his most \"spiritual\"\ncreations--he seems able to attend to the messages which intuition picks\nup from other levels of being. It is significant that nearly all\nspiritual writers use this very term of introversion, which psychology\nhas now adopted as the most accurate that it can find, in a favourable,\nindeed laudatory, sense. By it they intend to describe the healthy\nexpansion of the inner life, the development of the soul's power of\nattention to the spiritual, which is characteristic of those real men\nand women of prayer whom Ruysbroeck describes as:--\n\n \"Gazing inward with an eye uplifted and open to the Eternal Truth\n Inwardly abiding in simplicity and stillness and in utter peace.\"[89]\n\nIt is certain that no one who wholly lacks this power of retreat from\nthe surface, and has failed thus to mobilize his foreconscious energies,\ncan live a spiritual life. This is why silence and meditation play so\nlarge a part in all sane religious discipline. But the ideal state, a\nstate answering to that rhythm of work and prayer which should be the\nnorm of a mature spirituality, is one in which we have achieved that\nmental flexibility and control which puts us in full possession of our\nautistic _and_ our realistic powers; balancing and unifying the inner\nand the outer world.\n\nThis being so, it is worth while to consider in more detail the\ncharacter of foreconscious thought.\n\nForeconscious thinking, as it commonly occurs in us, with its unchecked\nillogical stream of images and ideas, moving towards no assigned end,\ncombined in no ordered chain, is merely what we usually call day-dream.\nBut where a definite wish or purpose, an _end_, dominates this reverie\nand links up its images and ideas into a cycle, we get in combination\nall the valuable properties both of affective and of directed thinking;\nalthough the reverie or contemplation place in the fringe-region of our\nmental life, and in apparent freedom from the control of the conscious\nreason. The object of recollection and meditation, which are the first\nstages of mental prayer, is to set going such a series and to direct it\ntowards an assigned end: and this first inward-turning act and\nself-orientation are voluntary, though the activities which they set up\nare not. \"You must know, my daughters,\" says St. Teresa, \"that this is\nno supernatural act but depends on our will; and that therefore we can\ndo it, with that ordinary assistance of God which we need for all our\nacts and even for our good thoughts.\"[90]\n\nConsider for a moment what happens in prayer. I pass over the simple\nrecitation of verbal prayers, which will better be dealt with when we\ncome to consider the institutional framework of the spiritual life. We\nare now concerned with mental prayer or orison; the simplest of those\ndegrees of contemplation which may pass gradually into mystical\nexperience, and are at least in some form a necessity of any real and\nactualized spiritual life. Such prayer is well defined by the mystics,\nas \"a devout intent directed to God.\"[91] What happens in it? All\nwriters on the science of prayer observe, that the first necessity is\nRecollection; which, in a rough and ready way, we may render as\nconcentration, or perhaps in the special language of psychology as\n\"contention.\" The mind is called in from external interests and\ndistractions, one by one the avenues of sense are closed, till the hunt\nof the world is hardly perceived by it. I need not labour this\ndescription, for it is a state of which we must all have experience: but\nthose who wish to see it described with the precision of genius, need\nonly turn to St. Teresa's \"Way of Perfection.\" Having achieved this, we\npass gradually into the condition of deep withdrawal variously called\nSimplicity or Quiet; a state in which the attention is quietly and\nwithout effort directed to God, and the whole self as it were held in\nHis presence. This presence is given, dimly or clearly, in intuition.\nThe actual prayer used will probably consist--again to use technical\nlanguage--of \"affective acts and aspirations\"; short phrases repeated\nand held, perhaps expressing penitence, humility, adoration or love, and\nfor the praying self charged with profound significance.\n\n\"If we would intentively pray for getting of good,\" says \"The Cloud of\nUnknowing,\" \"let us cry either with word or with thought or with desire,\nnought else nor on more words but this word God.... Study thou not for\nno words, for so shouldst thou never come to thy purpose nor to this\nwork, for it is never got by study, but all only by grace.\"[92]\n\nNow the question naturally arises, how does this recollected state, this\nalogical brooding on a spiritual theme, exceed in religions value the\norderly saying of one's prayers? And the answer psychology suggests is,\nthat more of us, not less, is engaged in such a spiritual act: that not\nonly the conscious attention, but the foreconscious region too is then\nthrown open to the highest sources of life. We are at last learning to\nrecognize the existence of delicate mental processes which entirely\nescape the crude methods of speech. Reverie as a genuine thought process\nis beginning to be studied with the attention it deserves, and new\nunderstanding of prayer must result. By its means powers of perception\nand response ordinarily latent are roused to action; and thus the whole\nlife is enriched. That faculty in us which corresponds, not with the\nbusy life of succession but with the eternal sources of power, gets its\nchance. \"Though the soul,\" says Von Huegel, \"cannot abidingly abstract\nitself from its fellows, it can and ought frequently to recollect itself\nin a simple sense of God's presence. Such moments of direct\npreoccupation with God alone bring a deep refreshment and simplification\nto the soul.\"[93]\n\nTrue silence, says William Penn, of this quiet surrender to reality, \"is\nrest to the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body;\nnourishment and refreshment.\"[94] Psychology endorses the constant\nstatements of all religions of the Spirit, that no one need hope to live\na spiritual life who cannot find a little time each day for this retreat\nfrom the window, this quiet and loving waiting upon the unseen \"with\nthe forces of the soul,\" as Ruysbroeck puts it, \"gathered into unity of\nthe Spirit.\"[95] Under these conditions, and these only, the intuitive,\ncreative, artistic powers are captured and dedicated to the highest\nends: and in these powers rather than the rational our best chance of\napprehending eternal values abides, \"Taste and _see_ that the Lord is\nsweet.\" \"Be still! be still! and _know_ that I am God!\"\n\nSince, then, the foreconscious mind and its activities are of such\nparamount interest to the spiritual life, we may before we go on glance\nat one or two of its characteristics. And first we notice that the fact\nthat the foreconscious is, so to speak, in charge in the mental and\ncontemplative type of prayer explains why it is that even the most\ndevout persons are so constantly tormented by distractions whilst\nengaged in it. Very often, they are utterly unable to keep their\nattention fixed; and the reason of this is, that conscious attention and\nthought are not the faculties primarily involved. What is involved, is\nreverie coloured by feeling; and this tends to depart from its assigned\nend and drift into mere day-dream, if the emotional tension slackens or\nsome intruding image starts a new train of associations. The religious\nmind is distressed by this constant failure to look steadily at that\nwhich alone it wants to see; but the failure abides in the fact that\nthe machinery used is affective, and obedient to the rise and fall of\nfeeling rather than the control of the will. \"By love shall He be gotten\nand holden, by thought never.\"\n\nNext, consider for a moment the way in which the foreconscious does and\nmust present its apprehensions to consciousness. Its cognitions of the\nspiritual are in the nature of pure immediacy, of uncriticized contacts:\nand the best and greatest of them seem to elude altogether that\nmachinery of speech and image which has been developed through the life\nof sense. The well-known language of spiritual writers about the divine\ndarkness or ignorance is an acknowledgment of this. God is \"known\ndarkly.\" Our experience of Eternity is \"that of which nothing can be\nsaid.\" It is \"beyond feeling\" and \"beyond knowledge,\" a certitude known\nin the ground of the soul, and so forth. It is indeed true that the\nspiritual world is for the human mind a transcendent world, does differ\nutterly in kind from the best that the world of succession is able to\ngive us; as we know once for all when we establish a contact with it,\nhowever fleeting. But constantly the foreconscious--which, as we shall\ndo well to remember, is the artistic region of the mind, the home of the\npoem, and the creative phantasy--works up its transcendent intuitions in\nsymbolic form. For this purpose it sometimes uses the machinery of\nspeech, sometimes that of image. As our ordinary reveries constantly\nproceed by way of an interior conversation or narrative, so the content\nof spiritual contemplation is often expressed in dialogue, in which\nmemory and belief are fused with the fruit of perception. The \"Dialogue\nof St. Catherine of Siena,\" the \"Life of Suso,\" and the \"Imitation of\nChrist,\" all provide beautiful examples of this; but indeed\nillustrations of it might be found in every school and period of\nreligious literature.\n\nSuch inward dialogue, one of the commonest spontaneous forms of autistic\nthought, is perpetually resorted to by devout minds to actualize their\nconsciousness of direct communion with God. I need not point out how\neasily and naturally it expresses for them that sense of a Friend and\nCompanion, an indwelling power and support, which is perhaps their\ncharacteristic experience. \"Blessed is that soul,\" says a Kempis, \"that\nheareth the Lord speaking in him and taketh from His mouth the word of\nconsolation. Blessed be those ears that receive of God's whisper and\ntake no heed of the whisper of this world.\"[96] Though St. John of the\nCross has reminded us with blunt candour that such persons are for the\nmost part only talking to themselves, we need not deny the value of such\na talking as a means of expressing the deeply known and intimate\npresence of Spirit. Moreover, the thoughts and words in which the\ncontemplative expresses his sense of love and dedication reverberate as\nit were in the depths of the instinctive mind, now in this quietude\nthrown open to these influences: and the instinctive mind, as we have\nalready seen, is the home of character and of habit formation.\n\nWhere there is a tendency to think in images rather than in words, the\nexperiences of the Spirit may be actualized in the form of vision rather\nthan of dialogue: and here again, memory and feeling will provide the\nmaterial. Here we stand at the sources of religious art: which, when it\nis genuine, is a symbolic picture of the experiences of faith, and in\nthose minds attuned to it may evoke again the memory or very presence of\nthose experiences. But many minds are, as it were, their own religious\nartists; and build up for themselves psychic structures answering to\ntheir intuitive apprehensions. So vivid may these structures sometimes\nbe for them that--to revert again to our original simile--the self turns\nfrom the window and the realistic world without, and becomes for the\ntime wholly concentrated on the symbolic drama or picture within the\nroom; which abolishes all awareness of the everyday world. When this\nhappens in a small way, we have what might be called a religious\nday-dream of more or less beauty and intensity; such as most devout\npeople who tend to visualization have probably known. When the break\nwith the external world is complete, we get those ecstatic visions in\nwhich mystics of a certain type actualize their spiritual intuitions.\nThe Bible is full of examples of this. Good historic instances are the\nvisions of Mechthild of Magdeburg or Angela of Foligno. The first\ncontain all the elements of drama, the last cover a wide symbolic and\nemotional field. Those who have read Canon Streeter's account of the\nvisions of the Sadhu Sundar Singh will recognize them as being of this\ntype.[97]\n\nI do not wish to go further than this into the abnormal and extreme\ntypes of religious autism; trance, ecstasy and so forth. Our concern is\nwith the norm of the spiritual life, as it exists to-day and as all may\nlive it. But it is necessary to realize that image and vision do within\nlimits represent a perfectly genuine way of doing things, which is\ninevitable for deeply spiritual selves of a certain type; and that it is\nneither good psychology nor good Christianity, lightly to dismiss as\nsuperstition or hysteria the pictured world of symbol in which our\nneighbour may live and save his soul. The symbolic world of traditional\npiety, with its angels and demons, its friendly saints, its spatial\nheaven, may conserve and communicate spiritual values far better than\nthe more sophisticated universe of religious philosophy. We may be sure\nthat both are more characteristic of the image-making and\nstructure-building tendencies of the mind, than they are of the ultimate\nand for us unknowable reality of things. Their value--or the value of\nany work of art which the foreconscious has contrived--abides wholly in\nthe content: the quality of the material thus worked up. The rich\nnature, the purified love, capable of the highest correspondences, will\nexpress even in the most primitive duologue or vision the results of a\nveritable touching and tasting of Eternal Life. Its psychic\nstructures--however logic may seek to discredit them--will convey\nspiritual fact, have the quality which the mystics mean when they speak\nof illumination. The emotional pietist will merely ramble among the\nreligious symbols and phrases with which the devout memory is stored. It\nis true that the voice or the picture, surging up as it does into the\nfield of consciousness, seems to both classes to have the character of a\nrevelation. The pictures unroll themselves automatically and with\namazing authority and clearness, the conversation is with Another than\nourselves; or in more generalized experiences, such as the sense of the\nDivine Presence, the contact is with another order of life. But the\ncrucial question which religion asks must be, does fresh life flow in\nfrom those visions and contacts, that intercourse? Is transcendental\nfeeling involved in them? \"What fruits dost thou bring back from this\nthy vision?\" says Jacopone da Todi;[98] and this remains the only real\ntest by which to separate day-dreams from the vitalizing act of\ncontemplation. In the first we are abandoned to a delightful, and\nperhaps as it seems holy or edifying vagrancy of thought. In the\nsecond, by a deliberate choice and act of will, foreconscious thinking\nis set going and directed towards an assigned end: the apprehending and\nactualizing of our deepest intuition of God. In it, a great region of\nthe mind usually ignored by us and left to chance, yet source of many\nchoices and deeds, and capable of much purifying pain, is put to its\ntrue work: and it is work which must be humbly, regularly and faithfully\nperformed. It is to this region that poetry, art and music--and even, if\nI dare say so, philosophy--make their fundamental appeal. No life is\nwhole and harmonized in which it has not taken its right place.\n\nWe must now go on--and indeed, any psychological study of prayerful\nexperience must lead us on--to the subject of suggestion, and its\nrelation to the inner life. By suggestion of course is here meant, in\nconformity with current psychological doctrine, the process by which an\nidea enters the deeper and unconscious psychic levels and there becomes\nfruitful. Its real nature, and in consequence something of its\nfar-reaching importance, is now beginning to be understood by us: a fact\nof great moment for both the study and the practice of the spiritual\nlife. Since the transforming work of the Spirit must be done through\nman's ordinary psychic machinery and in conformity with the laws which\ngovern it, every such increase in our knowledge of that machinery must\nserve the interests of religion, and show its teachers the way to\nsuccess. Suggestion is usually said to be of two kinds. The first is\nhetero-suggestion, in which the self-realizing idea is received either\nwittingly or unwittingly from the outer world. During the whole of our\nconscious lives for good or evil we are at the mercy of such\nhetero-suggestions, which are being made to us at every moment by our\nenvironment; and they form, as we shall afterwards see, a dominant\nfactor in corporate religious exercises. The second type is\nauto-suggestion. In this, by means of the conscious mind, an idea is\nimplanted in the unconscious and there left to mature. Thus do willingly\naccepted beliefs, religious, social, or scientific, gradually and\nsilently permeate the whole being and show their results in character.\n\nA little reflection shows, however, that these two forms of suggestion\nshade into one another; and that no hetero-suggestion, however\nimpressively given, becomes active in us until we have in some sort\naccepted it and transformed it into an auto-suggestion. Theology\nexpresses this fact in its own special language, when it says that the\nwill must co-operate with grace if it is to be efficacious. Thus the\nprimacy of the will is safe-guarded. It stands, or should stand, at the\ndoor; selecting from among the countless dynamic suggestions, good and\nbad, which life pours in on us, those which serve the best interests of\nthe self.\n\nAs a rule, men take little trouble to sort out the incoming suggestions.\nThey allow uncriticized beliefs and prejudices, the ideas of hatred,\nanxiety or ill-health, free entrance. They fail to seize and affirm the\nideas of power, renovation, joy. They would be more careful, did they\ngrasp more fully the immense and often enduring effect of these accepted\nsuggestions; the extent in which the fundamental, unreasoning psychic\ndeeps are plastic to ideas. Yet this plasticity is exhibited in daily\nlife first under the emotional form of sympathy, response to the\nsuggestion of other peoples' feeling-states; and next under the conative\nform of imitation, active acceptance of the suggestion made by their\nappearance, habits, deeds. All political creeds, panics, fashion and\ngood form witness to the overwhelming power of suggestion. We are so\naccustomed to this psychic contagion that we fail to realize the\nstrangeness of the process: but it is now known to reach a degree\npreviously unsuspected, and of which we have not yet found the limits.\n\nIn the religious sphere, the more sensational demonstrations of this\npsychic suggestibility have long been notorious. Obvious instances are\nthose ecstatics--some of them true saints, some only religious\ninvalids--whose continuous and ardent meditation on the Cross produced\nin them the actual bodily marks of the Passion of Christ. In less\nextreme types, perpetual dwelling on this subject, together with that\neager emotional desire to be united with the sufferings of the Redeemer\nwhich mediaeval religion encouraged, frequently modified the whole life\nof the contemplative; shaping the plastic mind, and often the body too,\nto its own mould. A good historic example of this law of religious\nsuggestibility is the case of Julian of Norwich. As a young girl, Julian\nprayed that she might have an illness at thirty years of age, and also a\ncloser knowledge of Christ's pains. She forgot the prayer: but it worked\nbelow the threshold as forgotten suggestions often do, and when she was\nthirty the illness came. Its psychic origin can still be recognized in\nher own candid account of it; and with the illness the other half of\nthat dynamic prayer received fulfilment, in those well-known visions of\nthe Passion to which we owe the \"Revelations of Divine Love.\"[99]\n\nThis is simply a striking instance of a process which is always taking\nplace in every one of us, for good or evil. The deeper mind opens to all\nwho knock; provided only that the new-comers be not the enemies of some\nstronger habit or impression already within. To suggestions which\ncoincide with the self's desires or established beliefs it gives an easy\nwelcome; and these, once within, always tend to self-realization. Thus\nthe French Carmelite Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus, once convinced that she\nwas destined to be a \"victim of love,\" began that career of suffering\nwhich ended in her death at the age of twenty-four.[100] The lives of\nthe Saints are full of incidents explicable on the same lines:\nexhibiting again and again the dramatic realization of traditional ideas\nor passionate desires. We see therefore that St. Paul's admonition\n\"Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever\nthings be of good report, think on these things\" is a piece of practical\nadvice of which the importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it deals\nwith the conditions under which man makes his own mentality.\n\nSuggestion, in fact, is one of the most powerful agents either of\nself-destruction or of self-advancement which are within our grasp: and\nthose who speak of the results of psycho-therapy, or the certitudes of\nreligious experience, as \"mere suggestion\" are unfortunate in their\nchoice of an adjective. If then we wish to explore all those mental\nresources which can be turned to the purposes of the spiritual life,\nthis is one which we must not neglect. The religious idea, rightly\nreceived into the mind and reinforced by the suggestion of regular\ndevotional exercises, always tends to realize itself. \"Receive His\nleaven,\" says William Penn, \"and it will change thee, His medicine and\nit will cure thee. He is as infallible as free; without money and with\ncertainty. Yield up the body, soul and spirit to Him that maketh all\nthings new: new heaven and new earth, new love, new joy, new peace, new\nworks, a new life and conversation.\"[101] This is fine literature, but\nit is more important to us to realize that it is also good psychology:\nand that here we are given the key to those amazing regenerations of\ncharacter which are the romance and glory of the religious life.\nPascal's too celebrated saying, that if you will take holy water\nregularly you will presently believe, witnesses on another level to the\nsame truth.\n\nFears have been expressed that, by such an application of the laws of\nsuggestion to religious experience, we shall reduce religion itself to a\nmere favourable subjectivism, and identify faith with suggestibility.\nBut here the bearing of this series of facts on bodily health provides\nus with a useful analogy. Bodily health is no illusion. It does not\nconsist in merely thinking that we are well, but is a real condition of\nwell-being and of power; depending on the state of our tissues and\ncorrect balance and working of our physical and psychical life. And this\ncorrect and wholesome working will be furthered and steadied--or if\nbroken may often be restored--by good suggestions; it may be disturbed\nby bad suggestions; because the controlling factor of life is mind, not\nchemistry, and mind is plastic to ideas. So too the life of the Spirit\nis a concrete fact; a real response to a real universe. But this\nconcrete life of faith, with its growth and its experiences, its richly\nvarious working of one principle in every aspect of existence, its\ncorrespondences with the Eternal World, its definitely ontological\nreferences, is lived here and now; in and through the self's psychic\nlife, and indeed his bodily life too--a truth which is embodied in\nsacramentalism. Therefore, sharing as it does life's plastic character,\nit too is amenable to suggestion and can be helped or hindered by it. It\nis indeed characteristic of those in whom this life is dominant, that\nthey are capable of receiving and responding to the highest and most\nvivifying suggestions which the universe in its totality pours in on us.\nThis movement of response, often quietly overlooked, is that which makes\nthem not spiritual hedonists but men and women of prayer. Grace--to give\nthese suggestions of Spirit their conventional name--is perpetually\nbeating in on us. But if it is to be inwardly realized, the Divine\nsuggestion must be transformed by man's will and love into an\nauto-suggestion; and this is what seems to happen in meditation and\nprayer.\n\nEverything indeed points to a very close connection between what might\nbe called the mechanism of prayer and of suggestion. To say this, is in\nno way to minimize the transcendental character of prayer. In both\nstates there is a spontaneous or deliberate throwing open of the deeper\nmind to influences which, fully accepted, tend to realize themselves.\nLook at the directions given by all great teachers of prayer and\ncontemplation; and these two acts, rightly performed, fuse one with the\nother, they are two aspects of the single act of communion with God.\nLook at their insistence on a stilling and recollecting of the mind, on\nsurrender, a held passivity not merely limp but purposeful: on the need\nof meek yielding to a greater inflowing power, and its regenerating\nsuggestions. Then compare this with the method by which health-giving\nsuggestions are made to the bodily life. \"In the deeps of the soul His\nword is spoken.\" Is not this an exact description of the inward work of\nthe self-realizing idea of holiness, received in the prayer of quiet\ninto the unconscious mind, and there experienced as a transforming\npower? I think that we may go even further than this, and say that\ngrace, is, in effect, the direct suggestion of the spiritual affecting\nour soul's life. As we are commonly docile to the countless\nhetero-suggestions, some of them helpful, some weakening, some actually\nperverting, which our environment is always making to us; so we can and\nshould be so spiritually suggestible that we can receive those given to\nus by all-penetrating Divine life. What is generally called sin,\nespecially in the forms of self-sufficiency, lack of charity and the\nindulgence of the senses, renders us recalcitrant to these living\nsuggestions of the Spirit. The opposing qualities, humility, love and\npurity, make us as we say accessible to grace.\n\n\"Son,\" says the inward voice to Thomas a Kempis, \"My grace is precious,\nand suffereth not itself to be mingled with strange things nor earthly\nconsolations. Wherefore it behoveth thee to cast away impediments to\ngrace, if thou willest to receive the inpouring thereof. Ask for thyself\na secret place, love to dwell alone with thyself, seek confabulation of\nnone other ... put the readiness for God before all other things, for\nthou canst not both take heed to Me and delight in things transitory....\nThis grace is a light supernatural and a special gift of God, and a\nproper sign of the chosen children of God, and the earnest of\neverlasting health; for God lifteth up man from earthly things to love\nheavenly things, and of him that is fleshly maketh a spiritual\nman.\"[102] Could we have a more vivid picture than this of the\nconditions of withdrawal and attention under which the psyche is most\namenable to suggestion, or of the inward transfiguration worked by a\ngreat self-realizing idea? Such transfiguration has literally on the\nphysical plane caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to\nspeak: and it seems to me that it is to be observed operating on highest\nlevels in the work of salvation. When further a Kempis prays \"Increase\nin me more grace, that I may fulfil Thy word and make perfect mine own\nhealth\" is he not describing the right balance to be sought between our\nsurrender to the vivifying suggestions of grace and our appropriation\nand manly use of them? This is no limp acquiescence and merely infantile\ndependence, but another aspect of the vital balance between the\nindrawing and outgiving of power; and one of the main functions of\nprayer is to promote in us that spiritually suggestible state in which,\nas Dionysius the Areopagite says, we are \"receptive of God.\"\n\nIt is, then, worth our while from the point of view of the spiritual\nlife to inquire into the conditions in which a suggestion is most likely\nto be received and realized by us. These conditions, as psychologists\nhave so far defined them, can be resumed under the three heads of\nquiescence, attention and feeling: outstanding characteristics, as I\nneed not point out, of the state of prayer, all of which can be\nillustrated from the teaching and experience of the mystics.\n\nFirst, let us take _Quiescence_. In order fully to lay open the\nunconscious to the influence of suggested ideas, the surface mind must\nbe called in from its responses to the outer world, or in religious\nlanguage recollected, till the hum of that world is hardly perceived by\nit. The body must be relaxed, making no demands on the machinery\ncontrolling the motor system; and the conditions in general must be\nthose of complete mental and bodily rest. Here is the psychological\nequivalent of that which spiritual writers call the Quiet: a state\ndefined by one of them as \"a rest most busy.\" \"Those who are in this\nprayer,\" says St. Teresa, \"wish their bodies to remain motionless, for\nit seems to them that at the least movement they will lose their sweet\npeace.\"[103] Others say that in this state we \"stop the wheel of\nimagination,\" leave all that we can think, sink into our nothingness or\nour ground. In Ruysbroeck's phrase, we are \"inwardly abiding in\nsimplicity and stillness and utter peace\";[104] and this is man's state\nof maximum receptivity. \"The best and noblest way in which thou mayst\ncome into this work and life,\" says Meister Eckhart, \"is by keeping\nsilence and letting God work and speak ... when we simply keep ourselves\nreceptive we are more perfect than when at work.\"[105]\n\nBut this preparatory state of surrendered quiet must at once be\nqualified by the second point: _Attention_. It is based upon the right\nuse of the will, and is not a limp yielding to anything or nothing. It\nhas an ordained deliberate aim, is a behaviour-cycle directed to an end;\nand this it is that marks out the real and fruitful quiet of the\ncontemplative from the non-directed surrender of mere quietism.\n\"Nothing,\" says St. Teresa, \"is learnt without a little pains. For the\nlove of God, sisters, account that care well employed that ye shall\nbestow on this thing.\"[106]\n\nThe quieted mind must receive and hold, yet without discursive thought,\nthe idea which it desires to realize; and this idea must interest and be\nreal for it, so that attention is concentrated on it spontaneously. The\nmore completely the idea absorbs us, the greater its transforming power:\nwhen interest wavers, the suggestion begins to lose ground. In spite of\nher subsequent relapse into quietism Madame Guyon accurately described\ntrue quiet when she said, \"Our activity should consist in endeavouring\nto acquire and maintain such a state as may be most susceptible of\ndivine impressions, most flexible to all the operations of the Eternal\nWord.\"[107] Such concentration can be improved by practice; hence the\nvalue of regular meditation and contemplation to those who are in\nearnest about the spiritual life, the quiet and steady holding in the\nmind of the thought which it is desired to realize.\n\nPsycho-therapists tell us that, having achieved quiescence, we should\nrapidly and rythmically, but with intention, repeat the suggestion that\nwe wish to realize; and that the shorter, simpler and more general this\nverbal formula, the more effective it will be.[108] The spiritual aspect\nof this law was well understood by the mediaeval mystics. Thus the author\nof \"The Cloud of Unknowing\" says to his disciple, \"Fill thy spirit with\nghostly meaning of this word Sin, and without any special beholding unto\nany kind of sin, whether it be venial or deadly. And cry thus ghostly\never upon one: Sin! Sin! Sin! out! out! out! This ghostly cry is better\nlearned of God by the proof than of any man by word. For it is best when\nit is in pure spirit, without special thought or any pronouncing of\nword. On the same manner shalt thou do with this little word God: and\nmean God all, and all God, so that nought work in thy wit and in thy\nwill but only God.\"[109] Here the directions are exact, and such as any\npsychologist of the present day might give. So too, religious teachers\ninformed by experience have always ascribed a special efficacy to \"short\nacts\" of prayer and aspiration: phrases repeated or held in the mind,\nwhich sum up and express the self's penitence, love, faith or adoration,\nand are really brief, articulate suggestions parallel in type to those\nwhich Baudouin recommends to us as conducive to bodily well-being.[110]\nThe repeated affirmation of Julian of Norwich \"All shall be well! all\nshall be well! all shall be well!\"[111] fills all her revelations with\nits suggestion of joyous faith; and countless generations of Christians\nhave thus applied to their soul's health those very methods by which we\nare now enthusiastically curing indigestion and cold in the head. The\narticulate repetition of such phrases increases their suggestive power;\nfor the unconscious is most easily reached by way of the ear. This fact\nthrows light on the immemorial insistence of all great religions on the\npeculiar value of vocal prayer, whether this be the _mantra_ of the\nHindu or the _dikr_ of the Moslem; and explains the instinct which\ncauses the Catholic Church to require from her priests the verbal\nrepetition, not merely the silent reading of their daily office. Hence,\ntoo, there is real educative value, in such devotions as the rosary; and\nthe Protestant Churches showed little psychological insight when they\nabandoned it. Such \"vain\" repetitions, however much the rational mind\nmay dislike, discredit or denounce them, have power to penetrate and\nmodify the deeper psychic levels; always provided that they conflict\nwith no accepted belief, are weighted with meaning and desire, with the\nintent stretched towards God, and are not allowed to become merely\nmechanical--the standing danger alike of all verbal suggestion and all\nvocal prayer.\n\nHere we touch the third character of effective suggestion: _Feeling_.\nWhen the idea is charged with emotion, it is far more likely to be\nrealized. War neuroses have taught us the dreadful potency of the\nemotional stimulus of fear; but this power of feeling over the\nunconscious has its good side too. Here we find psychology justifying\nthe often criticized emotional element of religion. Its function is to\nincrease the energy of the idea. The cool, judicious type of belief will\nnever possess the life-changing power of a more fervid, though perhaps\nless rational faith. Thus the state of corporate suggestibility\ngenerated in a revival and on which the success of that revival depends,\nis closely related to the emotional character of the appeal which is\nmade. And, on higher levels, we see that the transfigured lives and\nheroic energies of the great figures of Christian history all represent\nthe realization of an idea of which the heart was an impassioned love of\nGod, subduing to its purposes all the impulses and powers of the inner\nman, \"If you would truly know how these things come to pass,\" said St.\nBonaventura, \"ask it of desire not of intellect; of the ardours of\nprayer, not of the teaching of the schools.\"[112] More and more\npsychology tends to endorse the truth of these words.\n\nQuiescence, attention, and emotional interest are then the conditions of\nsuccessful suggestion. We have further to notice two characteristics\nwhich have been described by the Nancy school of psychologists; and\nwhich are of some importance for those who wish to understand the\nmechanism of religious experience. These have been called the law of\nUnconscious Teleology, and the law of Reversed Effort.\n\nThe law of unconscious teleology means that when an end has been\neffectively suggested to it, the unconscious mind will always tend to\nwork towards its realization. Thus in psycho-therapeutics it is found\nthat a general suggestion of good health made to the sick person is\noften enough. The doctor may not himself know enough about the malady to\nsuggest stage by stage the process of cure. But he suggests that cure;\nand the necessary changes and adjustments required for its realization\nare made unconsciously, under the influence of the dynamic idea. Here\nthe direction of \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" \"Look that nothing live in\nthy working mind but a naked intent directed to God\"[113]--suggesting\nas it does to the psyche the ontological Object of faith--strikingly\nanticipates the last conclusions of science. Further, a fervent belief\nin the end proposed, a conviction of success, is by no means essential.\nFar more important is a humble willingness to try the method, give it a\nchance. That which reason may not grasp, the deeper mind may seize upon\nand realize; always provided that the intellect does not set up\nresistances. This is found to be true in medical practice, and religious\nteachers have always declared it to be true in the spiritual sphere;\nholding obedience, humility, and a measure of resignation, not spiritual\nvision, to be the true requisites for the reception of grace, the\nhealing and renovation of the soul. Thus acquiescence in belief, and\nloyal and steady co-operation in the corporate religious life are often\nseen to work for good in those who submit to them; though these may\nlack, as they frequently say, the \"spiritual sense.\" And this happens,\nnot by magic, but in conformity with psychological law.\n\nThis tendency of the unconscious self to realize without criticism a\nsuggested end lays on religious teachers the obligation of forming a\nclear and vital conception of the spiritual ideals which they wish to\nsuggest, whether to themselves in their meditations or to others by\ntheir teaching: to be sure that they are wholesome, and really tend to\nfullness of life. It should also compel each of us to scrutinize those\nreligious thoughts and images which we receive and on which we allow\nour minds to dwell: excluding those that are merely sentimental, weak or\notherwise unworthy, and holding fast the noblest and most beautiful that\nwe can find. For these ideas, however generalized, will set up profound\nchanges in the mind that receives them. Thus the wrong conception of\nself-immolation will be faithfully worked out by the unconscious--and\nhas been too often in the past--in terms of misery, weakness, or\ndisease. We remember how the idea of herself as a victim of love worked\nphysical destruction in Therese de L'Enfant Jesus: and we shall never\nperhaps know all the havoc wrought by the once fashionable doctrines of\npredestination and of the total depravity of human nature. All this\nshows how necessary it is to put hopeful, manly, constructive\nconceptions before those whom we try to help or instruct; constantly\nsuggesting to them not the weak and sinful things that they are, but the\nliving and radiant things which they can become.\n\nFurther, this tendency of the received suggestion to work out its whole\ncontent for good or evil within the unconscious mind, shows the\nimportance which we ought to attach to the tone of a religions service,\nand how close too many of our popular hymns are to what one might call\npsychological sin; stressing as they do a childish weakness love of\nshelter and petting, a neurotic shrinking from full human life, a morbid\npreoccupation with failure and guilt. Such hymns make devitalizing\nsuggestions, adverse to the health and energy of the spiritual life;\nand are all the more powerful because they are sung collectively and in\nrhythm, and are cast in an emotional mould.[114] There was some truth in\nthe accusation of the Indian teacher Ramakrishna, that the books of the\nChristians insisted too exclusively on sin. He said, \"He who repeats\nagain and again 'I am bound! I am bound!' remains in bondage. He who\nrepeats day and night 'I am a sinner! I am a sinner!' becomes a sinner\nindeed.\"[115]\n\nI go on to the law of Reversed Effort; a psychological discovery which\nseems to be of extreme importance for the spiritual life. Briefly this\nmeans, that when any suggestion has entered the unconscious mind and\nthere become active, all our conscious and anxious resistances to it are\nnot merely useless but actually tend to intensify it. If it is to be\ndislodged, this will not be accomplished by mere struggle but by the\npersuasive power of another and superior auto-suggestion. Further, in\nrespect of any habit that we seek to establish, the more desperate our\nstruggle and sense of effort, the smaller will be our success. In small\nmatters we have all experienced the working of this law: in frustrated\nstruggles to attend to that which does not interest us, to check a\ntiresome cough, to keep our balance when learning to ride a bicycle. But\nit has also more important applications. Thus it indicates that a\ndeliberate struggle to believe, to overcome some moral weakness, to keep\nattention fixed in prayer, will tend to frustration: for this anxious\neffort gives body to our imaginative difficulties and sense of\nhelplessness, fixing attention on the conflict, not on the desired end.\nTrue, if this end is to be achieved the will must be directed to it, but\nonly in the sense of giving steadfast direction to the desires and acts\nof the self, keeping attention orientated towards the goal. The pull of\nimaginative desire, not the push of desperate effort, serves us best.\nSt. Teresa well appreciated this law and applied it to her doctrine of\nprayer. \"If your thought,\" she says to her daughters, \"runs after all\nthe fooleries of the world, laugh at it and leave it for a fool and\ncontinue in your quiet ... if you seek by force of arms to bring it to\nyou, you lose the strength which you have against it.\"[116]\n\nThis same principle is implicitly recognized by those theologians who\ndeclare that man can \"do nothing of himself,\" that mere voluntary\nstruggle is useless, and regeneration comes by surrender to grace: by\nyielding, that is, to the inner urge, to those sources of power which\nflow in, but are not dragged in. Indications of its truth meet us\neverywhere in spiritual literature. Thus Jacob Boehme says, \"Because\nthou strivest against that out of which thou art come, thou breakest\nthyself off with thy own willing from God's willing.\"[117] So too the\nconstant invitations to let God work and speak, to surrender, are all\ninvitations to cease anxious strife and effort and give the Divine\nsuggestions their chance. The law of reversed effort, in fact, is valid\non every level of life; and warns us against the error of making\nreligion too grim and strenuous an affair. Certainly in all life of the\nSpirit the will is active, and must retain its conscious and steadfast\norientation to God. Heroic activity and moral effort must form an\nintegral part of full human experience. Yet it is clearly possible to\nmake too much of the process of wrestling evil. An attention chiefly and\nanxiously concentrated on the struggle with sins and weaknesses, instead\nof on the eternal sources of happiness and power, will offer the\nunconscious harmful suggestions of impotence and hence tend to\nfrustration. The early ascetics, who made elaborate preparations for\ndealing with temptations, got as an inevitable result plenty of\ntemptations with which to deal. A sounder method is taught by the\nmystics. \"When thoughts of sin press on thee,\" says \"The Cloud of\nUnknowing,\" \"look over their shoulders seeking another thing, the which\nthing is God.\"[118]\n\nThese laws of suggestion, taken together, all seem to point, one way.\nThey exhibit the human self as living, plastic, changeful; perpetually\nmodified by the suggestions pouring in on it, the experiences and\nintuitions to which it reacts. Every thought, prayer, enthusiasm, fear,\nis of importance to it. Nothing leaves it as it was before. The soul,\nsaid Boehme, stands both in heaven and in hell. Keep it perpetually busy\nat the window of the senses, feed it with unlovely and materialistic\nideas, and those ideas will realize themselves. Give the contemplative\nfaculty its chance, let it breathe at least for a few moments of each\nday the spiritual atmosphere of faith, hope and love, and the spiritual\nlife will at least in some measure be realized by it.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 85: On all this, cf. J. Varendonck, \"The Psychology of\nDay-dreams.\"]\n\n[Footnote 86: Jacob Boehme: \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Patmore: \"The Rod, the Root and the Flower: Aurea Dicta,\"\n13.]\n\n[Footnote 88: Ruysbroeck: \"The Book of the XII Beguines,\" Cap. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 89: \"The Book of the XII Beguines,\" Cap. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 90: \"The Way of Perfection,\" Cap. 29.]\n\n[Footnote 91: \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" Cap. 39.]\n\n[Footnote 92: _Ibid_.]\n\n[Footnote 93: \"Eternal Life,\" p. 396.]\n\n[Footnote 94: Penn: \"No Cross, No Crown.\"]\n\n[Footnote 95: \"The Book of the XII Beguines,\" Cap, 7.]\n\n[Footnote 96: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. I]\n\n[Footnote 97: Streeter and Appasamy: \"The Sadhu, a Study in Mysticism\nand Practical Religion,\" Pt. V.]\n\n[Footnote 98:\n\n Que frutti reducene de esta tua visione?\n Vita ordinata en onne nazione.\n\n--Jacopone da Todi: Lauda 79.]\n\n[Footnote 99: Julian of Norwich: \"Revelations of Divine Love,\" Caps. 2,\n3, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 100: \"Soeur Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus,\" Cap. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 101: William Penn: \"No Cross, No Crown.\"]\n\n[Footnote 102: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. 58.]\n\n[Footnote 103: \"Way of Perfection,\" Cap. 33.]\n\n[Footnote 104: \"The Book of the XII Beguines,\" Cap. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 105: Meister Eckhart, Pred. I.]\n\n[Footnote 106: \"The Way of Perfection,\" Cap. 29.]\n\n[Footnote 107: \"A Short and Easy Method of Prayer,\" Cap. 21.]\n\n[Footnote 108: Baudouin: \"Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,\" Pt. II, Cap\n6.]\n\n[Footnote 109: Op. cit. Cap. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 110: Baudouin: \"Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,\" loc. cit.]\n\n[Footnote 111: \"Revelations of Divine Love,\" Cap. 27.]\n\n[Footnote 112: \"De Itinerario Mentis in Deo,\" Cap. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Op. cit., Cap. 43.]\n\n[Footnote 114: Hymns of the Weary Willie type: e.g.\n\n \"O Paradise, O Paradise\n Who does not sigh for rest?\"\n\nshould never be sung in congregations where the average age is less than\nsixty. Equally unsuited to general use are those expressing\ndisillusionment, anxiety, or impotence. Any popular hymnal will provide\nan abundance of examples.]\n\n[Footnote 115: Quoted by Pratt: \"The Religious Consciousness,\" Cap. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 116: \"The Way of Perfection,\" Cap. 31.]\n\n[Footnote 117: \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 118: Op. cit., Cap. 32.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nINSTITUTIONAL RELIGION AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT\n\n\nSo far, in considering what psychology had to tell us about the\nconditions in which our spiritual life can develop, and the mental\nmachinery it can use, we have been, deliberately, looking at men one by\none. We have left on one side all those questions which relate to the\ncorporate aspect of the spiritual life, and its expression in religious\ninstitutions; that is to say, in churches and cults. We have looked upon\nit as a personal growth and response; a personal reception of, and\nself-orientation to, Reality. But we cannot get away from the fact that\nthis regenerate life does most frequently appear in history associated\nwith, or creating for itself, a special kind of institution. Although it\nis impossible to look upon it as the appearance of a favourable\nvariation within the species, it is also just as possible to look upon\nit as the formation of a new herd or tribe. Where the variation appears,\nand in its sense of newness, youth and vigour breaks away from the\ninstitution within which it has arisen, it generally becomes the nucleus\nabout which a new group is formed. So that individualism and\ngregariousness are both represented in the full life of the Spirit; and\nhowever personal its achievement may seem to us, it has also a\ndefinitely corporate and institutional aspect.\n\nI now propose to take up this side of the subject, and try to suggest\none or two lines of thought which may help us to discover the meaning\nand worth of such societies and institutions. For after all, some\nexplanation is needed of these often strange symbolic systems, and often\nrigid mechanizations, imposed on the free responses to Eternal Reality\nwhich we found to constitute the essence of religious experience. Any\none who has known even such direct communion with the Spirit as is\npossible to normal human nature must, if he thinks out the implications\nof his own experience, feel it to be inconsistent that this most\nuniversal of all acts should be associated by men with the most\nexclusive of all types of institution. It is only because we are so\naccustomed to this--taking churches for granted, even when we reject\nthem--that we do not see how odd they really are: how curious it is that\nmen do not set up exclusive and mutually hostile clubs full of rules and\nregulations to enjoy the light of the sun in particular times and\nfashions, but do persistently set up such exclusives clubs full of rules\nand regulations, so to enjoy the free Spirit of God.\n\nWhen we look into history we see the life of the Spirit, even from its\ncrudest beginnings, closely associated with two movements. First with\nthe tendency to organize it in communities or churches, living under\nspecial sanctions and rules. Next, with the tendency of its greatest,\nmost arresting personalities either to revolt from these organisms or to\nreform, rekindle them from within. So that the institutional life of\nreligion persists through or in spite of its own constant tendency to\nstiffen and lose fervour, and the secessions, protests, or renewals\nwhich are occasioned by its greatest sons. Thus our Lord protested\nagainst Jewish formalism; many Catholic mystics, and afterwards the best\nof the Protestant reformers, against Roman formalism; George Fox against\none type of Protestant formalism; the Oxford movement against another.\nThis constant antagonism of church and prophet, of institutional\nauthority and individual vision, is not only true of Christianity but of\nall great historical faiths. In the middle ages Kabir and Nanak, and in\nour own times the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj, break away from and\ndenounce ceremonial Hinduism: again and again the great Sufis have led\nreforms within Islam. That which we are now concerned to discover is the\nnecessity underlying this conflict: the extent in which the institution\non one hand serves the spiritual life, and on the other cramps or\nopposes its free development. It is a truism that all such institutions\ntend to degenerate, to become mechanical, and to tyrannize. Are they\nthen, in spite of these adverse characters, to be looked on as\nessential, inevitable, or merely desirable expressions of the spiritual\nlife in man; or can this spiritual life flourish in pure freedom?\n\nThis question, often put in the crucial form, \"Did Jesus Christ intend\nto form a Church?\" is well worth asking. Indeed, it is of great pressing\nimportance to those who now have the spiritual reconstruction of society\nat heart. It means, in practice: can men best be saved, regenerated, one\nby one, by their direct responses to the action of the Spirit; or, is\nthe life of the Spirit best found and actualized through submission to\ntradition and contacts with other men--that is, in a group or church?\nAnd if in a group or church, what should the character of this society\nbe? But we shall make no real movement towards solving this problem,\nunless we abandon both the standpoint of authority, and that of naive\nreligious individualism; and consent to look at it as a part of the\ngeneral problem of human society, in the light of history, of\npsychology, and of ethics.\n\nI think we may say without exaggeration that the general modern\njudgment--not, of course, the clerical or orthodox judgment--is adverse\nto institutionalism; at least as it now exists. In spite of the enormous\nimprovement which would certainly be visible, were we to compare the\naverage ecclesiastical attitude and average Church service in this\ncountry with those of a hundred years ago, the sense that religion\ninvolves submission to the rules and discipline of a closed\nsociety--that definite spiritual gains are attached to spiritual\nincorporation--that church-going, formal and corporate worship, is a\nnormal and necessary part of the routine of a good life: all this has\ncertainly ceased to be general amongst us. If we include the whole\npopulation, and not the pious fraction in our view, this is true both of\nso-called Catholic and so-called Protestant countries. Professor Pratt\nhas lately described 80 per cent. of the population of the United States\nas being \"unchurched\"; and all who worked among our soldiers at the\nfront were struck by the paradox of the immense amount of natural\nreligion existing among them, combined with almost total alienation from\nreligious institutions. Those, too, who study and care for the spiritual\nlife seem most often to conceive it in the terms of William James's\nwell-known definition of religion as \"the feelings, acts and experiences\nof individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves\nto stand in relation to whatever they may consider the Divine.\"[119]\n\nSuch a life of the Spirit--and the majority of educated men would\nprobably accept this description of it--seems little if at all\nconditioned by Church membership. It speaks in secret to its Father in\nsecret; and private devotion and self-discipline seem to be all it\nneeds. Yet looking at history, we see that this conception, this\ncompleteness of emphasis on first-hand solitary seeking, this one-by-one\nachievement of Eternity, has not in fact proved truly fruitful in the\npast. Where it seems so to be fruitful, the solitude is illusory. Each\ngreat regenerator and revealer of Reality, each God-intoxicated soul\nachieving transcendence, owes something to its predecessors and\ncontemporaries.[120] All great spiritual achievement, like all great\nartistic achievement, however spontaneous it may seem to be, however\nmuch the fruit of a personal love and vision, is firmly rooted in the\nracial past. If fulfills rather than destroys; and unless its free\nmovement towards novelty, fresh levels of pure experience, be thus\nbalanced by the stability which is given us by our hoarded traditions\nand formed habits, it will degenerate into eccentricity and fail of its\nfull effect. Although nothing but first-hand discovery of and response\nto spiritual values is in the end of any use to us, that discovery and\nthat response are never quite such a single-handed affair as we like to\nsuppose. Memory and environment, natural and cultural, play their part.\nAnd the next most natural and fruitful movement after such a personal\ndiscovery of abiding Reality, such a transfiguration of life, is always\nback towards our fellow-men; to learn more from them, to unite with\nthem, to help them,--anyhow to reaffirm our solidarity with them. The\ngreat men and women of the Spirit, then, either use their new power and\njoy to restore existing institutions to fuller vitality, as did the\nsuccessive regenerators of the monastic life, such as St. Bernard and\nSt. Teresa and many Sufi saints; or they form new groups, new organisms\nwhich they can animate, as did St. Paul, St. Francis, Kabir, Fox,\nWesley, Booth. One and all, they feel that the full robust life of the\nSpirit demands some incarnation, some place in history and social\noutlet, and also some fixed discipline and tradition.\n\nIn fact, not only the history of the soul, but that of all full human\nachievement, as studied in great creative personalities, shows us that\nsuch achievement has always two sides. (1) There is the solitary vision\nor revelation, and personal work in accordance with that vision. The\nreligious man's direct experience of God and his effort to correspond\nwith it; the artist's lonely and intense apprehension of beauty, and\nhard translation of it; the poet's dream and its difficult expression in\nspeech; the philosopher's intuition of reality, hammered into thought.\nThese are personal immediate experiences, and no human soul will reach\nits full stature unless it can have the measure of freedom and\nwithdrawal which they demand. But (2) there are the social and\nhistorical contacts which are made by all these creative types with the\npast and with the present; all the big rich thick stream of human\nhistory and effort, giving them, however little they may recognize it,\nthe very initial concepts with which they go to their special contact\nwith reality, and which colour it; supporting them and demanding from\nthem again their contribution to the racial treasury, and to the\npresent too. Thus the artist, as, well as his solitary hours of\ncontemplation and effort, ought to have his times alike of humble study\nof the past and of intercourse with other living artists; and great and\nenduring art forms more often arise within a school, than in complete\nindependence of tradition. It seems, then, that the advocates of\ncorporate and personal religion are both, in a measure, right: and that\nonce again a middle path, avoiding both extremes of simplification,\nkeeps nearest to the facts of life. We have no reason for supposing that\nthese principles, which history shows us, have ceased to be operative:\nor that we can secure the best kind of spiritual progress for the race\nby breaking with the past and the institutions in which it is conserved.\nInstitutions are in some sort needful if life's balance between\nstability and novelty, and our links with history and our fellow-men,\nare to be preserved; and if we are to achieve such a fullness both of\nindividual and of corporate life on highest levels as history and\npsychology recommend to us.\n\nThe question of this institutional side of religion and what we should\ndemand from it falls into two parts, which will best be treated\nseparately. First, that which concerns the character and usefulness of\nthe group-organization or society: the Church. Secondly, that which\nrelates to its peculiar practices: the Cult. We must enquire under each\nhead what are their necessary characters, their essential gifts to the\nsoul, and what their dangers and limitations.\n\nFirst, then, the Church. What does a Church really do for the\nGod-desiring individual; the soul that wants to live a full, complete\nand real life, which has \"felt in its solitude\" the presence and\ncompulsion of Eternal Reality under one or other of the forms of\nreligious experience?\n\nI think we can say that the Church or institution gives to its loyal\nmembers:--\n\n (1) Group-consciousness.\n\n (2) Religious union, not only with its contemporaries\n but with the race, that is with\n history. This we may regard as an extension\n into the past--and so an enrichment--of\n that group-consciousness.\n\n (3) Discipline; and with discipline a sort of\n spiritual grit, which carries our fluctuating\n souls past and over the inevitably recurring\n periods of slackness, and corrects subjectivism.\n\n (4) It gives Culture, handing on the discoveries\n of the saints.\n\nIn so far as the free-lance gets any of these four things, he gets them\nultimately, though indirectly, from some institutional source.\n\nOn the other hand the institution, since it represents the element of\nstability in life, does not give, and must not be expected to give,\ndirect spiritual experience; or any onward push towards novelty,\nfreshness of discovery and interpretation in the spiritual sphere. Its\ndangers and limitations will abide in a certain dislike of such\nfreshness of discovery; the tendency to exalt the corporate and stable\nand discount the mobile and individual. Its natural instinct will be for\nexclusivism, the club-idea, conservatism and cosiness; it will, if left\nto itself, revel in the middle-aged atmosphere and exhibit the\nmiddle-aged point of view.\n\nWe can now consider these points in greater detail: and first that of\nthe religious group-consciousness which a church should give its\nmembers. This is of a special kind. It is axiomatic that\ngroup-organization of some sort is a necessity of human life. History\nshowed us the tendency of all spiritual movements to embody themselves,\nif not in churches at least in some group-form; the paradox of each\nsuccessive revolt from a narrow or decadent institutionalism forming a\ngroup in its turn, or perishing when its first fervour died. But this\nsocial impulse, these spontaneous group-formations of master and\ndisciples, valuable though they may be, do not fully exhibit all that is\nmeant or done by a church. True, the Church is or should be at each\nmoment of its career such a living spiritual society or household of\nfaith. It is, essentially, a community of persons, who have or should\nhave a common sentiment--belief in, and reverence for, their God--and a\ncommon defined aim, the furtherance of the spiritual life under the\nspecial religious sanctions which they accept. But every sect, every\nreligious order or guild, every class-meeting, might claim this much;\nyet none of these can claim to be a church.\n\nA church is far more than this. In so far as it is truly alive, it is a\nreal organism, as distinguished from a crowd or collection of persons\nwith a common purpose. It exhibits on the religious plane the ruling\ncharacters of such organized life: that is to say, the development of\ntradition and complex habits, the differentiation of function, the\ndocility to leadership, the conservation of values, or carrying forward\nof the past into the present. It is, like the State, embodied history;\nand as such lives with its own life, a life transcending and embracing\nthat of the individual souls of which it is built. And here, in its\ncombined social and historic character, lie the sources alike of its\nenormous importance for human life and of its inevitable defects.\n\nProfessor McDougall, in his discussion of national groups,[121] has laid\ndown the conditions which are necessary to the development of such a\ntrue organic group life as is seen in a living church. These are: first,\ncontinuity of existence, involving the development of a body of\ntraditions, customs and practices--that is, for religion, a Cultus.\nNext, an authoritative organization through which custom and belief can\nbe transmitted--that is, a Hierarchy, order of ministers, or its\nequivalent. Third, a conscious common interest, belief, or idea--Creed.\nLast, the existence of antagonistic groups or conditions, developing\nloyalty or keenness. These characters--continuity, authority, common\nbelief and loyalty--which are shown, as he says, in their completeness\nin a patriot army, are I think no less marked features of a living\nspiritual society. Plain examples are the primitive Christian\ncommunities, the great religious orders in their flourishing time, the\nSociety of Friends. They are on the whole more fully evident in the\nCatholic than in the Protestant type of church. But I think that we may\nlook upon them, in some form or another, as essential to any\ninstitutional framework which shall really help the spiritual life in\nman.\n\nWe find ourselves, then, committed to the picture of a church or\nspiritual institution which is in essence Liturgic, Ecclesiastical,\nDogmatic, and Militant, as best fulfilling the requirements of group\npsychology. Four decidedly indigestible morsels for the modern mind.\nYet, group-feeling demands common expression if it is to be lifted from\nnotion to fact. Discipline requires some authority, and some devotion to\nit. Culture involves a tradition handed on. And these, we said, were the\nchief gifts which the institution had to give to its members. We may\ntherefore keep them in mind, as representing actual values, and warning\nus that neither history nor psychology encourages the belief that an\namiable fluidity serves the highest purposes of life. Some common\npractice and custom, keeping the individual in line with the main\ntendencies of the group, providing rails on which the instinctive life\ncan run and machinery by which fruitful suggestions can be spread. Some\nreal discipline and humbling submission to rule. Some traditional and\ntheological standard. Some missionary effort and enthusiasm. For these\nfour things we must find place in any incorporation of the spiritual\nlife which is to have its full effect upon the souls of men. And as a\nmatter of fact, the periodical revolts against churches and\necclesiasticism, are never against societies in which all these\ncharacteristics are still alive; but against those which retain and\nexaggerate formal tradition and authority, whilst they have lost zest\nand identity of aim.\n\nA real Church has therefore something to give to, and something to\ndemand from each of its members, and there is a genuine loss for man in\nbeing unchurched. Because it endures through a perpetual process of\ndiscarding and renewal, those members will share the richness and\nexperience of a spiritual life far exceeding their own time-span; a\ntruth which is enshrined in the beautiful conception of the Communion of\nSaints. They enter a group consciousness which reinforces their own in\nthe extent to which they surrender to it; which surrounds them with\nfavourable suggestions and gives the precision of habit to their\ninstinct for Eternity. The special atmosphere, the hoarded beauty, the\nevocative yet often archaic symbolism, of a Gothic Cathedral, with its\nconstant reminiscences of past civilizations and old levels of culture,\nits broken fragments and abandoned altars, its conservation of eternal\ntruths--the intimate union in it of the sublime and homely, the\nsuccessive and abiding aspects of reality--make it the most fitting of\nall images of the Church, regarded as the spiritual institution of\nhumanity. And the perhaps undue conservatism commonly associated with\nCathedral circles represents too the chief reproach which can be brought\nagainst churches--their tendency to preserve stability at the expense of\nnovelty, to crystallize, to cling to habits and customs which no longer\nserve a useful end. In this a church is like a home; where old bits of\nfurniture have a way of hanging on, and old habits, sometimes absurd,\nendure. Yet both the home and the church can give something which is\nnowhere else obtainable by us, and represent values which it is perilous\nto ignore. When once the historical character of reality is fully\ngrasped by us, we see that some such organization through which achieved\nvalues are conserved and carried forward, useful habits are learned and\npractised, the direct intuitions of genius, the prophet's revelation of\nreality are interpreted and handed on, is essential to the spiritual\ncontinuity of the race; and that definite churchmanship of some sort, or\nits equivalent, must be a factor in the spiritual reconstruction of\nsociety. As, other things being equal, a baby benefits enormously by\nbeing born within the social framework rather than in the illusory\nfreedom of \"pure\" nature; so the growth of the soul is, or should be,\nhelped and not hindered by the nurture it receives from the religious\nsociety in which it is born. Only indeed by attachment, open or virtual,\nthrough life or through literature, to some such group can the new soul\nlink itself with history, and so participate in the hoarded spiritual\nvalues of humanity. Thus even a general survey of life inclines us at\nleast to some appreciation of the principle laid down by Baron von Huegel\nin \"Eternal Life\"--namely, that \"souls who live an heroic spiritual life\n_within_ great religious traditions and institutions, attain to a rare\nvolume and vividness of religious insight, conviction and\nreality\"[122]--seldom within reach of the contemplative, however ardent,\nwho walks by himself.\n\nHistory has given one reason for this; psychology gives another. These\nsouls, living it is true with intensity their own life towards God,\nshare and are bathed in the group consciousness of their church; as\nmembers of a family, distinct in temperament, share and are modified by\nthe group consciousness of the home. The mental process of the\nindividual is profoundly affected when he thus thinks and acts as a\nmember of a group. Suggestibility is then enormously increased; and we\nknow how much suggestion means to us. Moreover, suggestions emanating\nfrom the group always take priority of those of the outside world: for\nman is a gregarious animal, intensely sensitive to the mentality of the\nherd.[123] The Mind of the Church is therefore a real thing. The\nindividual easily takes colour from it and the tradition it embodies,\ntends to imitate his fellow-members: and each such deed and thought is a\nstep taken in the formation of habit, and leaves him other than he was\nbefore.\n\nTo say this is not to discredit church-membership as placing us at the\nmercy of emotional suggestion, reducing spontaneity to custom, and\nlessening the energy and responsibility of the individual soul towards\nGod. On the contrary, right group suggestion reinforces, stimulates,\ndoes not stultify such individual action. If the prayerful attitude of\nmy fellow worshippers helps me to pray better, surely it is a very mean\nkind of conceit on my part which would prompt me to despise their help,\nand refuse to acknowledge Creative Spirit acting on me through other\nmen? It is one of the most beautiful features of a real and living\ncorporate religion, that within it ordinary people at all levels help\neach other to be a little more supernatural than would have been alone.\nI do not now speak of individuals possessing special zeal and special\naptitude; though, as the lives of the Saints assure us, even the best of\nthese fluctuate, and need social support at times. Anyhow such persons\nof special spiritual aptitude, as life is now, are as rare as persons of\nspecial aptitude in other walks of life. But that which we seek for the\nlife of to-day and of the future, is such a planning of it as shall give\nall men their spiritual chance. And it is abundantly clear upon all\nlevels of life, that men are chiefly formed and changed by the power of\nsuggestion, sympathy and imitation; and only reach full development when\nassembled in groups, giving full opportunity for the benevolent action\nof these forces. So too in the life of the Spirit, incorporation plays a\npart which nothing can replace. Goodness and devotion are more easily\ncaught than taught; by association in groups, holy and strong\nsouls--both living and dead--make their full gift to society, weak,\nundeveloped, and arrogant souls receive that of which they are in need.\nOn this point we may agree with a great ecclesiastical scholar of our\nown day that \"the more the educated and intellectual partake with\nsympathy of heart in the ordinary devotions and pious practices of the\npoor, the higher will they rise in the religion of the Spirit.\"[124]\n\nYet this family life of the ideal religious institution, with its\nreasonable and bracing discipline, its gift of shelter, its care for\ntradition, its habit-formation and group consciousness--all this is\ngiven, as we may as well acknowledge, at the price which is exacted by\nall family life; namely, mutual accommodation and sacrifice, place made\nfor the childish, the dull, the slow, and the aged, a toning-down of the\nsomewhat imperious demands of the entirely efficient and clear-minded, a\ntolerance of imperfection. Thus for these efficient and clear-minded\nmembers there is always, in the church as in the family, a perpetual\nopportunity of humility, self-effacement, gentle acceptance; of exerting\nthat love which must be joined to power and a sound mind if the full\nlife of the Spirit is to be lived. In the realm of the supernatural this\nis a solid gain; though not a gain which we are very quick to appreciate\nin our vigorous youth. Did we look upon the religious institution not as\nan end in itself, but simply as fulfilling the function of a\nhome--giving shelter and nurture, opportunity of loyalty and mutual\nservice on one hand, conserving stability and good custom on the\nother--then, we should better appreciate its gifts to us, and be more\nmerciful to its necessary defects. We should be tolerant to its\ninevitable conservatism, its tendency to encourage dependence and\nobedience to distrust individual initiative. We should no longer expect\nit to provide or specially to approve novelty and freedom, to be in the\nvan of life's forward thrust. For this we must go not to the\ninstitution, which is the vehicle of history; but to the adventurous,\nforward moving soul, which is the vehicle of progress--to the prophet,\nnot to the priest. These two great figures, the Keeper and the Revealer,\nwhich are prominent in every historical religion, represent the two\nhalves of the fully-lived spiritual life. The progress of man depends\nboth on conserving and on exploring: and any full incorporation of that\nlife which will serve man's spiritual interests now, must find place for\nboth.\n\nSuch an application of the institutional idea to present needs is\nrequired, in fact, to fulfil at least four primary conditions:--\n\n(1) It must give a social life that shall develop group consciousness in\nrespect of our eternal interests and responsibilities: using for this\nreal discipline, and the influences of liturgy and creed.\n\n(2) Yet it must not so standardize and socialize this life as to leave\nno room for personal freedom in the realm of Spirit: for those\n\"experiences of men in their solitude\" which form the very heart of\nreligion.\n\n(3) It must not be so ring-fenced, so exclusive, so wholly conditioned\nby the past, that the voice of the future, that is of the prophet giving\nfresh expression to eternal truths, cannot clearly be heard in it; not\nonly from within its own borders but also from outside. But\n\n(4) On the other hand, it must not be so contemptuous of the past and\nits priceless symbols that it breaks with tradition, and so loses that\nvery element of stability which it is its special province to preserve.\n\nI go on now to the second aspect of institutional religion: Cultus.\n\nWe at once make the transition from Church to Cultus, when we ask\nourselves: how does, how can, the Church as an organized and enduring\nsociety do its special work of creating an atmosphere and imparting a\nsecret? How is the traditional deposit of spiritual experience handed\non, the individual drawn into the stream of spiritual history and held\nthere? Remember, the Church exists to foster and hand on, not merely the\nmoral life, the life of this-world perfection; but the spiritual life in\nall its mystery and splendour--the life of more than this-world\nperfection, the poetry of goodness, the life that aims at God. And this,\nnot only in elect souls, which might conceivably make and keep direct\ncontacts without her help, but in greater or less degree in the mass of\nmen, who _do_ need help. How is this done? The answer can only be, that\nit is mostly done through symbolic acts, and by means of suggestion and\nimitation.\n\nAll organized churches find themselves committed sooner or later to an\norganized cultus. It may be rudimentary. It may reach a high pitch of\naesthetic and symbolic perfection. But even the successive rebels against\ndead ceremony are found as a rule to invent some ceremony in their turn.\nThey learn by experience the truth that men most easily form religious\nhabits and tend, to have religious experiences when they are assembled\nin groups, and caused to perform the same acts. This is so because as we\nhave already seen, the human psyche is plastic to the suggestions made\nto it; and this suggestibility is greatly increased when it is living a\ngregarious life as a member of a united congregation or flock, and is\nengaged in performing corporate acts. The soldiers' drill is essential\nto the solidarity of the army, and the religious service in some form\nis--apart from all other considerations--essential to the solidarity of\nthe Church.\n\nWe need not be afraid to acknowledge that from the point of view of the\npsychologist one prime reason of the value and need of religious\nceremonies abides in this corporate suggestibility of man: or that one\nof their chief works is the production in him of mobility of the\nthreshold, and hence of spiritual awareness of a generalized kind. As\nthe modern mother whispers beneficent suggestions into the ear of her\nsleeping child[125] so the Church takes her children at their moment of\nleast resistance, and suggests to them all that she desires them to be.\nIt is interesting to note how perfectly adapted the rituals of historic\nChristianity are to this end, of provoking the emergence of the\nintuitive mind and securing a state of maximum suggestibility. The more\ncomplex and solemn the ritual, the more archaic and universal the\nsymbols it employs, so much the more powerful--for those natures able to\nyield to it--the suggestion becomes. Music, rhythmic chanting, symbolic\ngesture, the solemn periods of recited prayer, are all contributory to\nthis, effect In churches of the Catholic type every object that meets\nthe eye, every scent, every attitude that we are encouraged to assume,\ngives us a push in the same direction if we let it do its rightful work.\nFor other temperaments the collective, deliberate, and really ceremonial\nsilence of the Quakers--the hush of the waiting mind, the unforced\nattitude of expectation, the abstraction from visual image--works to the\nsame end. In either case, the aim is the production of a special\ngroup-consciousness; the reinforcing of languid or undeveloped\nindividual feeling and aptitude by the suggestion of the crowd. This,\nand its result, is seen of course in its crudest form in revivalism: and\non higher levels, in such elaborate dramatic ceremonies as those which\nare a feature of the Catholic celebrations of Holy Week. But the nice\nwarm devotional feeling with which what is called a good congregation\nfinishes the singing of a favourite hymn belongs to the same order of\nphenomena. The rhythmic phrases--not as a rule very full of meaning or\nintellectual appeal--exercise a slightly hypnotic effect on the\nanalyzing surface-mind; and induce a condition of suggestibility open to\nall the influences of the place and of our fellow worshippers. The\nauthorized translation of Ephesians v. 19: \"_speaking to yourselves_ in\npsalms and hymns and spiritual songs,\" whatever we may think of its\naccuracy does as it stands describe one of the chief functions of\nreligious services of the \"hearty congregational\" sort. We do speak to\nourselves--our deeper, and more plastic selves--in our psalms and hymns;\nso too in the common recitation, especially the chanting, of a creed. We\nadminister through these rhythmic affirmations, so long as we sing them\nwith intention, a powerful suggestion to ourselves and every one else\nwithin reach. We gather up in them--or should do--the whole tendency of\nour worship and aspiration, and in the very form in which it can most\neasily sink in. This lays a considerable responsibility on those who\nchoose psalms and hymns for congregational singing; for these can as\neasily be the instruments of fanatical melancholy and devitalizing, as\nof charitable life-giving and constructive ideas.\n\nIn saying all this I do not seek to discredit religious ceremony; either\nof the naive or of the sophisticated type. On the contrary, I think that\nin effecting this change in our mental tone and colour, in prompting\nthis emergence of a mood which, in the mass of men, is commonly\nsuppressed, these ceremonies do their true work. They should stimulate\nand give social expression to that mood of adoration which is the very\nheart of religion; helping those who cannot be devotional alone to\nparticipate in the common devotional feeling. If, then, we desire to\nreceive the gifts which corporate worship can most certainly make to us,\nwe ought to yield ourselves without resistance or criticism to its\ninfluence; as we yield ourselves to the influence of a great work of\nart. That influence is able to tune us up, at least to a fleeting\nawareness of spiritual reality; and each such emergence of\ntranscendental feeling is to the good. It is true that the objects which\nimmediately evoke this feeling will only be symbolic; but after all, our\nvery best conceptions of God are bound to be that. We do not, or should\nnot, demand scientific truth of them. Their business is rather to give\nus poetry, a concrete artistic intuition of reality, and to place us in\nthe mood of poetry. The great thing is, that by these corporate liturgic\npractices and surrenders, we can prevent that terrible freezing up of\nthe deep wells of our being which so easily comes to those who must lead\nan exacting material or intellectual life. We keep ourselves supple; the\nspiritual faculties are within reach, and susceptible to education.\n\nOrganized ceremonial religion insists upon it, that at least for a\ncertain time each day or week we shall attend to the things of the\nSpirit. It offers us its suggestions, and shuts off as well as it can\nconflicting suggestions: though, human as we are, the mere appearance of\nour neighbours is often enough to bring these in. Nothing is more\ncertain than this: first that we shall never know the spiritual world\nunless we give ourselves the chance of attending to it, clear a space\nfor it in our busy lives; and next, that it will not produce its real\neffect in us, unless it penetrates below the conscious surface into the\ndeeps of the instinctive mind, and moulds this in accordance with the\nregnant idea. If we are to receive the gifts of the cultus, we on our\npart must bring to it at the very least what we bring to all great works\nof art that speak to us: that is to say, attention, surrender,\nsympathetic emotion. Otherwise, like all other works of art, it will\nremain external to us. Much of the perfectly sincere denunciation and\ndislike of religious ceremony which now finds frequent utterance comes\nfrom those who have failed thus to do their share. They are like the\nhasty critics who dismiss some great work of art because it is not\nrepresentative, or historically accurate; and so entirely miss the\naesthetic values which it was created to impart.\n\nConsider a picture of the Madonna. Minds at different levels may find in\nthis pure representation, Bible history, theology, aesthetic\nsatisfaction, spiritual truth. The peasant may see in it the portrait of\nthe Mother of God, the critic a phase in artistic evolution; whilst the\nmystic may pass through it to new contacts with the Spirit of life. We\nshall receive according to the measure of what we bring. Now consider\nthe parallel case of some great dramatic liturgy, rich with the meanings\nwhich history has poured into it. Take, as an example which every one\ncan examine for themselves, the Roman Mass. Different levels of mind\nwill find here magic, theology, deep mystery, the commemoration under\narchaic symbols of an event. But above and beyond all these, they can\nfind the solemn incorporated emotion, of the Christian Church, and a\nliturgic recapitulation of the movement of the human soul towards\nfullness of life: through confession and reconciliation to adoration and\nintercession--that is, to charity--and thence to direct communion with\nand feeding on the Divine World.\n\nTo the mind which refuses to yield to it, to move with its movement, but\nremains in critical isolation, the Mass like all other ceremonies will\nseem external, dead, unreal; lacking in religious content. But if we do\ngive ourselves completely and unselfconsciously to the movement of such\na ceremony, at the end of it we may not have learnt anything, but we\nhave lived something. And when we remember that no experience of our\ndevotional life is lost, surely we may regard it as worth while to\nsubmit ourselves to an experience by which, if only for a few minutes,\nwe are thus lifted to richer levels of life and brought into touch with\nhigher values? We have indeed only to observe the enrichment of life so\noften produced in those who thus dwell meekly and without inner conflict\nin the symbolic world of ceremonial religion, and accept its discipline\nand its gifts, to be led at least to a humble suspension of judgment as\nto its value. A whole world of spiritual experience separates the humble\nlittle church mouse rising at six every morning to attend a service\nwhich she believes to be pleasing to a personal God, from the\nphilosopher who meditates on the Absolute in a comfortable armchair;\nand no one will feel much doubt as to which side the advantage lies.\n\nHere we approach the next point. The cultus, with its liturgy and its\ndiscipline, exists for and promotes the repetition of acts which are\nprimarily the expression of man's instinct for God; and by these--or any\nother repeated acts--our ductile instinctive life is given a definite\ntrend. We know from Semon's researches[126] that the performance of any\ngiven act by a living creature influences all future performances of\nsimilar acts. That is to say, memory combines with each fresh stimulus\nto control our reaction to it. \"In the case of living organisms,\" says\nBertrand Russell, \"practically everything that is distinctive both of\ntheir physical and mental behaviour is bound up with this persistent\ninfluence of the past\": and most actions and responses \"can only be\nbrought under causal laws by including past occurrences in the history\nof the organism as part of the causes of the present response.\"[127] The\nphenomena of apperception, in fact, form only one aspect of a general\nlaw. As that which we have perceived conditions what we can now\nperceive, so that which we have done conditions what we shall do. It\ntherefore appears that in spite of angry youthful revolts or mature\nsophistications, early religious training, and especially repeated\nreligious _acts_, are likely to influence the whole of our future\nlives. Though all they meant to us seems dead or unreal, they have\nretreated to the dark background of consciousness and there live on. The\ntendency which they have given persists; we never get away from them. A\nchurch may often seem to lose her children, as human parents do; but in\nspite of themselves they retain her invisible seal, and are her children\nstill. In nearly all conversions in middle life, or dramatic returns\nfrom scepticism to traditional belief, a large, part is undoubtedly\nplayed by forgotten childish memories and early religious discipline,\nsurging up and contributing their part to the self's new apprehensions\nof Reality.\n\nIf, then, the cultus did nothing else, it would do these two highly\nimportant things. It would influence our whole present attitude by its\nsuggestions, and our whole future attitude through unconscious memory of\nthe acts which it demands. But it does more than this. It has as perhaps\nits greatest function the providing of a concrete artistic expression\nfor our spiritual perceptions, adorations and desires. It links the\nvisible with the invisible, by translating transcendent fact into\nsymbolic and even sensuous terms. And for this reason men, having bodies\nno less surely than spirits, can never afford wholly to dispense with\nit. Hasty transcendentalists often forget this; and set us spiritual\nstandards to which the race, so long as it is anchored to this planet\nand to the physical order, cannot conform.\n\nA convert from agnosticism with whom I was acquainted, was once\nreceiving religious instruction from a devout and simple-minded nun.\nThey were discussing the story of the Annunciation, which presented some\ndifficulties to her. At last she said to the nun, \"Well, anyhow, I\nsuppose that one is not obliged to believe that the Blessed Virgin was\nvisited by a solid angel, dressed in a white robe?\" To this the nun\nreplied doubtfully, \"No, dear, perhaps not. But still, you know, he\nwould have to wear _something_.\"\n\nNow here, as it seems to me, we have a great theological truth in a few\nwords. The elusive contacts and subtle realities of the world of spirit\nhave got to wear something, if we are to grasp them at all. Moreover, if\nthe mass of men are to grasp them ever so little, they must wear\nsomething which is easily recognized by the human eye and human heart;\nmore, by the primitive, half-conscious folk-soul existing in each one of\nus, stirring in the depths and reaching out in its own way towards God.\nIt is a delicate matter to discuss religious symbols. They are like our\nintimate friends: though at the bottom of our hearts we may know that\nthey are only human, we hate other people to tell us so. And, even as\nthe love of human beings in its most perfect state passes beyond its\nimmediate object, is transfigured, and merged in the nature of all\nlove; so too, the devotion which a purely symbolic figure calls forth\nfrom the ardently religious nature--whether this figure be the divine\nKrishna of Hinduism, the Buddhist's Mother of Mercy, the S[=u]fi's\nBeloved, or those objects of traditional Christian piety which are\nfamiliar to all of us--this devotion too passes beyond its immediate\ngoal and the relative truth there embodied, and is eternalized. It is\ncharacteristic of the primitive mind that it finds a difficulty about\nuniversals, and is most at home with particulars. The success of\nChristianity as a world-religion largely abides in the way in which it\nmeets this need. It is notorious that the person of Jesus, rather than\nthe Absolute God, is the object of average Protestant devotion. So too\nthe Catholic peasant may find it easier to approach God through and in\nhis special saint, or even a special local form of the Madonna. This is\nthe inevitable corollary of the psychic level at which he lives; and to\nspeak contemptuously of his \"superstition\" is wholly beside the point.\nOther great faiths have been compelled by experience to meet need of a\nparticular object on which the primitive religious consciousness can\nfasten itself: conspicuous examples being the development within\nBuddhism of the cult of the Great Mother, and within pore Brahminism of\nKrishna worship. Wherever it may be destined to end, here it is that the\nlife of the Spirit begins; emerging very gently from our simplest human\nimpulses and needs. Yet, since the Universal, the Idea, is manifested in\neach such particular, we need not refuse to allow that the mass of men\ndo thus enjoy--in a way that their psychic level makes natural to\nthem--their own measure of communion with the Creative Spirit of God;\nand already live according to their measure a spiritual life.\n\nThese objects of religious cultus, then, and the whole symbolic\nfaith-world which is built up of them, with its angels and demons, its\nsharply defined heaven and hell, the Divine personifications which\nembody certain attributes of God for us, the purity and gentleness of\nthe Mother, the simplicity and infinite possibility of the Child, the\ndivine self-giving of the Cross;--more, the Lamb, the Blood and the Fire\nof the revivalists, the oil and water, bread and wine, of a finished\nSacramentalism--all these may be regarded as the vestures placed by man,\nat one stage or another of his progress, on the freely-given but\nineffable spiritual fact. Like other clothes, they have now become\nclosely identified with that which wears them. And we strip them off at\nour own peril: for this proceeding, grateful as it may be to our\nintellects, may leave us face to face with a mystery which we dare not\nlook at, and cannot grasp.\n\nSo, cultus has done a mighty thing for humanity, in evolving and\nconserving the system of symbols through which the Infinite and Eternal\ncan be in some measure expressed. The history of these symbols goes\nback, as we now know, to the infancy of the race, and forward to the\nlast productions of the religious imagination; all of which bear the\nimage of our past They are like coins, varying in beauty, and often of\nslight intrinsic value; but of enormous importance for our spiritual\ncurrency, because accepted as the representatives of a real wealth. In\nits symbols, the cultus preserves all the past levels of religious\nresponse achieved by the race; weaving them into the fabric of religion,\nand carrying them forward into the present. All the instinctive\nmovements of the primitive mind; its fear of the invisible, its\nself-subjection, its trust in ritual acts, amulets, spells, sacrifices,\nits tendency to localize Deity in certain places or shrines, to buy off\nthe unknown, to set up magicians and mediators, are represented in it.\nIts function is racial more than individual. It is the art-work of the\nfolk-soul in the religious sphere. Here man's inveterate creative\nfaculty seizes on the raw material given him by religious-intuition, and\nconstructs from it significant shapes. We misunderstand, then, the whole\ncharacter of religious symbolism if we either demand rationality from\nit, or try to adapt its imagery to the lucid and probably mistaken\nconclusions of the sophisticated, modern mind.\n\nWe are learning to recognize these primitive and racial elements in\npopular religion, and to endure their presence with tolerance; because\nthey are necessary, and match a level of mental life which is still\nactive in the race. This more primitive life emerges to dominate all\ncrowds--where the collective mental level is inevitably lower than that\nof the best individuals immersed in it--and still conditions many of our\nbeliefs and deeds. There is the propitiatory attitude to unseen Divine\npowers; which the primitive mind, in defiance of theology, insists on\nregarding as somehow hostile to us and wanting to be bought off. There\nis the whole idea and apparatus of sacrifice; even though no more than\nthe big apples and vegetable marrows of the harvest festival be involved\nin it. There is the continued belief in a Deity who can and should be\npersuaded to change the weather, or who punishes those who offend Him by\nfamine, earthquake and pestilence. Vestigial relics of all these phases\ncan still be discovered in the Book of Common Prayer. There is further\nthe undying vogue of the religious amulet. There is the purely magical\nefficacy which some churches attribute to their sacraments, rites,\nshrines, liturgic formulae and religious objects; others, to the texts of\ntheir scriptures.[128] These things, and others like them, are not only\nsignificant survivals from the past. They also represent the religious\nside of something that continues active in us at present. Since, then,\nit should clearly be the object of all spiritual endeavor to win the\nwhole man and not only his reason for God, speaking to his instincts in\nlanguage that they understand, we should not too hurriedly despise or\ndenounce these things. Far better that our primitive emotions, with\ntheir vast store of potential energy, should be won for spiritual\ninterests on the only terms which they can grasp, than that they should\nbe left to spend themselves on lower objects.\n\nIf therefore the spiritual or the regenerate life is not likely to\nprosper without some incorporation in institutions, some definite link\nwith the past, it seems also likely to need for its full working-out and\npropaganda the symbols and liturgy of a cultus. Here again, the right\npath will be that of fulfilment, not of destruction; a deeper\ninvestigation of the full meaning of cultus, the values it conserves and\nthe needs it must meet, a clearer and humbler understanding of our human\nlimitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, that\nas the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness,\nintolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to enclose\nitself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, of\nwhich the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth.\nReceiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits of\nracial experience, it is the very home of magic: of the archaic tendency\nto attribute words and deeds, special power to a priestly caste, and to\nmake of itself the essential mediator between Creative Spirit and the\nsoul. Further, using perpetually as it does and must symbols of the most\narchaic sort, directly appealing to the latent primitive in each of us,\nit offers us a perpetual temptation to fall back into something below\nour best possible. The impulsive mind is inevitably conservative; always\nat the mercy of memorized images. Hence its delighted self-yielding to\ntraditional symbols, its uncritical emotionalism, its easy slip-back\ninto traditional and even archaic and self-contradictory beliefs: the\nway in which it pops out and enjoys itself at a service of the hearty\ncongregational sort, or may even lead its unresisting owner to the\nrevivalists' penitent-bench.\n\nBut on the other hand, Creative Spirit is not merely conservative. The\nLord and Giver of Life presses forward, and perpetually brings novelty\nto birth; and in so far as we are dedicated to Him, we must not make an\nunconditional surrender to psychic indolence, or to the pull-back of the\nreligious past. We may not, as Christians, accept easy emotions in the\nplace of heroic and difficult actualizations: make external religion an\nexcuse for dodging reality, immerse ourselves in an exquisite dream, or\ntolerate any real conflict between old cultus and actual living faith. A\nmost delicate discrimination is therefore demanded from us; the striking\nof a balance between the rightful conservatism of the cultus and the\nrightful independence of the soul. Yet, this is not to justify even in\nthe most advanced a wholesale iconoclasm. Time after time, experience\nhas proved that the attempt to approach God \"without means,\" though it\nmay seem to describe the rare and sacred moments of the personal life of\nthe Spirit, is beyond the power of the mass of men; and even those who\ndo achieve it are, as it were, most often supported from behind by\nreligious history and the religious culture of their day. I do not think\nit can be doubted that the right use of cultus does-increase religious\nsensitiveness. Therefore here the difficult task of the future must be\nto preserve and carry forward its essential elements, all the symbolic\nsignificance, all the incorporated emotion, which make it one of man's\ngreatest works of art; whilst eliminating those features which are, in\nthe bad sense, conventional and no longer answer to experience or\ncommunicate life.\n\nWere we truly reasonable human beings, we should perhaps provide openly\nand as a matter of course within the Christian frame widely different\ntypes of ceremonial religion, suited to different levels of mind and\ndifferent developments of the religious consciousness. To some extent\nthis is already done: traditionalism and liberalism, sacramentalism,\nrevivalism, quietism, have each their existing cults. But these varying\ntypes of church now appear as competitors, too often hostile; not as the\ncomplementary and graded expressions of one life, each having truth in\nthe relative though none in the absolute sense. Did we more openly\nacknowledge the character of that life, the historic Churches would no\nlonger invite the sophisticated to play down to their own primitive\nfantasies; to sing meaningless hymns and recite vindictive psalms, or\nlull themselves by the recitation of litany or rosary which, admirable\nas the instruments of suggestion, are inadequate expressions of the\nawakened spiritual life. On the one hand, they would not require the\nsimple to express their corporate religious feeling in Elizabethan\nEnglish or Patristic Latin; on the other, expect the educated to accept\nat face-value symbols of which the unreal character is patent to them.\nNor would they represent these activities as possessing absolute value\nin themselves.\n\nTo join in simplicity and without criticism in the common worship,\nhumbly receiving its good influences, is one thing. This is like the\ndrill of the loyal soldier; welding him to his neighbours, giving him\nthe corporate spirit and forming in him the habits he needs. But to stop\nshort at that drill, and tell the individual that drill is the essence\nof his life and all his duty, is another thing altogether. It confuses\nmeans and end; destroys the balance between liberty and law. If the\nreligious institution is to do its real work in furthering the life of\nthe Spirit, it must introduce a more rich variety into its methods; and\nthus educate souls of every type not only to be members of the group but\nalso to grow up to the full richness of the personal life. It must\noffer them--as indeed Catholicism does to some extent already--both easy\nemotion and difficult mystery; both dramatic ceremony and ceremonial\nsilence. It must also give to them all its hoarded knowledge of the\ninner life of prayer and contemplation, of the remaking of the moral\nnature on supernatural levels: all the gold that there is in the deposit\nof faith. And it must not be afraid to impart that knowledge in modern\nterms which all can understand. All this it can and will do if its\nmembers sufficiently desire it: which means, if those who care intensely\nfor the life of the Spirit accept their corporate responsibilities. In\nthe last resort, criticism of the Church, of Christian institutionalism,\nis really criticism of ourselves. Were we more spiritually alive, our\nspiritual homes would be the real nesting places of new life. That which\nthe Church is to us is the result of all that we bring to, and ask from,\nhistory: the impact of our present and its past.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 119: William James: \"The Varieties of Religious Experience,\"\np. 31.]\n\n[Footnote 120: On this point compare Von Huegel: \"Essays and Addresses on\nthe Philosophy of Religion,\" pp. 230 et seq.]\n\n[Footnote 121: W. McDougall: \"The Group Mind,\" Cap. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 122: Von Huegel \"Eternal Life,\" p. 377.]\n\n[Footnote 123: Cf. Trotter: \"Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.\"]\n\n[Footnote 124: Dom Cuthbert Butler in the \"Hibbert Journal,\" 1906, p.\n502.]\n\n[Footnote 125: Baudouin: \"Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,\" Cap. VII.]\n\n[Footnote 126: Cf. R. Semon: \"Die Mneme.\"]\n\n[Footnote 127: Bertrand Russell: \"The Analysis of Mind,\" p. 78.]\n\n[Footnote 128: A quaint example of this occurred in a recent revival,\nwhere the exclamation \"We believe in the Word of God from cover to\ncover, Alleluia!\" received the fervent reply, \"And the covers too!\"]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL\n\n\nIn the last three chapters we have been concerned, almost exclusively,\nwith those facts of psychic life and growth, those instruments and\nmechanizations, which bear upon or condition our spiritual life. But\nthese wanderings in the soul's workshops, and these analyses of the\nforces that play on it, give us far too cold or too technical a view of\nthat richly various and dynamic thing, the real regenerated life. I wish\nnow to come out of the workshop, and try to see this spiritual life as\nthe individual man may and should achieve it, from another angle of\napproach.\n\nWhat are we to regard as the heart of spirituality? When we have\neliminated the accidental characters with which varying traditions have\nendowed it, what is it that still so definitely distinguishes its\npossessor from the best, most moral citizen or devoted altruist? Why do\nthe Christian saint, Indian _rishi,_ Buddhist _arhat,_ Moslem _S[=u]fi,_\nall seem to us at bottom men of one race, living under different\nsanctions one life, witnessing to one fact? This life, which they show\nin its various perfections, includes it is true the ethical life, but\ncannot be equated with it. Wherein do its differentia consist? We are\ndealing with the most subtle of realities and have only the help of\ncrude words, developed for other purposes than this. But surely we come\nnear to the truth, as history and experience show it to us, when we say\nagain that the spiritual life in all its manifestations from smallest\nbeginnings to unearthly triumph is simply the life that means God in all\nHis richness, immanent and transcendent: the whole response to the\nEternal and Abiding of which any one man is capable, expressed in and\nthrough his this-world life. It requires then an objective vision or\ncertitude, something to aim at; and also a total integration of the\nself, its dedication to that aim. Both terms, vision and response, are\nessential to it.\n\nThis definition may seem at first sight rather dull. It suggests little\nof that poignant and unearthly beauty, that heroism, that immense\nattraction, which really belong to the spiritual life. Here indeed we\nare dealing with poetry in action: and we need not words but music to\ndescribe it as it really is. Yet all the forms, all the various beauties\nand achievements of this life of the Spirit, can be resumed as the\nreactions of different temperaments to the one abiding and inexhaustibly\nsatisfying Object of their love. It is the answer made by the whole\nsupple, plastic self, rational and instinctive, active and\ncontemplative, to any or all of those objective experiences of religion\nwhich we considered in the first chapter; whether of an encompassing\nand transcendent Reality, of a Divine Companionship or of Immanent\nSpirit. Such a response we must believe to be itself divinely actuated.\nFully made, it is found on the one hand to call forth the most heroic,\nmost beautiful, most tender qualities in human nature; all that we call\nholiness, the transfiguration of mere ethics by a supernatural\nloveliness, breathing another air, satisfying another standard, than\nthose of the temporal world. And on the other hand, this response of the\nself is repaid by a new sensitiveness and receptivity, a new influx of\npower. To use theological language, will is answered by grace: and as\nthe will's dedication rises towards completeness the more fully does new\nlife flow in. Therefore it is plain that the smallest and humblest\nbeginning of such a life in ourselves--and this inquiry is useless\nunless it be made to speak to our own condition--will entail not merely\nan addition to life, but for us too a change in our whole scale of\nvalues, a self-dedication. For that which we are here shown as a\npossible human achievement is not a life of comfortable piety, or the\nenjoyment of the delicious sensations of the armchair mystic. We are\noffered, it is true, a new dower of life; access to the full\npossibilities of human nature. But only upon terms, and these terms\ninclude new obligations in respect of that life; compelling us, as it\nappears, to perpetual hard and difficult choices, a perpetual refusal to\nsink back into the next-best, to slide along a gentle incline. The\nspiritual life is not lived upon the heavenly hearth-rug, within safe\ndistance from the Fire of Love. It demands, indeed, very often things so\nhard that seen from the hearth-rug they seem to us superhuman: immensely\ngenerous compassion, forbearance, forgiveness, gentleness, radiant\npurity, self-forgetting zeal. It means a complete conquest of life's\nperennial tendency to lag behind the best possible; willing acceptance\nof hardship and pain. And if we ask how this can be, what it is that\nmakes possible such enhancement of human will and of human courage, the\nonly answer seems to be that of the Johannine Christ: that it does\nconsist in a more abundant life.\n\nIn the second chapter of this book, we looked at the gradual unfolding\nof that life in its great historical representatives; and we found its\ngeneral line of development to lead through disillusion with the merely\nphysical to conversion to the spiritual, and thence by way of hard moral\nconflicts and their resolution to a unification of character, a full\nintegration of the active and contemplative sides of life; resulting in\nfresh power, and a complete dedication, to work within the new order and\nfor the new ideals. There was something of the penitent, something of\nthe contemplative, and something of the apostle in every man or woman\nwho thus grew to their full stature and realized all their latent\npossibilities. But above all there was a fortitude, an all-round power\nof tackling existence, which comes from complete indifference to\npersonal suffering or personal success. And further, psychology showed\nus, that those workings and readjustments which we saw preparing this\nlife of the Spirit, were in line with those which prepare us for\nfullness of life on other levels: that is to say the harnessing of the\nimpulsive nature to the purposes chosen by consciousness, the resolving\nof conflicts, the unification of the whole personality about one's\ndominant interest. These readjustments were helped by the deliberate\nacceptance of the useful suggestions of religion, the education of the\nforeconscious, the formation of habits of charity and prayer.\n\nThe greatest and most real of living writers on this subject, Baron von\nHuegel, has given us another definition of the personal spiritual life\nwhich may fruitfully be compared with this. It must and shall, he says,\nexhibit rightful contact with and renunciation of the Particular and\nFleeting; and with this ever seeks and finds the Eternal--deepening and\nincarnating within its own experience this \"transcendent\nOtherness.\"[129] Nothing which we are likely to achieve can go beyond\nthis profound saying. We see how many rich elements are contained in it:\neffort and growth, a temper both social and ascetic, a demand for and a\nreceiving of power. True, to some extent it restates the position at\nwhich we arrived in the first chapter: but we now wish to examine more\nthoroughly into that position and discover its practical applications.\nLet us then begin by unpacking it, and examining its chief characters\none by one.\n\nIf we do this, we find that it demands of us:--(1) Rightful contact with\nthe Particular and Fleeting. That is, a willing acceptance of all\nthis-world tasks, obligations, relations, and joys; in fact, the Active\nLife of Becoming in its completeness.\n\n(2) But also, a certain renunciation of that Particular and Fleeting. A\nrefusal to get everything out of it that we can for ourselves, to be\npossessive, or attribute to it absolute worth. This involves a sense of\ndetachment or asceticism; of further destiny and obligation for the soul\nthan complete earthly happiness or here-and-now success.\n\n(3) And with this ever--not merely in hours of devotion--to seek and\nfind the Eternal; penetrating our wholesome this-world action through\nand through with the very spirit of contemplation.\n\n(4) Thus deepening and incarnating--bringing in, giving body to, and in\nsome sense exhibiting by means of our own growing and changing\nexperience--that transcendent Otherness, the fact of the Life of the\nSpirit in the here-and-now.\n\nThe full life of the Spirit, then, is once more declared to be active,\ncontemplative, ascetic and apostolic; though nowadays we express these\nabiding human dispositions in other and less formidable terms. If we\ntranslate them as work, prayer, self-discipline and social service they\ndo not look quite so bad. But even so, what a tremendous programme to\nput before the ordinary human creature, and how difficult it looks when\nthus arranged! That balance to be discovered and held between due\ncontact with this present living world of time, and due renunciation of\nit. That continual penetration of the time-world with the spirit of\nEternity.\n\nBut now, in accordance with the ruling idea which has occupied us in\nthis book, let us arrange these four demands in different order. Let us\nput number three first: \"ever seeking and finding the Eternal.\"\nConceive, at least, that we do this really, and in a practical way. Then\nwe discover that, placed as we certainly are in a world of succession,\nmost of the seeking and finding has got to be done there; that the times\nof pure abstraction in which we touch the non-successive and\nsupersensual must be few. Hence it follows that the first and second\ndemands are at once fully met; for, if we are indeed faithfully seeking\nand finding the Eternal whilst living--as all sane men and women must\ndo--in closest contact with the Particular and Fleeting, our acceptances\nand our renunciations will be governed by this higher term of\nexperience. And further, the transcendent Otherness, perpetually\nenvisaged by us as alone giving the world of sense its beauty, reality\nand value, will be incarnated and expressed by us in this sense-life,\nand thus ever more completely tasted and known. It will be drawn by us,\nas best we can, and often at the cost of bitter struggle, into the\nlimitations of humanity; entincturing our attitude and our actions. And\nin the degree in which we thus appropriate it, it will be given out by\nus again to other men.\n\nAll this, of course, says again that which men have been constantly told\nby those who sought to redeem them from their confusions, and show them\nthe way to fullness of life. \"Seek first the Kingdom of God,\" said\nJesus, \"and all the rest shall be added to you.\" \"Love,\" said St.\nAugustine, \"and _do_ what you like\"; \"Let nothing,\" says Thomas a\nKempis, \"be great or high or acceptable to thee but purely God\";[130]\nand Kabir, \"Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world!\nconsider it well, and know that this is your own country.\"[131] \"Our\nwhole teaching,\" says Boehme, \"is nothing else than how man should\nkindle in himself God's light-world.\"[132] I do not say that such a\npresentation of it makes the personal spiritual life any easier: nothing\ndoes that. But it does make its central implicit rather clearer, shows\nus at once its difficulty and its simplicity; since it depends on the\nconsistent subordination of every impulse and every action to one\nregnant aim and interest--in other words, the unification of the whole\nself round one centre, the highest conceivable by man. Each of man's\nbehaviour-cycles is always directed towards some end, of which he may\nor may not be vividly conscious. But in that perfect unification of the\nself which is characteristic of the life of Spirit, all his behaviour is\nbrought into one stream of purpose, and directed towards one\ntranscendent end. And this simplification alone means for him a release\nfrom conflicting wishes, and so a tremendous increase of power.\n\nIf then we admit this formula, \"ever seeking and finding the\nEternal\"--which is of course another rendering of Ruysbroeck's \"aiming\nat God\"--as the prime character of a spiritual life, the secret of human\ntranscendence; what are the agents by which it is done?\n\nHere, men and women of all times and all religions, who have achieved\nthis fullness of life, agree in their answer: and by this answer we are\nat once taken away from dry philosophic conceptions and introduced into\nthe very heart of human experience. It is done, they say, on man's part\nby Love and Prayer: and these, properly understood in their\ninexhaustible richness, joy, pain, dedication and noble simplicity,\ncover the whole field of the spiritual life. Without them, that life is\nimpossible; with them, if the self be true to their implications, some\nmeasure of it cannot be escaped. I said, Love and Prayer properly\nunderstood: not as two movements of emotional piety, but as fundamental\nhuman dispositions, as the typical attitude and action which control\nman's growth into greater reality. Since then they are of such primary\nimportance to us, it will be worth while at this stage to look into them\na little more closely.\n\nFirst, Love: that over-worked and ill-used word, often confused on the\none hand with passion and on the other with amiability. If we ask the\nmost fashionable sort of psychologist what love is, he says that it is\nthe impulse urging us towards that end which is the fulfilment of any\nseries of deeds or \"behaviour-cycle\"; the psychic thread, on which all\nthe apparently separate actions making up that cycle are strung and\nunited. In this sense love need not be fully conscious, reach the level\nof feeling; but it _must_ be an imperative, inward urge. And if we ask\nthose who have known and taught the life of the Spirit, they too say\nthat love is a passionate tendency, an inward vital urge of the soul\ntowards its Source;[133] which impels every living thing to pursue the\nmost profound trend of its being, reaches consciousness in the form of\nself-giving and of desire, and its only satisfying goal in God. Love is\nfor them much more than its emotional manifestations. It is \"the\nultimate cause of the true activities of all active things\"--no less.\nThis definition, which I take as a matter of fact from St. Thomas\nAquinas,[134] would be agreeable to the most modern psychologist; he\nmight give the hidden steersman of the psyche in its perpetual movement\ntowards novelty a less beautiful and significant name. \"This indwelling\nLove,\" says Plotinus, \"is no other than the Spirit which, as we are\ntold, walks with every being, the affection dominant in each several\nnature. It implants the characteristic desire; the particular soul,\nstrained towards its own natural objects, brings forth its own Love, the\nguiding spirit realizing its worth and the quality of its being.\"[135]\n\nDoes not all this suggest to us once more, that at whatever level it be\nexperienced, the psychic craving, the urgent spirit within us pressing\nout to life, is always _one;_ and that the sublimation of this vital\ncraving, its direction to God, is the essence of regeneration? There, in\nour instinctive nature--which, as we know, makes us the kind of animal\nwe are--abides that power of loving which is, really, the power of\nliving; the cause of our actions, the controlling factor in our\nperceptions, the force pressing us into any given type of experience,\nturning aside for no obstacles but stimulated by them to a greater\nvigour. Each level of the universe makes solicitations to this power:\nthe worlds of sense, of thought, of beauty, and of action. According to\nthe degree of our development, the trend of the conscious will, is our\nresponse; and according to that response will be our life. \"The world to\nwhich a man turns himself,\" says Boehme, \"and in which he produces\nfruit, the same is lord in him, and this world becomes manifest in\nhim.\"[136]\n\nFrom all this it becomes clear what the love of God is; and what St.\nAugustine meant when he said that all virtue--and virtue after all means\npower not goodness--lay in the right ordering of love, the conscious\norientation of desire. Christians, on the authority of their Master,\ndeclare that such love of God requires all that they have, not only of\nfeeling, but also of intellect and of power; since He is to be loved\nwith heart and mind and strength. Thought and action on highest levels\nare involved in it, for it means, not religious emotionalism, but the\nunflickering orientation of the whole self towards Him, ever seeking and\nfinding the Eternal; the linking up of all behaviour on that string, so\nthat the apparently hard and always heroic choices which are demanded,\nare made at last because they are inevitable. It is true that this\ndominant interest will give to our lives a special emotional colour and\na special kind of happiness; but in this, as in the best, deepest,\nrichest human love, such feeling-tone and such happiness--though in some\nnatures of great beauty and intensity--are only to be looked upon as\nsecondary characters, and never to be aimed at.\n\nWhen St. Teresa said that the real object of the spiritual marriage was\n\"the incessant production of work, work,\"[137] I have no doubt that many\nof her nuns were disconcerted; especially the type of ease-loving\nconservatives whom she and her intimates were accustomed to refer to as\nthe pussy-cats. But in this direct application to religious experience\nof St. Thomas' doctrine of love, she set up an ideal of the spiritual\nlife which is as valid at the present day in the entanglements of our\nsocial order, as it was in the enclosed convents of sixteenth-century\nSpain. Love, we said, is the cause of action. It urges and directs our\nbehaviour, conscious and involuntary, towards an end. The mother is\nirresistibly impelled to act towards her child's welfare, the ambitious\nman towards success, the artist towards expression of his vision. All\nthese are examples of behaviour, love-driven towards ends. And religious\nexperience discloses to us a greater more inclusive end, and this vital\npower of love as capable of being used on the highest levels,\nregenerated, directed to eternal interests; subordinating behaviour,\ninspiring suffering, unifying the whole self and its activities,\nmobilizing them for this transcendental achievement. This generous love,\nto go back to the quotation from Baron von Huegel which opened our\ninquiry, will indeed cause the behaviour it controls to exhibit both\nrightful contact with and renunciation of the particular and fleeting;\nbecause in and through this series of linked deeds it is uniting with\nitself all human activities, and in and through them is seeking and\nfinding its eternal end. So, in that rightful bringing-in of novelty\nwhich is the business of the fully living soul, the most powerful agent\nis love, understood as the controlling factor of behaviour, the\nsublimation and union of will and desire. \"Let love,\" says Boehme, \"be\nthe life of thy nature. It killeth thee not, but quickeneth thee\naccording to its life, and then thou livest, yet not to thy own will but\nto its will: for thy will becometh its will, and then thou art dead to\nthyself but alive to God.\"[138] There is the true, solid and for us most\nfruitful doctrine of divine union, unconnected with any rapture, trance,\necstasy or abnormal state of mind: a union organic, conscious, and\ndynamic with the Creative Spirit of Life.\n\nIf we now go on to ask how, specially, we shall achieve this union in\nsuch degree as is possible to each one of us; the answer must be, that\nit will be done by Prayer. If the seeking of the Eternal is actuated by\nlove, the finding of it is achieved through prayer. Prayer, in\nfact--understood as a life or state, not an act or an asking--is the\nbeginning, middle and end of all that we are now considering. As the\nsocial self can only be developed by contact with society, so the\nspiritual self can only be developed by contact with the spiritual\nworld. And such humble yet ardent contact with the spiritual\nworld--opening up to its suggestions our impulses, our reveries, our\nfeelings, our most secret dispositions as well as our mere thoughts-is\nthe essence of prayer, understood in its widest sense. No more than\nsurrender or love can prayer be reduced to \"one act.\" Those who seek to\nsublimate it into \"pure\" contemplation are as limited at one end of the\nscale, as those who reduce it to articulate petition are at the other.\nIt contains in itself a rich variety of human reactions and experiences.\nIt opens the door upon an unwalled world, in which the self truly lives\nand therefore makes widely various responses to its infinitely varying\nstimuli. Into that world the self takes, or should take, its special\nneeds, aptitudes and longings, and matches them against its apprehension\nof Eternal Truth. In this meeting of the human heart with all that it\ncan apprehend of Reality, not adoration alone but unbounded contrition,\nnot humble dependence alone but joy, peace and power, not rapture alone\nbut mysterious darkness, must be woven into the fabric of love. In this\nworld the soul may sometimes wander as if in pastures, sometimes is\npoised breathless and intent. Sometimes it is fed by beauty, sometimes\nby most difficult truth, and experiences the extremes of riches and\ndestitution, darkness and light. \"It is not,\" says Plotinus, \"by\ncrushing the Divine into a unity but by displaying its exuberance, as\nthe Supreme Himself has displayed it, that we show knowledge of the\nmight of God.\"[139]\n\nThus, by that instinctive and warmly devoted direction of its behaviour\nwhich is love, and that willed attention to and communion with the\nspiritual world which is prayer, all the powers of the self are united\nand turned towards the seeking and finding of the Eternal. It is by\ncomplete obedience to this exacting love, doing difficult and unselfish\nthings, giving up easy and comfortable things--in fact by living, living\nhard on the highest levels--that men more and more deeply feel,\nexperience, and enter into their spiritual life. This is a fact which\nmust seem rather awkward to those who put forward pathological\nexplanations of it. And on the other hand it is only by constant\ncontacts with and recourse to the energizing life of Spirit, that this\nhard vocation can be fulfilled. Such a power of reference to Reality, of\ntranscending the world of succession and its values, can be cultivated\nby us; and this education of our inborn aptitude is a chief function of\nthe discipline of prayer. True, it is only in times of recollection or\nof great emotion that this profound contact is fully present to\nconsciousness. Yet, once fully achieved and its obligations accepted by\nus, it continues as a grave melody within our busy outward acts: and we\nmust by right direction of our deepest instincts so find and feel the\nEternal all the time, if indeed we are to actualize and incarnate it all\nthe time. From this truth of experience, religion has deduced the\ndoctrine of grace, and the general conception of man as able to do\nnothing of himself. This need hardly surprise us. For equally on the\nphysical plane man can do nothing of himself, if he be cut off from his\nphysical sources of power: from food to eat, and air to breathe.\nTherefore the fact that his spiritual life too is dependent upon the\nlife-giving atmosphere that penetrates him, and the heavenly food which\nhe receives, makes no fracture in his experience. Thus we are brought\nback by another path to the fundamental need for him, in some form, of\nthe balanced active and contemplative life.\n\nIn spite of this, many people seem to take it for granted that if a man\nbelieves in and desires to live a spiritual life, he can live it in\nutter independence of spiritual food. He believes in God, loves his\nneighbour, wants to do good, and just goes ahead. The result of this is\nthat the life of the God-fearing citizen or the Social Christian, as now\nconceived and practised, is generally the starved life. It leaves no\ntime for the silence, the withdrawal, the quiet attention to the\nspiritual, which is essential if it is to develop all its powers. Yet\nthe literature of the Spirit is full of warnings on this subject.\n_Taste_ and see that the Lord is sweet. They that wait upon the Lord\nshall renew their _strength_. In quietness and confidence shall be your\n_strength_. These are practical statements; addressed, not to\nspecialists but to ordinary men and women, with a normal psycho-physical\nmake-up. They are literally true now, or can be if we choose. They do\nnot involve any peculiar training, or unnatural effort. A sliding scale\ngoes from the simplest prayer-experience of the ordinary man to that\ncomplete self-loss and complete self-finding, which is called the\ntransforming union of the saint; and somewhere in this series, every\nhuman soul can find a place.\n\nIf this balanced life is to be ours, if we are to receive what St.\nAugustine called the food of the full-grown, to find and feel the\nEternal, we must give time and place to it in our lives. I emphasize\nthis, because its realization seems to me to be a desperate modern need;\na need exhibited supremely in our languid and ineffectual spirituality,\nbut also felt in the too busy, too entirely active and hurried lives of\nthe artist, the reformer and the teacher. St. John of the Cross says in\none of his letters: \"What is wanting is not writing or talking--there is\nmore than enough of that--but, silence and action. For silence joined to\naction produces recollection, and gives the spirit a marvellous\nstrength.\" Such recollection, such a gathering up of our interior forces\nand retreat of consciousness to its \"ground,\" is the preparation of all\ngreat endeavour, whatever its apparent object may be. Until we realize\nthat it is better, more useful, more productive of strength, to spend,\nlet us say, the odd ten minutes in the morning in feeling and finding\nthe Eternal than in flicking the newspaper--that this will send us off\nto the day's work properly orientated, gathered together, recollected,\nand really endowed with new power of dealing with circumstance--we have\nnot begun to live the life of the Spirit, or grasped the practical\nconnection between such a daily discipline and the power of doing our\nbest work, whatever it may be.\n\nI will illustrate this from a living example: that of the Sadhu Sundar\nSingh. No one, I suppose, who came into personal contact with the Sadhu,\ndoubted that they were in the presence of a person who was living, in\nthe full sense, the spiritual life. Even those who could not accept the\nsymbols in which he described his experience and asked others to share\nit, acknowledged that there had been worked in him a great\ntransformation; that the sense of the abiding and eternal went with him\neverywhere, and flowed out from him, to calm and to correct our feverish\nlives. He fully satisfies in his own person the demands of Baron von\nHuegel's definition: both contact with and renunciation of the Particular\nand Fleeting, seeking and finding of the Eternal, incarnating within his\nown experience that transcendent Otherness. Now the Sadhu has discovered\nfor himself and practises as the condition of his extraordinary\nactivity, power and endurance, just that balance of life which St.\nBenedict's rule ordained. He is a wandering missionary, constantly\nundertaking great journeys, enduring hardship and danger, and practising\nthe absolute poverty of St. Francis. He is perfectly healthy, strong,\nextraordinarily attractive, full of power. But this power he is careful\nto nourish. His irreducible minimum is two hours spent in meditation and\nwordless communication with God at the beginning of each day. He prefers\nthree or four hours when work permits; and a long period of prayer and\nmeditation always precedes his public address. If forced to curtail or\nhurry these hours of prayer, he feels restless and unhappy, and his\nefficiency is reduced. \"Prayer,\" he says, \"is as important as breathing;\nand we never say we have no time to breathe.\"[140]\n\nAll this has been explained away by critics of the muscular Christian\nsort, who say that the Sadhu's Christianity is of a typically Eastern\nkind. But this is simply not true. It were much better to acknowledge\nthat we, more and more, are tending to develop a typically Western kind\nof Christianity, marked by the Western emphasis on doing and Western\ncontempt for being; and that if we go sufficiently far on this path we\nshall find ourselves cut off from our source. The Sadhu's Christianity\nis fully Christian; that is to say, it is whole and complete. The power\nin which he does his works is that in which St. Paul carried through his\nheroic missionary career, St. Benedict formed a spiritual family that\ntransformed European culture, Wesley made the world his parish,\nElizabeth Fry faced the Newgate criminals. It is idle to talk of the\nrevival of a personal spiritual life among ourselves, or of a spiritual\nregeneration of society--for this can only come through the individual\nremaking of each of its members--unless we are willing, at the sacrifice\nof some personal convenience, to make a place and time for these acts of\nrecollection; this willing and loving--and even more fruitful, the more\nwilling and loving--communion with, response to Reality, to God. It is\ntrue that a fully lived spiritual life involves far more than this. But\nthis is the only condition on which it will exist at all.\n\nLove then, which is a willed tendency to God; prayer, which is willed\ncommunion with and experience of Him; are the two prime essentials in\nthe personal life of the Spirit. They represent, of course, only our\nside of it and our obligation. This love is the outflowing response to\nanother inflowing love, and this prayer the appropriation of a\ntranscendental energy and grace. As the \"German Theology\" reminds us, \"I\ncannot do the work without God, and God may not or will not without\nme.\"[141] And by these acts alone, faithfully carried through, all their\ncostly demands fulfilled, all their gifts and applications accepted\nwithout resistance and applied to each aspect of life, human nature can\ngrow up to its full stature, and obtain access to all its sources of\npower.\n\nYet this personal inward life of love and prayer shall not be too\nsolitary. As it needs links with cultus and so with the lives of its\nfellows, it also needs links with history and so with the living past.\nThese links are chiefly made by the individual through his reading; and\nsuch reading--such access to humanity's hoarded culture and\nexperience--has always been declared alike by Christian and\nnon-Christian asceticism to be one of the proper helps of the spiritual\nlife. Though Hoeffding perhaps exaggerates when he reminds us that\nmediaeval art always depicts the saints as deeply absorbed in their\nbooks, and suggests that such brooding study directly induces\ncontemplative states,[142] yet it is true that the soul gains greatly\nfrom such communion with, and meek learning from, its cultural\nbackground. Ever more and more as it advances, it will discover within\nthat background the records of those very experiences which it must now\nso poignantly relive; and which seem to it, as his own experience seems\nto every lover, unique. There it can find, without any betrayal of its\nsecret, the wholesome assurance of its own normality; standards of\ncomparison; companionship, alike in its hours of penitence, of light,\nand of deprivation. Yet such fruitful communion with the past is not the\nprivilege of an aristocratic culture. It is seen in its perfection in\nmany simple Christians who have found in the Bible all the spiritual\nfood they need. The great literature of the Spirit tells its secrets to\nthose alone who thus meet it on its own ground. Not only the works of\nThomas a Kempis, of Ruysbroeck, or of St. Teresa, but also the Biblical\nwriters--and especially, perhaps, the Psalms and the Gospels--are read\nwholly anew by us at each stage of our advance. Comparative study of\nHindu and Moslem writers proves that this is equally true of the great\nliteratures of other faiths.[143] Beginners may find in all these\ninfinite stimulus, interest, and beauty. But to the mature soul they\nbecome road-books, of which experience proves the astonishing\nexactitude; giving it descriptions which it can recognize and directions\nthat it needs, and constituting a steady check upon individualism.\n\nNow let us look at the emergence of this life which we have been\nconsidering, and at the typical path which it will or may follow, in an\nordinary man or woman of our own day. Not a saint or genius, reaching\nheroic levels; but a member of that solid wholesome spiritual population\nwhich ought to fill the streets of the City of God. We noticed when we\nwere studying its appearance in history, that often this life begins in\na sort of restlessness, a feeling that there is something more in\nexistence, some absolute meaning, some more searching obligation, that\nwe have not reached. This dissatisfaction, this uncertainty and hunger,\nmay show itself in many different forms. It may speak first to the\nintellect, to the moral nature, to the social conscience, even to the\nartistic faculty; or, directly, to the heart. Anyhow, its abiding\nquality is a sense of contraction, of limitation; a feeling of something\nmore that we could stretch out to, and achieve, and be. Its impulsion is\nalways in one direction; to a finding of some wider and more enduring\nreality, some objective for the self's life and love. It is a seeking of\nthe Eternal, in some form. I allow that thanks to the fog in which we\nlive muffled, such a first seeking, and above all such a finding of the\nEternal is not for us a very easy thing. The sense of quest, of\ndisillusion, of something lacking, is more common among modern men than\nits resolution in discovery. Nevertheless the quest does mean that there\nis a solution: and that those who are persevering must find it in the\nend. The world into which our desire is truly turned, is somehow\nrevealed to us. The revelation, always partial and relative, is of\ncourse conditioned by our capacity, the character of our longing and the\nexperiences of our past. In spiritual matters we behold that which we\nare: here following, on higher levels, the laws which govern aesthetic\napprehension.\n\nSo, dissatisfied with its world-view and realizing that it is\nincomplete, the self seeks at first hand, though not always with clear\nconsciousness of its nature, the Reality which is the object of\nreligion. When it finds this Reality, the discovery, however partial, is\nfor it the overwhelming revelation of an objective Fact; and it is swept\nby a love and awe which it did not know itself to possess. And now it\nsees; dimly, yet in a sufficiently disconcerting way, the Pattern in the\nMount; the rich complex of existence as it were transmuted, full of\ncharity and beauty, governed by another series of adjustments. Life\nlooks different to it. As Fox said, \"Creation gives out another smell\nthan before.\"[144] There is only one thing more disconcerting than this,\nand that is seeing the pattern actualized in a fellow human being:\nliving face to face with human sanctity, in its great simplicity and\nsupernatural love, joy, peace. For, when we glimpse Eternal Beauty in\nthe universe, we can say with the hero of \"Callista,\" \"It is beyond me!\"\nBut, when we see it transfiguring human character, we know that it is\nnot beyond the power of the race. It is here, to be had. Its existence\nas a form of life creates a standard, and lays an obligation on us all.\n\nSuppose then that the self, urged by this new pressure, accepts the\nobligation and measures itself by the standard. It then becomes apparent\nthat this Fact which it sought for and has seen is not merely added to\nits old universe, as in mediaeval pictures Paradise with its circles\nover-arches the earth. This Reality is all-penetrating and has\ntransfigured each aspect of the self's old world. It now has a new and\nmost exacting scale of values, which demand from it a new series of\nadjustments; ask it--and with authority--to change its life.\n\nWhat next? The next thing, probably, is that the self finds itself in\nrather a tight place. It is wedged into a physical order that makes\ninnumerable calls on it, and innumerable suggestions to it: which has\nfor years monopolized its field of consciousness and set up habits of\nresponse to its claims. It has to make some kind of a break with this\norder, or at least with its many attachments thereto; and stretch to the\nwider span demanded by the new and larger world. And further, it is in\npossession of a complex psychic life, containing many insubordinate\nelements, many awkward bequests from a primitive past. That psychic life\nhas just received the powerful and direct suggestion of the Spirit; and\nfor the moment, it is subdued to that suggestion. But soon it begins to\nexperience the inevitable conflict between old habits, and new\ndemands--between a life lived in the particular and in the universal\nspirit--and only through complete resolution of that conflict will it\ndevelop its full power. So the self quickly realizes that the\ntheologian's war between Nature and Grace is a picturesque way of\nstating a real situation; and further that the demand of all religions\nfor a change of heart--that is, of the deep instinctive nature--is the\nfirst condition of a spiritual life. And hence, that its hands are\nfairly full. It is true that an immense joy and hope come with it to\nthis business of tackling imperfection, of adjusting itself to the newly\nfound centre of life. It knows that it is committed to the forward\nmovement of a Power, which may be slow but which nothing can gainsay.\nNevertheless the first thing that power demands from it is courage; and\nthe next an unremitting vigorous effort. It will never again be able to\nsink back cosily into its racial past. Consciousness of disharmony and\nincompleteness now brings the obligation to mend the disharmony and\nachieve a fresh synthesis.\n\nThis is felt with a special sharpness in the moral life, where the\nirreconcilable demands of natural self-interest and of Spirit assume\ntheir most intractable shape. Old habits and paths of discharge which\nhave almost become automatic must now, it seems, be abandoned. New\npaths, in spite of resistances, must be made. Thus it is that\ntemptation, hard conflict, and bewildering perplexities usher in the\nlife of the Spirit. These are largely the results of our biological past\ncontinuing into our fluctuating half-made present; and they point\ntowards a psychic stability, an inner unity we have not yet attained.\n\nThis realization of ourselves as we truly are--emerging with difficulty\nfrom our animal origin, tinctured through and through with the\nself-regarding tendencies and habits it has imprinted on us--this\nrealization or self-knowledge, is Humility; the only soil in which the\nspiritual life can germinate. And modern man with his great horizons,\nhis ever clearer vision of his own close kinship with life's origin, his\nsmall place in the time-stream, in the universe, in God's hand, the\nrelative character of his best knowledge and achievement, is surely\neverywhere being persuaded to this royal virtue. Recognition of this his\ntrue creaturely status, with its obligations--the only process of pain\nand struggle needed if the demands of generous love are ever to be\nfulfilled in him and his many-levelled nature is to be purified and\nharmonized and develop all its powers--this is Repentance. He shows not\nonly his sincerity, but his manliness and courage by his acceptance of\nall that such repentance entails on him; for the healthy soul, like the\nhealthy body, welcomes some trial and roughness and is well able to bear\nthe pains of education. Psychologists regard such an education,\nharmonizing the rational or ideal with the instinctive life--the change\nof heart which leaves the whole self working together without inner\nconflict towards one objective--as the very condition of a full and\nhealthy life. But it can only be achieved in its perfection by the\ncomplete surrender of heart and mind to a third term, transcending alike\nthe impulsive and the rational. The life of the Spirit in its supreme\nauthority, and its identification with the highest interests of the\nrace, does this: harnessing man's fiery energies to the service of the\nLight.\n\nTherefore, in the rich, new life on which the self enters, one strand\nmust be that of repentance, catharsis, self-conquest; a complete\ncontrition which is the earnest of complete generosity, uncalculated\nresponse. And, dealing as we are now with average human nature, we can\nsafely say that the need for such ever-renewed self-scrutiny and\nself-purgation will never in this life be left behind. For sin is a\nfact, though a fact which we do not understand; and now it appears and\nmust evermore remain an offence against love, hostile to this intense\nnew attraction, and marring the self's willed tendency towards it.\n\nThe next strand we may perhaps call that of Recollection: for the\nrecognizing and the cure of imperfection depends on the compensating\nsearch for the Perfect and its enthronement as the supreme object of our\nthought and love. The self, then, soon begins to feel a strong impulsion\nto some type of inward withdrawal and concentration, some kind of\nprayer; though it may not use this name or recognize the character of\nits mood. As it yields to this strange new drawing, such recollection\ngrows easier. It finds that there is a veritable inner world, not merely\nof phantasy, but of profound heart-searching experience; where the soul\nis in touch with another order of realities and knows itself to be an\ninheritor of Eternal Life. Here unique things happen. A power is at\nwork, and new apprehensions are born. And now for the first time the\nself discovers itself to be striking a balance between this inner and\nthe outer life, and in its own small way--but still, most\nfruitfully--enriching action with the fruits of contemplation. If it\nwill give to the learning of this new art--to the disciplining and\nrefining of this affective thought--even a fraction of the diligence\nwhich it gives to the learning of a new game, it will find itself repaid\nby a progressive purity of vision, a progressive sense of assurance, an\never-increasing delicacy of moral discrimination and demand.\nPsychologists, as we have seen, divide men into introverts and\nextroverts; but as a matter of fact we must regard both these extreme\ntypes as defective. A whole man should be supple in his reactions both\nto the inner and to the outer world.\n\nThe third strand in the life of the Spirit, for this normal self which\nwe are considering; must be the disposition of complete Surrender. More\nand more advancing in this inner life, it will feel the imperative\nattraction of Reality, of God; and it must respond to this attraction\nwith all the courage and generosity of which it is capable. I am trying\nto use the simplest and the most general language, and to avoid\nemotional imagery: though it is here, in telling of this perpetually\nrenewed act of self-giving and dedication, that spiritual writers most\noften have recourse to the language of the heart. It is indeed in a\nspirit of intensest and humble adoration that generous souls yield\nthemselves to the drawing of that mysterious Beauty and unchanging Love,\nwith all that it entails. But the form which the impulse to surrender\ntakes will vary with the psychic make-up of the individual. To some it\nwill come as a sense of vocation, a making-over of the will to the\npurposes of the Kingdom; a type of consecration which may not be overtly\nreligious, but may be concerned with the self-forgetting quest of\nsocial excellence, of beauty, or of truth. By some it will be felt as an\nillumination of the mind, which now discerns once for all true values,\nand accepting these, must uphold and strive for them in the teeth of all\nopportunism. By some--and these are the most blessed--as a breaking and\nre-making of the heart. Whatever the form it takes, the extent in which\nthe self experiences the peace, joy and power of living at the level of\nSpirit will depend on the completeness and singlemindedness of this, its\nsupreme act of self-simplification. Any reserves, anything in its\nmake-up which sets up resistances--and this means generally any form of\negotism--will mar the harmony of the process. And on the other hand,\nsuch a real simplification of the self's life as is here\ndemanded--uniting on one object, the intellect, will and feeling too\noften split among contradictory attractions--is itself productive of\ninner harmony and increased power: productive too of that noble\nendurance which counts no pain too much in the service of Reality.\n\nHere then we come to the fact, valid for every level of spiritual life,\nwhich lies behind all the declarations concerning surrender, self-loss,\ndying to live, dedication, made by writers on this theme. All involve a\nrelaxing of tension, letting ourselves go without reluctance in the\ndirection in which we are most profoundly drawn; a cessation of our\nstruggles with the tide, our kicks against the pricks that spur us on.\nThe inward aim of the self is towards unification with a larger life; a\nmergence with Reality which it may describe under various contradictory\nsymbols, or may not be able to describe at all, but which it feels to be\nthe fulfilment of existence. It has learnt--though this knowledge may\nnot have passed beyond the stage of feeling--that the universe is one\nsimple texture, in which all things have their explanation and their\nplace. Combing out the confusions which enmesh it, losing its sham and\nseparate life and finding its true life there, it will know what to love\nand how to act. The goal of this process, which has been called entrance\ninto the freedom of the Will of God, is the state described by the\nwriter of the \"German Theology\" when he said \"I would fain be to the\nEternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man.\"[145] For such a\ndeclaration not only means a willed and skilful working for God, a\npractical siding with Perfection, becoming its living tool, but also\nclose union with, and sharing of, the vital energy of the spiritual\norder: a feeding on and using of its power, its very life blood;\ncomplete docility to its inward direction, abolition of separate desire.\nThe surrender is therefore made not in order that we may become limp\npietists, but in order that we may receive more energy and do better\nwork: by a humble self-subjection more perfectly helping forward the\nthrust of the Spirit and the primal human business of incarnating the\nEternal here and now. Its justification is in the arduous but untiring,\nvarious but harmonious, activities that flow from it: the enhancement of\nlife which it entails. It gives us access to our real sources of power;\nthat we may take from them and, spending generously, be energized anew.\n\nSo the cord on which those events which make up the personal life of the\nSpirit are to be strung is completed, and we see that it consists of\nfour strands. Two are dispositions of the self; Penitence and Surrender.\nTwo are activities; inward Recollection and outward Work. All four make\nstern demands on its fortitude and goodwill. And each gives strength to\nthe rest: for they are not to be regarded as separate and successive\nstates, a discrete series through which we must pass one by one, leaving\npenitence behind us when we reach surrendered love; but as the variable\nyet enduring and inseparable aspects of one rich life, phases in one\ncomplete and vital effort to respond more and more closely to Reality.\n\nNothing, perhaps, is less monotonous than the personal life of the\nSpirit. In its humility and joyous love, its adoration and its industry,\nit may find self-expression in any one of the countless activities of\nthe world of time. It is both romantic and austere, both adventurous and\nholy. Full of fluctuation and unearthly colour, it yet has its dark\npatches as well as its light. Since perfect proof of the supersensual is\nbeyond the span of human consciousness, the element of risk can never\nbe eliminated: we are obliged in the end to trust the universe and live\nby faith. Therefore the awakened soul must often suffer perplexity,\nshare to the utmost the stress and anguish of the physical order; and,\nchained as it is to a consciousness accustomed to respond to that order,\nmust still be content with flashes of understanding and willing to bear\nlong periods of destitution when the light is veiled.\n\nThe further it advances the more bitter will these periods of\ndestitution seem to it. It is not from the real men and women of the\nSpirit that we hear soft things about the comfort of faith. For the true\nlife of faith gives everything worth having and takes everything worth\noffering: with unrelenting blows it welds the self into the stuff of the\nuniverse, subduing it to the universal purpose, doing away with the\nflame of separation. Though joy and inward peace even in desolation are\ndominant marks of those who have grown up into it, still it offers to\nnone a succession of supersensual delights. The life of the Spirit\ninvolves the sublimation of that pleasure-pain rhythm which is\ncharacteristic of normal consciousness, and if for it pleasure becomes\njoy, pain becomes the Cross. Toil, abnegation, sacrifice, are therefore\nof its essence; but these are not felt as a heavy burden, because they\nare the expression of love. It entails a willed tension and choice, a\nnoble power of refusal, which are not entirely covered by being \"in tune\nwith the Infinite.\" As our life comes to maturity we discover to our\nconfusion that human ears can pick up from the Infinite many\nincompatible tunes, but cannot hear the whole symphony. And the melody\nconfided to our care, the one which we alone perhaps can contribute and\nwhich taxes our powers to the full, has in it not only the notes of\ntriumph but the notes of pain. The distinctive mark therefore is not\nhappiness but vocation: work demanded and power given, but given only on\ncondition that we spend it and ourselves on others without stint. These\npropositions, of course, are easily illustrated from history: but we can\nalso illustrate them in our own persons if we choose.\n\nShould we choose this, and should life of the Spirit be achieved by\nus--and it will only be done through daily discipline and attention to\nthe Spiritual, a sacrifice of comfort to its interests, following up the\nintuition which sets us on the path--what benefits may we as ordinary\nmen expect it to bring to us and to the community that we serve? It will\ncertainly bring into life new zest and new meaning; a widening of the\nhorizon and consciousness of security; a fresh sense of joys to be had\nand of work to be done. The real spiritual consciousness is positive and\nconstructive in type: it does not look back on the past sins and\nmistakes of the individual or of the community, but in its other-world\nfaith and this-world charity is inspired by a forward-moving spirit of\nhope. Seeking alone the honour of Eternal Beauty, and because of its\ninvulnerable sense of security, it is adventurous. The spiritual man and\nwoman can afford to take desperate chances, and live dangerously in the\ninterests of their ideals; being delivered from the many unreal fears\nand anxieties which commonly torment us, and knowing the unimportance of\npossessions and of so-called success. The joy which waits on\ndisinterested love and the confidence which follows surrender, cannot\nfail them. Moreover, the inward harmony and assurance, the consciousness\nof access to that Spirit who is in a literal sense \"health's eternal\nspring\" means a healing of nervous miseries, and invigoration of the\nusually ill-treated mind and body, and so an all-round increase in\nhappiness and power.\n\n\"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering,\ngentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.\" This, said St. Paul,\nwho knew by experience the worlds of grace and of nature, is what a\ncomplete man ought to be like. Compare this picture of an equable and\nfully harmonized personality with that of a characteristic neurasthenic,\na bored sensualist, or an embittered worker, concentrated on the\nstruggle for a material advantage: and consider that the central\ndifference between these types of human success and human failure abides\nin the presence or absence of a spiritual conception of life. We do not\nyet know the limits of the upgrowth into power and happiness which\ncomplete and practical surrender to this conception can work in us; or\nwhat its general triumph might do for the transformation of the world.\nAnd it may even be that beyond the joy and renewal which come from\nself-conquest and unification, a level of spiritual life most certainly\nopen to all who will really work for it; and beyond that deeper insight,\nmore widespreading love, and perfection of adjustment to the\nhere-and-now which we recognize and reverence as the privilege of the\npure in heart--beyond all these, it may be that life still reserves for\nman another secret and another level of consciousness; a closer\nidentification with Reality, such as eye hath not seen, or ear heard.\n\nAnd note, that this spiritual life which we have here considered is not\nan aristocratic life. It is a life of which the fundamentals are given\nby the simplest kinds of traditional piety, and have been exhibited over\nand over again by the simplest souls. An unconditional self-surrender to\nthe Divine Will, under whatever symbols it may be thought of; for we\nknow that the very crudest of symbols is often strong enough to make a\nbridge between the heart and the Eternal, and so be a vehicle of the\nSpirit of Life. A little silence and leisure. A great deal of\nfaithfulness, kindness, and courage. All this is within the reach of\nanyone who cares enough for it to pay the price.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 129: This doctrine is fully worked out in the last two\nsections of \"Eternal Life.\"]\n\n[Footnote 130: De Imit. Christi, Bk. II, Cap. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 131: \"Six Theosophic Points,\" p. 75.]\n\n[Footnote 132: \"One Hundred Poems of Kabir,\" p. 78.]\n\n[Footnote 133: Cl. Ruysbroeck: \"The Mirror of Eternal Salvation,\" Cap.\nVIII]\n\n[Footnote 134: \"In Librum B. Dionysii de Divinis Nominibus\ncommentaria.\"]\n\n[Footnote 135: Ennead III. 5, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 136: Boehme: \"Six Theosophic Points,\" p. 75.]\n\n[Footnote 137: \"The Interior Castle\"; Seventh Habitation, Cap. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 138: Boehme; \"The Way to Christ,\" Pt. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 139: Ennead II. 9. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 140: \"Streeter and Appasamy: The Sadhu,\" pp. 98, 100 et seq.,\n213.]\n\n[Footnote 141: \"Theologia Germanica,\" Cap. III.]\n\n[Footnote 142: Hoeffding, \"The Philosophy of Religion,\" III, B.]\n\n[Footnote 143: There are, for instance, several striking instances in\nthe Autobiography of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagore.]\n\n[Footnote 144: \"Fox's Journal,\" Vol. I, Cap. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 145: \"Theologia Germanica,\" Cap. 10.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND EDUCATION\n\n\nIn the past six chapters we have been considering in the main our own\nposition, and how, here in the present, we as adults may actualize and\nhelp on the spiritual life in ourselves. But our best hope of giving\nSpirit its rightful, full expression within the time-world lies in the\nfuture. It is towards that, that those who really care must work.\nAnything which we can do towards persuading into better shape our own\ndeformed characters, compelling our recalcitrant energy into fresh\nchannels, is little in comparison with what might be achieved in the\nplastic growing psychic life of children did we appreciate our full\nopportunity and the importance of using it. This is why I propose now to\nconsider one or two points in the relation of education to the spiritual\nlife.\n\nSince it is always well, in a discussion of this kind, to be quite clear\nabout the content of the words with which we deal, I will say at once,\nthat by Education I mean that deliberate adjustment of the whole\nenvironment of a growing creature, which surrounds it with the most\nfavourable influences and educes all its powers; giving it the most\nhelpful conditions for its full growth and development. Education\nshould be the complete preparation of the young thing for fullness of\nlife; involving the evolution and the balanced training of all its\nfaculties, bodily, mental and spiritual. It should train and refine\nsenses, instincts, intellect, will and feeling; giving a world-view\nbased on real facts and real values and encouraging active\ncorrespondence therewith. Thus the educationist, if he be convinced, as\nI think most of us must be, that all isn't quite right with the world of\nmankind, has the priceless opportunity of beginning the remaking of\nhumanity from the right end. In the child he has a little, supple thing,\nwhich can be made into a vital, spiritual thing; and nothing again will\ncount so much for it as what happens in these its earliest years. To\nstart life straight is the secret of inward happiness: and to a great\nextent, the secret of health and power.\n\nThat conception of man upon which we have been working, and which\nregards his psychic life on all its levels as the manifold expressions\nof one single energy or urge in the depths of his being, a life-force\nseeking fulfilment, has obvious and important applications in the\neducational sphere. It indicates that the fundamental business of\neducation is to deal with this urgent and untempered craving, discipline\nit, and direct it towards interests of permanent value: helping it to\nestablish useful habits, removing obstacles in its path, blocking the\nside channels down which it might run. Especially is it the task of such\neducation, gradually to disclose to the growing psyche those spiritual\ncorrespondences for which the religious man and the idealist must hold\nthat man's spirit was made. Such an education as this has little in\ncommon with the mere crude imparting of facts. It represents rather the\ncareful and loving induction of the growing human creature into the rich\nworld of experience; the help we give it in the great business of\nadjusting itself to reality. It operates by means of the moulding\ninfluences of environment, the creation of habit. Suggestion, not\nstatement, is its most potent instrument; and such suggestion begins for\ngood or ill at the very dawn of consciousness. Therefore the child whose\ninfancy is not surrounded by persons of true outlook is handicapped from\nthe start; and the training in this respect of the parents of the future\nis one of the greatest services we can render to the race.\n\nWe are beginning to learn the overwhelming importance of infantile\nimpressions: how a forgotten babyish fear or grief may develop\nunderground, and produce at last an unrecognizable growth poisoning the\nbody and the mind of the adult. But here good is at least as potent as\nill. What terror, a hideous sight, an unloving nurture may do for evil;\na happy impression, a beautiful sight, a loving nurture will do for\ngood. Moreover, we can bury good seed in the unconscious minds of\nchildren and reasonably look forward to the fruit. Babyish prayers,\nsimple hymns, trace whilst the mind is ductile the paths in which\nfeelings shall afterwards tend to flow; and it is only in maturity that\nwe realize our psychological debt to these early and perhaps afterwards\nabandoned beliefs and deeds. So the veritable education of the Spirit\nbegins at once, in the cradle, and its chief means will be the\nsurroundings within which that childish spirit first develops its little\nawareness of the universe; the appeals which are made to its instincts,\nthe stimulations of its life of sense. The first factor of this\neducation is the family: the second the society within which that family\nis formed.\n\nThough we no longer suppose it to possess innate ideas, the baby has\nmost surely innate powers, inclinations and curiosities, and is reaching\nout in every direction towards life. It is brimming with will power,\nready to push hard into experience. The environment in which it is\nplaced and the responses which the outer world makes to it--and these\nsurroundings and responses in the long run are largely of our choosing\nand making--represent either the helping or thwarting of its tendencies,\nand the sum total of the directions in which its powers can be exercised\nand its demands satisfied: the possibilities, in fact, which life puts\nbefore it. We, as individuals and as a community, control and form part\nof this environment. Under the first head, we play by influence or\ndemeanour a certain part in the education of every child whom we meet.\nUnder the second head, by acquiescence in the social order, we accept\nresponsibility for the state of life in which it is born. The child's\nfirst intimations of the spiritual must and can only come to it through\nthe incarnation of Spirit in its home and the world that it knows. What,\nthen, are we doing about this? It means that the influences which shape\nthe men and women of the future will be as wholesome and as spiritual as\nwe ourselves are: no more, no less. Tone, atmosphere are the things\nwhich really matter; and these are provided by the group-mind, and\nreflect its spiritual state.\n\nThe child's whole educational opportunity is contained in two factors;\nthe personality it brings and the environment it gets. Generations of\neducationists have disputed their relative importance: but neither party\ncan deny that the most fortunate nature, given wrongful or insufficient\nnurture, will hardly emerge unharmed. Even great inborn powers atrophy\nif left unused, and exceptional ability in any direction may easily\nremain undeveloped if the environment be sufficiently unfavourable: a\nresult too often achieved in the domain of the spiritual life. We must\nhave opportunity and encouragement to try our powers and inclinations,\nbe helped to understand their nature and the way to use them, unless we\nare to begin again, each one of us, in the Stone Age of the soul. So\ntoo, even small powers may be developed to an astonishing degree by\nsuitable surroundings and wise education--witness the results obtained\nby the expert training of defective children--and all this is as\napplicable to the spiritual as to the mental and bodily life. That life\nis quick to respond to the demands made on it: to take every opportunity\nof expression that comes its way. If you make the right appeal to any\nhuman faculty, that faculty will respond, and begin to grow. Thus it is\nthat the slow quiet pressure of tradition, first in the home and then in\nthe school, shapes the child during his most malleable years. We,\ntherefore, are surely bound to watch and criticize the environment, the\ntradition, the customs we are instrumental in providing for the infant\nfuture: to ask ourselves whether we are _sure_ the tradition is right,\nthe conventions we hand on useful, the ideal we hold up complete. The\nchild, whatever his powers, cannot react to something which is not\nthere; he can't digest food that is not given to him, use faculties for\nwhich no objective is provided. Hence the great responsibility of our\ngeneration, as to providing a complete, balanced environment _now_, a\nfully-rounded opportunity of response to life physical, mental and\nspiritual, for the generation preparing to succeed us. Such education as\nthis has been called a preparation for citizenship. But this conception\nis too narrow, unless the citizenship be that of the City of God; and\nthe adjustments involved be those of the spirit, as well as of the body\nand the mind.\n\nHerbert Spencer, whom one would hardly accuse of being a spiritual\nphilosopher, was accustomed to group the essentials of a right\neducation under four heads:[146]\n\nFirst, he said, we must teach self-preservation in all senses: how to\nkeep the body and the mind healthy and efficient, how to be\nself-supporting, how to protect oneself against external dangers and\nencroachments.\n\nNext, we must train the growing creature in its duties towards the life\nof the future: parenthood and its responsibilities, understood in the\nwidest sense.\n\nThirdly; we must prepare it to take its place in the present as a member\nof the social order into which it is born.\n\nLast: we must hand on to it all those refinements of life which the past\nhas given to us--the hoarded culture of the race.\n\nOnly if we do these four things thoroughly can we dare to call ourselves\neducators in the full sense of the word.\n\nNow, turning to the spiritual interests of the child:--and unless we are\ncrass materialists we must believe these interests to exist, and to be\nparamount--what are we doing to further them in these four fundamental\ndirections? First, does the average good education train our young\npeople in spiritual self-preservation? Does it send them out equipped\nwith the means of living a full and efficient spiritual life? Does it\nfurnish them with a health-giving type of religion; that is, a solid\nhold on eternal realities, a view of the universe capable of\nwithstanding hostile criticism, of supporting them in times of\ndifficulty and of stress? Secondly, does it give them a spiritual\noutlook in respect of their racial duties, fit them in due time to be\nparents of other souls? Does it train them to regard humanity, and their\nown place in the human life-stream, from this point of view? This point\nis of special importance, in view of the fact that racial and biological\nknowledge on lower levels is now so generally in the possession of boys\nand girls; and is bound to produce a distorted conception of life,\nunless the spirit be studied by them with at least the same respectful\nattention that is given to the flesh. Thirdly, what does our education\ndo towards preparing them to solve the problems of social and economic\nlife in a spiritual sense--our only reasonable chance of extracting the\nnext generation from the social muddle in which we are plunged to-day?\nLast, to what extent do we try to introduce our pupils into a full\nenjoyment of their spiritual inheritance, the culture and tradition of\nthe past?\n\nI do not deny that there are educators--chiefly perhaps educators of\ngirls--who can give favourable answers to all these questions. But they\nare exceptional, the proportion of the child population whom they\ninfluence is small, and frequently their proceedings are looked\nupon--not without some justice--as eccentric. If then in all these\ndepartments our standard type of education stops short of the spiritual\nlevel, are not we self-convicted as at best theoretical believers in the\nworth and destiny of the human soul?\n\nConsider the facts. Outside the walls of definitely religious\ninstitutions--where methods are not always adjusted to the common stuff\nand needs of contemporary human life--it does not seem to occur to many\neducationists to give the education of the child's soul the same expert\ndelicate attention so lavishly bestowed on the body and the intellect.\nBy expert delicate attention I do not mean persistent religious\ninstruction; but a skilled and loving care for the growing spirit,\ninspired by deep conviction and helped by all the psychological\nknowledge we possess. If we look at the efforts of organized religion we\nare bound to admit that in thousands of rural parishes, and in many\ntowns too, it is still possible to grow from infancy to old age as a\nmember of church or chapel without once receiving any first-hand\nteaching on the powers and needs of the soul or the technique of prayer;\nor obtaining any more help in the great religious difficulties of\nadolescence than a general invitation to believe, and trust God.\nMorality--that is to say correctness of response to our neighbour and\nour temporal surroundings--is often well taught.\nSpirituality--correctness of response to God and our eternal\nsurroundings--is most often ignored. A peculiar British bashfulness\nseems to stand in the way of it. It is felt that we show better taste\nin leaving the essentials of the soul's development to chance, even that\nsuch development is not wholly desirable or manly: that the atrophy of\none aspect of \"man's made-trinity\" is best. I have heard one eminent\necclesiastic maintain that regular and punctual attendance at morning\nservice in a mood of non-comprehending loyalty was the best sort of\nspiritual experience for the average Englishman. Is not that a statement\nwhich should make the Christian teachers who are responsible for the\naverage Englishman, feel a little bit uncomfortable about the type which\nthey have produced? I do not suggest that education should encourage a\nfeverish religiosity; but that it ought to produce balanced men and\nwomen, whose faculties are fully alert and responsive to all levels of\nlife. As it is, we train Boy Scouts and Girl Guides in the principles of\nhonour and chivalry. Our Bible-classes minister to the hungry spirit\nmuch information about the journeys of St. Paul (with maps). But the\npupils are seldom invited or assisted to _taste_, and see that the Lord\nis sweet.\n\nNow this indifference means, of course, that we do not as educators, as\ncontrollers of the racial future, really believe in the spiritual\nfoundations of our personality as thoroughly and practically we believe\nin its mental and physical manifestations. Whatever the philosophy or\nreligion we profess may be, it remains for us in the realm of idea, not\nin the realm of fact. In practice, we do not aim at the achievement of\na spiritual type of consciousness as the crown of human culture. The\nbest that most education does for our children is only what the devil\ndid for Christ. It takes them up to the top of a high mountain and shows\nthem all the kingdoms of this world; the kingdom of history, the kingdom\nof letters, the kingdom of beauty, the kingdom of science. It is a\nsplendid vision, but unfortunately fugitive: and since the spirit is not\nfugitive, it demands an objective that is permanent. If we do not give\nit such an objective, one of two things must happen to it. Either it\nwill be restless and dissatisfied, and throw the whole life out of key;\nor it will become dormant for lack of use, and so the whole life will be\nimpoverished, its best promise unfulfilled. One line leads to the\nneurotic, the other to the average sensual man, and I think it will be\nagreed that modern life produces a good crop of both these kind of\ndefectives.\n\nBut if we believe that the permanent objective of the spirit is God--if\nHe be indeed for us the Fountain of Life and the sum of Reality--can we\nacquiesce in these forms of loss? Surely it ought to be our first aim,\nto make the sense of His universal presence and transcendent worth, and\nof the self's responsibility to Him, dominant for the plastic youthful\nconsciousness confided to our care: to introduce that consciousness into\na world which is really a theocracy and encourage its aptitude for\ngenerous love? If educationists do not view such a proposal with\nfavour, this shows how miserable and distorted our common conception of\nGod has become; and how small a part it really plays in our practical\nlife. Most of us scramble through that practical life, and are prepared\nto let our children scramble too, without any clear notions of that\nhygiene of the soul which has been studied for centuries by experts; and\nfew look upon this branch of self-knowledge as something that all men\nmay possess who will submit to education and work for its achievement.\nThus we have degenerated from the mediaeval standpoint; for then at least\nthe necessity of spiritual education was understood and accepted, and\nthe current psychology was in harmony with it. But now there is little\nattempt to deepen and enlarge the spiritual faculties, none to encourage\ntheir free and natural development in the young, or their application to\nany richer world of experience than the circle of pious images with\nwhich \"religious education\" generally deals. The result of this is seen\nin the rawness, shallowness and ignorance which characterize the\nattitude of many young adults to religion. Their beliefs and their\nscepticism alike are often the acceptance or rejection of the obsolete.\nIf they be agnostics, the dogmas which they reject are frequently\ntheological caricatures. If they be believers, both their religious\nconceptions and their prayers are found on investigation still to be of\nan infantile kind, totally unrelated to the interests and outlook of\nmodern men.\n\nTwo facts emerge from the experience of all educationists. The first is,\nthat children are naturally receptive and responsive; the second, that\nadolescents are naturally idealistic. In both stages, the young human\ncreature is full of interests and curiosities asking to be satisfied, of\nenergies demanding expression; and here, in their budding, thrusting\nlife--for which we, by our choice of surroundings and influence, may\nprovide the objective--is the raw material out of which the spiritual\nhumanity of the future might be made. The child has already within it\nthe living seed wherein all human possibilities are contained; our part\nis to give the right soil, the shelter, and the watering-can. Spiritual\neducation therefore does not consist in putting into the child something\nwhich it has not; but in educing and sublimating that which it has--in\nestablishing habits, fostering a trend of growth which shall serve it\nwell in later years. Already, all the dynamic instincts are present, at\nleast in germ; asking for an outlet. The will and the emotions, ductile\nas they will never be again, are ready to make full and ungraduated\nresponse to any genuine appeal to enthusiasm. The imagination will\naccept the food we give, if we give it in the right way. What an\nopportunity! Nowhere else do we come into such direct contact with the\nplastic stuff of life; never again shall we have at our disposal such a\nfund of emotional energy.\n\nIn the child's dreams and fantasies, in its eager hero-worship--later,\nin the adolescent's fervid friendships or devoted loyalty to an adored\nleader--we see the search of the living growing creature for more life\nand love, for an enduring object of devotion. Do we always manage or\neven try to give it that enduring object, in a form it can accept? Yet\nthe responsibility of providing such a presentation of belief as shall\nevoke the spontaneous reactions of faith and love--for no compulsory\nidealism ever succeeds--is definitely laid on the parent and the\nteacher. It is in the enthusiastic imitation of a beloved leader that\nthe child or adolescent learns best. Were the spiritual life the most\nreal of facts to us, did we believe in it as we variously believe in\nathletics, physical science or the arts, surely we should spare no\neffort to turn to its purposes these priceless qualities of youth? Were\nthe mind's communion with the Spirit of God generally regarded as its\nnatural privilege and therefore the first condition of its happiness and\nhealth, the general method and tone of modern education would inevitably\ndiffer considerably from that which we usually see: and if the life of\nthe Spirit is to come to fruition, here is one of the points at which\nreformation must begin. When we look at the ordinary practice of modern\n\"civilized\" Europe, we cannot claim that any noticeable proportion of\nour young people are taught during their docile and impressionable years\nthe nature and discipline of their spiritual faculties, in the open and\ncommon-sense way in which they are taught languages, science, music or\ngymnastics. Yet it is surely a central duty of the educator to deepen\nand enrich to the fullest extent possible his pupil's apprehension of\nthe universe; and must not all such apprehension move towards the\ndiscovery of that universe as a spiritual fact?\n\nAgain, in how many schools is the period of religious and idealistic\nenthusiasm which so commonly occurs in adolescence wisely used,\nskilfully trained, and made the foundation of an enduring spiritual\nlife? Here is the period in which the relation of master and pupil is or\nmay be most intimate and most fruitful; and can be made to serve the\nhighest interests of life. Yet, no great proportion of those set apart\nto teach young people seem to realize and use this privilege.\n\nI am aware that much which I am going to advocate will sound fantastic;\nand that the changes involved may seem at first sight impossible to\naccomplish. It is true that if these changes are to be useful, they must\nbe gradual. The policy of the \"clean sweep\" is one which both history\nand psychology condemn. But it does seem to me a good thing to envisage\nclearly, if we can, the ideal towards which our changes should lead. A\ngarden city is not Utopia. Still, it is an advance upon the Victorian\ntype of suburb and slum; and we should not have got it if some men had\nnot believed in Utopia, and tried to make a beginning here and now.\nAlready in education some few have tried to make such a beginning and\nhave proved that it is possible if we believe in it enough: for faith\ncan move even that mountainous thing, the British parental mind.\n\nOur task--and I believe our most real hope for the future--is, as we\nhave already allowed, to make the idea of God dominant for the plastic\nyouthful consciousness: and not only this, but to harmonize that\nconception, first with our teachings about the physical and mental sides\nof life, and next with the child's own social activities, training body,\nmind and spirit together that they may take each their part in the\ndevelopment of a whole man, fully responsive to a universe which is at\nbottom a spiritual fact. Such training to be complete must, as we have\nseen, begin in the nursery and be given by the atmosphere and\nopportunities of the home. It will include the instilling of childish\nhabits of prayer and the fostering of simple expressions of reverence,\nadmiration and love. The subconscious knowledge implicit in such\npractice must form the foundation, and only where it is present will\ndoctrine and principle have any real meaning for the child. Prayer must\ncome before theology, and kindness, tenderness and helpfulness before\nethics.\n\nBut we have now to consider the child of school age, coming--too often\nwithout this, the only adequate preparation--into the teacher's hands.\nHow is he to be dealt with, and the opportunities which he presents used\nbest?\n\n\"When I see a right man,\" said Jacob Boehme, \"there I see three worlds\nstanding.\" Since our aim should be to make \"right men\" and evoke in them\nnot merely a departmental piety but a robust and intelligent\nspirituality, we ought to explain in simple ways to these older children\nsomething at least of that view of human nature on which our training is\nbased. The religious instruction given in most schools is divided, in\nvarying proportions, between historical or doctrinal teaching and\nethical teaching. Now a solid hold both on history and on morals is a\ngreat need; but these are only realized in their full importance and\nenter completely into life when they are seen within the spiritual\natmosphere, and already even in childhood, and supremely in youth, this\natmosphere can be evoked. It does not seem to occur to most teachers\nthat religion contains anything beyond or within the two departments of\nhistorical creed and of morals: that, for instance, the greatest\nutterances of St. John and St. Paul deal with neither, but with\nattainable levels of human life, in which a new and fuller kind of\nexperience was offered to mankind. Yet surely they ought at least to\nattempt to tell their pupils about this. I do not see how Christians at\nany rate can escape the obligation, or shuffle out of it by saying that\nthey do not know how it can be done. Indeed, all who are not\nthorough-going materialists must regard the study of the spiritual life\nas in the truest sense a department of biology; and any account of man\nwhich fails to describe it, as incomplete. Where the science of the body\nis studied, the science of the soul should be studied too. Therefore, in\nthe upper forms at least, the psychology of religious experience in its\nwidest sense, as a normal part of all full human existence, and the\nconnection of that experience with practical life, as it is seen in\nhistory, should be taught. If it is done properly it will hold the\npupil's interest, for it can be made to appeal to those same mental\nqualities of wonder, curiosity and exploration which draw so many boys\nand girls to physical science. But there should be no encouragement of\nintrospection, none of the false mystery or so-called reverence with\nwhich these subjects are sometimes surrounded, and above all no spirit\nof exclusivism.\n\nThe pupil should be led to see his own religion as a part of the\nuniversal tendency of life to God. This need not involve any reduction\nof the claims made on him by his own church or creed; but the emphasis\nshould always be on the likeness rather than the differences of the\ngreat religions of the world. Moreover, higher education cannot be\nregarded as complete unless the mind be furnished with some _rationale_\nof its own deepest experiences, and a harmony be established between\nimpulse and thought. Advanced pupils should, then, be given a simple and\ngeneral philosophy of religion, plainly stated in language which\nrelates it with the current philosophy of life. This is no counsel of\nperfection. It has been done, and can be done again. It is said of\nEdward Caird, that he placed his pupils \"from the beginning at a point\nof view whence the life of mankind could be contemplated as one\nmovement, single though infinitely varied, unerring though wandering,\nsignificant yet mysterious, secure and self-enriching although tragical.\nThere was a general sense of the spiritual nature of reality and of the\nrule of mind, though what was meant by spirit or mind was hardly asked.\nThere was a hope and faith that outstripped all save the vaguest\nunderstanding but which evoked a glad response that somehow God was\nimmanent in the world and in the history of all mankind, making it\nsane.\" And the effect of this teaching on the students was that \"they\nreceived the doctrine with enthusiasm, and forgot themselves in the\nsense of their partnership in a universal enterprise.\"[1] Such teaching\nas this is a real preparation for citizenship, an introduction to the\nenduring values of the world.\n\n[1 Jones and Muirhead: \"Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird,\" pp. 64,\n65.]\n\nEvery human being, as we know, inevitably tends to emphasize some\naspects of that world, and to ignore others: to build up for himself a\nrelative universe. The choices which determine the universe of maturity\nare often made in youth; then the foundations are laid of that\napperceiving mass which is to condition all the man's contacts with\nreality. We ought, therefore, to show the universe to our young people\nfrom such an angle and in such a light, that they tend quite simply and\nwithout any objectionable intensity to select, emphasize and be\ninterested in its spiritual aspect. For this purpose we must never try\nto force our own reading of that universe upon them; but respect on the\none hand their often extreme sensitiveness and on the other the\ninfinitely various angles of approach proper to our infinitely various\nsouls. We should place food before them and leave them to browse. Only\nthose who have tried this experiment know what such an enlargement of\nthe horizon and enrichment of knowledge means to the eager, adolescent\nmind: how prompt is the response to any appeal which we make to its\nnascent sense of mystery. Yet whole schools of thought on these subjects\nare cheerfully ignored by the majority of our educationists; hence the\nunintelligent and indeed babyish view of religion which is harboured by\nmany adults, even of the intellectual class.\n\nThough the spiritual life has its roots in the heart not in the head,\nand will never be brought about by merely academic knowledge; yet, its\nbeginnings in adolescence are often lost, because young people are\ncompletely ignorant of the meaning of their own experiences, and the\nuniversal character of those needs and responses which they dimly feel\nstirring within them. They are too shy to ask, and no one ever tells\nthem about it in a business-like and unembarrassing way. This infant\nmortality in the spiritual realm ought not to be possible. Experience of\nGod is the greatest of the rights of man, and should not be left to\nbecome the casual discovery of the few. Therefore prayer ought to be\nregarded as a universal human activity, and its nature and difficulties\nshould be taught, but always in the sense of intercourse rather than of\nmere petition: keeping in mind the doctrine of the mystics that \"prayer\nin itself properly is not else but a devout intent directed unto\nGod.\"[147] We teach concentration for the purposes of study; but too\nseldom think of applying it to the purposes of prayer. Yet real prayer\nis a difficult art; which, like other ways of approaching Perfect\nBeauty, only discloses its secrets to those who win them by humble\ntraining and hard work. Shall we not try to find some method of showing\nour adolescents their way into this world, lying at our doors and\noffered to us without money and without price?\n\nAgain, many teachers and parents waste the religious instinct and\nemotional vigour which are often so marked in adolescence, by allowing\nthem to fritter themselves upon symbols which cannot stand against\nhostile criticism: for instance, some of, the more sentimental and\nanthropomorphic aspects of Christian devotion. Did we educate those\ninstincts, show the growing creature their meaning, and give them an\nobjective which did not conflict with the objectives of the developing\nintellect and the will, we should turn their passion into power, and lay\nthe foundations of a real spiritual life. We must remember that a good\ndeal of adolescent emotion is diverted by the conditions of school-life\nfrom its obvious and natural objective. This is so much energy set free\nfor other uses. We know how it emerges in hero-worship or in ardent\nfriendships; how it reinforces the social instinct and produces the\nteam-spirit, the intense devotion to the interests of his own gang or\ngroup which is rightly prominent in the life of many boys. The teacher\nhas to reckon with this funded energy and enthusiasm, and use it to\nfurther the highest interests of the growing child. By this I do not\nmean that he is to encourage an abnormal or emotional concentration on\nspiritual things. Most of the impulses of youth are wholesome, and\nsubserve direct ends. Therefore, it is not by taking away love,\nself-sacrifice, admiration, curiosity, from their natural objects that\nwe shall serve the best interests of spirituality: but, by enlarging the\nrange over which these impulses work--impulses, indeed, which no human\nobject can wholly satisfy, save in a sacramental sense. Two such natural\ntendencies, specially prominent in childhood, are peculiarly at the\ndisposal of the religious teacher: and should be used by him to the\nfull. It is in the sublimation of the instinct of comradeship that the\nsocial and corporate side of the spiritual life takes its rise, and in\nclosest connection with this impulse that all works of charity should be\nsuggested and performed. And on the individual side, all that is best,\nsafest and sweetest in the religious instinct of the child can be\nrelated to a similar enlargement of the instinct of filial trust and\ndependence. The educator is therefore working within the two most\nfundamental childish qualities, qualities provoked and fostered by all\nright family life, with its relation of love to parents, brothers,\nsisters and friends; and may gently lead out these two mighty impulses\nto a fulfilment which, at maturity, embrace God and the whole world. The\nwise teacher, then, must work with the instincts, not against them:\nencouraging all kindly social feelings, all vigorous self-expression,\nwonder, trustfulness, love. Recognizing the paramount importance of\nemotion--for without emotional colour no idea can be actual to us, and\nno deed thoroughly and vigorously performed--yet he must always be on\nhis guard against blocking the natural channels of human feeling, and\ngiving them the opportunity of exploding under pious disguises in the\nreligious sphere.\n\nHere it is that the danger of too emotional a type of religious training\ncomes in. Sentimentalism of all kinds is dangerous and objectionable,\nespecially in the education of girls, whom it excites and debilitates.\nBoys are more often merely alienated by it. In both cases, the method\nof presentation which regards the spiritual life simply as a normal\naspect of full human life is best. No artificial barrier should be set\nup between the sacred and the profane. The passion for truth and the\npassion for God should be treated as one: and that pursuit of knowledge\nfor its own sake, those adventurous explorations of the mind, in which\nthe more intelligent type of adolescent loves to try his growing powers,\nought to be encouraged in the spiritual sphere as elsewhere. The results\nof research into religious origins should be explained without\nreservation, and no intellectual difficulty should be dodged. The\nputting-off method of meeting awkward questions, now generally\nrecognized as dangerous in matters of natural history, is just as\ndangerous in the religious sphere. No teacher who is afraid to state his\nown position with perfect candour should ever be allowed to undertake\nthis side of education; nor any in whom there is a marked cleavage\nbetween the standard of conduct and the standard of thought. The healthy\nadolescent is prompt to perceive inconsistency and unsparing in its\ncondemnation.\n\nMoreover, a most careful discrimination is daily becoming more\nnecessary, in the teaching of traditional religion of a supernatural and\nnon-empirical type. Many of its elements must no doubt be retained by\nus, for the child-mind demands firm outlines and examples and imagery\ndrawn from the world of sense. Yet grave dangers are attached to it.\nOn, the one hand an exclusive reliance on tradition paves the way for\nthe disillusion which is so often experienced towards the end of\nadolescence, when it frequently causes a violent reaction to\nmaterialism. On the other hand it exposes us to a risk which we\nparticularly want to avoid: that of reducing the child's nascent\nspiritual life to the dream level, to a fantasy in which it satisfies\nwishes that outward life leaves unfulfilled. Many pious people,\nespecially those who tell us that their religion is a \"comfort\" to them,\ngo through life in a spiritual day-dream of this kind. Concrete life has\nstarved them of love, of beauty, of interest--it has given them no\nsynthesis which satisfies the passionate human search for meaning--and\nthey have found all this in a dream-world, made from the materials of\nconventional piety. If religion is thus allowed to become a ready-made\nday-dream it will certainly interest adolescents of a certain sort. The\nnaturally introverted type will become meditative; whilst their\nopposites, the extroverted or active type, will probably tend to be\nritualistic. But here again we are missing the essence of spiritual\nlife.\n\nOur aim should be to induce, in a wholesome way, that sense of the\nspiritual in daily experience which the old writers called the\nconsciousness of the of God. The monastic training in spirituality,\nslowly evolved under pressure of experience, nearly always did this. It\nhas bequeathed to us a funded wisdom of which we make little use; and\nthis, reinterpreted in the light of psychological knowledge, might I\nbelieve cast a great deal of light on the fundamental problems of\nspiritual education. We could if we chose take many hints from it, as\nregards the disciplining of the attention, the correct use of\nsuggestion, the teaching of meditation, the sublimation and direction to\nan assigned end of the natural impulse to reverie; above all, the\neducation of the moral life. For character-building as understood by\nthese old specialists was the most practical of arts.\n\nFurther, in all this teaching, those inward activities and responses to\nwhich we can give generally the name of prayer, and those outward\nactivities and deeds of service to which we can give the name of work,\nought to be trained together and never dissociated. They are the\ncomplementary and balanced expressions of one spirit of life: and must\nbe given together, under appropriately simple forms. Concrete\napplication of the child's energies, aptitudes and ideals must from the\nfirst run side by side with the teaching of principle. Young people\ntherefore should constantly be encouraged to face as practical and\ninteresting facts, not as formulae, those reactions to eternal and\nthis-world reality which used to be called our duty to God and our\nneighbour; and do concrete things proper to a real citizen of a really\ntheocratic world. They must be made to realize that nothing is truly\nours until we have expressed it in our deeds. Moreover, these deeds\nshould not be easy. They should involve effort and self-sacrifice; and\nalso some drudgery, which is worse. The spiritual life is only valued by\nthose on whom it makes genuine demands. Almost any kind of service will\ndo, which calls for attention, time and hard work. Though voluntary, it\nmust not be casual: but, once undertaken, should be regarded as an\nhonourable obligation. The Boy Scouts and Girl Guides have shown us how\nwide a choice of possible \"good deeds\" is offered by every community:\nand such a banding together of young people for corporate acts of\nservice is strongly to be commended. It encourages unselfish\ncomradeship, satisfies that \"gang-instinct\" which is a well-known\ncharacter of adolescence, and should leave no opening for\nself-consciousness, rivalry, and vanity in well-doing or in abnegation.\n\nWise educators find that a combined system of organized games in which\nthe social instinct can be expressed and developed, and of independent\nconstructive work, in which the creative impulse can find satisfaction,\nbest meets the corporate and creative needs of adolescence, favours the\nright development of character, and produces a harmonized life. On the\nlevel of the spiritual life too this principle is valid; and, guided by\nit, we should seek to give young people both corporate and personal work\nand experience. On the one hand, gregariousness is at its strongest in\nthe healthy adolescent, the force of public opinion is more intensely\nfelt than at any other time of life, that priceless quality the spirit\nof comradeship is most easily educed. We must therefore seek to give the\nspiritual life a vigorous corporate character; to make it \"good form\"\nfor the school, and to use the team-spirit in the choir and the guild as\nwell as in the cricket field. By an extension of this principle and\nunder the influence of a suitable teacher, the school-mob may be\ntransformed into a co-operative society animated by one joyous and\nunselfish spirit: all the great powers of social suggestion being freely\nused for the highest ends. Thus we may introduce the pupil, at his most\nplastic age, into a spiritual-social order and let him grow within it,\ndeveloping those qualities and skills on which it makes demands. The\nreligious exercises, whatever they are, should be in common, in order to\ndevelop the mass consciousness of the school and weld it into a real\ngroup. Music, songs, processions, etc., produce a feeling of unity, and\nencourage spiritual contagion. Services of an appropriate kind, if there\nbe a chapel, or the opening of school with prayer and a hymn (which\nought always to be followed by a short silence) provide a natural\nexpression for corporate religious feeling: and remember that to give a\nfeeling opportunity of voluntary expression is commonly to educe and\naffirm it. As regards active work, whilst school charities are an\nobvious field in which unselfish energies may be spent, many other\nopenings will be found by enthusiastic teachers, and by the pupils whom\ntheir enthusiasm has inspired.\n\nOn the other hand, the spare-time occupations of the adolescent; the\nindependent and self-chosen work, often most arduous and always\nabsorbing, of making, planning, learning about things--and most of us\ncan still remember how desperately important these seemed to us, whether\nour taste was for making engines, writing poetry, or collecting\nmoths--these are of the greatest importance for his development. They\ngive him something really his own, exercise his powers, train his\nattention, feed his creative instinct. They counteract those mechanical\nand conventional reactions to the world, which are induced by the merely\ntraditional type of education, either of manners or of mind. And here,\nin the prudent encouragement of a personal interest in and dealing with\nthe actual problems of conduct and even of belief--the most difficult of\nthe educator's tasks--we guard against the merely acquiescent attitude\nof much adult piety, and foster from the beginning a vigorous personal\ninterest, a first-hand contact with higher realities.\n\nThe heroic aspect of history may well form the second line in this\nattempt to capture education and use it in the interests of the\nspiritual life. By it we can best link up the actual and the ideal, and\ndemonstrate the single character of human greatness; whether it be\nexhibited, in the physical or the supersensual sphere. Such a\ndemonstration is most important; for so long as the spiritual life is\nregarded as merely a departmental thing, and its full development as a\nmatter for specialists or saints, it will never produce its full effect\nin human affairs. We must exhibit it as the full flower of that Reality\nwhich inspires all human life. _\"All_ kinds of skill,\" said Tauler, \"are\ngifts of the Holy Ghost,\" and he might have said, all kinds of beauty\nand all kinds of courage too.\n\nThe heroic makes a direct appeal to lads and girls, and is by far the\nsafest way of approach to their emotions. The chivalrous, the noble, the\ndesperately brave, attract the adolescent far more than passive\ngoodness. That strong instinct of subjection, of homage, which he shows\nin his hero-worship, is a most valuable tool in the hands of the teacher\nwho is seeking to lead him into greater fullness of life. Yet the range\nover which we seek material for his admiration is often deplorably\nnarrow. We have behind us a great spiritual history, which shows the\nhighest faculties of the soul in action: the power and the happiness\nthey bring. Do we take enough notice of it? What about our English\nsaints? I mean the real saints, not the official ones. Not St. George\nand St. Alban, about whom we know practically nothing: but, for\ninstance, Lancelot Andrewes, John Wesley, Elizabeth Fry, about whom we\nknow a great deal. Children, who find difficulty in general ideas, learn\nbest from particular instances. Yet boys and girls who can give a\ncoherent account of such stimulating personalities as Julius Caesar,\nWilliam the Conqueror, Henry VIII. and his wives, or Napoleon--none of\nwhom have so very much to tell us that bears on the permanent interests\nof the soul--do not as a rule possess any vivid idea, say, of Gautama,\nSt. Benedict, Gregory the Great, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis\nXavier, George Fox, St. Vincent de Paul and his friends: persons at\nleast as significant, and far better worth meeting, than the military\ncommanders and political adventurers of their time. The stories of the\nearly Buddhists, the Sufi saints, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius,\nthe early Quakers, the African missionaries, are full of things which\ncan be made to interest even a young child. The legends which have grown\nup round some of them satisfy the instinct that draws it to fairy tales.\nThey help it to dream well; and give to the developing mind food which\nit could assimilate in no other way. Older boys and girls, could they be\ngiven some idea of the spiritual heroes of Christendom as real men and\nwomen, without the nauseous note of piety which generally infects their\nbiographies, would find much to delight them: romance of the best sort,\nbecause concerned with the highest values, and stories of endurance and\ncourage such as always appeal to them. These people were not\nobjectionable pietists. They were persons of fullest vitality and\nimmense natural attraction; the pick of the race. We know that, by the\nnumbers who left all to follow them. Ought we not to introduce our\npupils to them; not as stuffed specimens, but as vivid human beings?\nSomething might be done to create the right atmosphere for this, on the\nlines suggested by Dr. Hayward in that splendid little book \"The Lesson\nin Appreciation.\" All that he says there about aesthetics, is applicable\nto any lesson dealing with the higher values of life. In this way, young\npeople would be made to realize the spiritual life; not as something\nabnormal and more or less conventionalized, but as a golden thread\nrunning right through human history, and making demands on just those\ndynamic qualities which they feel themselves to possess. The adolescent\nis naturally vigorous and combative, and wants, above all else,\nsomething worth fighting for. This, too often, his teachers forget to\nprovide.\n\nThe study of nature, and of aesthetics--including poetry--gives us yet\nanother way of approach. The child should be introduced to these great\nworlds of life and of beauty, and encouraged but never forced to feed on\nthe best they contain. By implication, but never by any method savouring\nof \"uplift,\" these subjects should be related with that sense of the\nspiritual and of its immanence in creation, which ought to inspire the\nteacher; and with which it is his duty to infect his pupils if he can.\nChildren may, very early, be taught or rather induced to look at natural\nthings with that quietness, attention, and delight which are the\nbeginnings of contemplation, and the conditions, under which nature\nreveals her real secrets to us. The child is a natural pagan, and often\nthe first appeal to its nascent spiritual faculty is best made through\nits instinctive joy in the life of animals and flowers, the clouds and\nthe winds. Here it may learn very easily that wonder and adoration,\nwhich are the gateways to the presence of God. In simple forms of verse,\nmusic, and rhythmical movement it can be encouraged--as the Salvation\nArmy has discovered--to give this happy adoration a natural, dramatic,\nand rhythmic expression: for the young child, as we know, reproduces the\nmental condition of the primitive, and primitive forms of worship will\nsuit it best.\n\nIt need hardly be said that education of the type we have been\nconsidering demands great gifts in the teacher: simplicity, enthusiasm,\nsympathy, and also a vigorous sense of humour, keeping him sharply aware\nof the narrow line that divides the priggish from the ideal. This\neducation ought to inspire, but it ought not to replace, the fullest and\nmost expert training of the body and mind; for the spirit needs a\nperfectly balanced machine, through which to express its life in the\nphysical world. The actual additions to curriculum which it demands may\nbe few: it is the attitude, the spirit, which must be changed.\nSpecifically moral education, the building of character, will of course\nform an essential part of it: in fact must be present within it from\nthe first. But this comes best without observation, and will be found to\ndepend chiefly on the character of the teacher, the love, admiration and\nimitation he evokes, the ethical tone he gives. Childhood is of all ages\nthe one most open to suggestion, and in this fact the educator finds at\nonce his best opportunity and greatest responsibility.\n\nRuysbroeck has described to us the three outstanding moral dispositions\nin respect of God, of man, and of the conduct of life, which mark the\ntrue man or woman of the Spirit; and it is in the childhood that the\ntendency to these qualities must be acquired. First, he says,--I\nparaphrase, since the old terms of moral theology are no longer vivid to\nus--there comes an attitude of reverent love, of adoration, towards all\nthat is holy, beautiful, or true. And next, from this, there grows up an\nattitude towards other men, governed by those qualities which are the\nessence of courtesy: patience, gentleness, kindness, and sympathy. These\nkeep us both supple and generous in our responses to our social\nenvironment. Last, our creative energies are transfigured by an\nenergetic love, an inward eagerness for every kind of work, which makes\nimpossible all slackness and dullness of heart, and will impel us to\nlive to the utmost the active life of service for which we are\nborn.[148]\n\nBut these moral qualities cannot be taught; they are learned by\nimitation and infection, and developed by opportunity of action. The\nbest agent of their propagation is an attractive personality in which\nthey are dominant; for we know the universal tendency of young people to\nimitate those whom they admire. The relation between parent and child or\nmaster and pupil is therefore the central factor in any scheme of\neducation which seeks to further the spiritual life. Only those who have\nalready become real can communicate the knowledge of Reality. It is from\nthe sportsman that we catch the spirit of fair-play, from the humble\nthat we learn humility. The artist shows us beauty, the saint shows us\nGod. It should therefore be the business of those in authority to search\nout and give scope to those who possess and are able to impart this\ntriumphing spiritual life. A head-master who makes his boys live at\ntheir highest level and act on their noblest impulses, because he does\nit himself, is a person of supreme value to the State. It would be well\nif we cleared our minds of cant, and acknowledged that such a man alone\nis truly able to educate; since the spiritual life is infectious, but\ncannot be propagated by artificial means.\n\nFinally, we have to remember that any attempt towards the education of\nthe spirit--and such an attempt must surely be made by all who accept\nspiritual values as central for life--can only safely be undertaken with\nfull knowledge of its special dangers and difficulties. These dangers\nand difficulties are connected with the instinctive and intellectual\nlife of the child and the adolescent, who are growing, and growing\nunevenly, during the whole period of training. They are supple as\nregards other forces than those which we bring to bear on them; open to\nsuggestion from many different levels of life.\n\nOur greatest difficulty abides in the fact that, as we have seen, a\nvigorous spiritual life must give scope to the emotions. It is above all\nthe heart rather than the mind which must be won for God. Yet, the\ngreatest care must be exercised to ensure that the appeal to the\nemotions is free from all possibility of appeal to latent and\nuncomprehended natural instincts. This peril, to which current\npsychology gives perhaps too much attention, is nevertheless real.\nCandid students of religious history are bound to acknowledge the\nunfortunate part which it has often played in the past. These natural\ninstincts fall into two great classes: those relating to\nself-preservation and those relating to the preservation of the race.\nThe note of fear, the exaggerated longing for shelter and protection,\nthe childish attitude of mere clinging dependence, fostered by religion\nof a certain type, are all oblique expressions of the instinct of\nself-preservation: and the rather feverish devotional moods and\nexuberant emotional expressions with which we are all familiar have,\nequally, a natural origin. Our task in the training of young people is\nto evoke enthusiasm, courage and love, without appealing to either of\nthese sources of excitement. Generally speaking, it is safe to say that\nfor this reason all sentimental and many anthropomorphic religious ideas\nare bad for lads and girls. These have, indeed, no part in that austere\nyet ardent love of God which inspires the real spiritual life.\n\nOur aim ought to be, to teach and impress the reality of Spirit, its\nregnancy in human life, whilst the mind is alert and supple: and so to\nteach and impress it, that it is woven into the stuff of the mental and\nmoral life and cannot seriously be injured by the hostile criticisms of\nthe rationalist. Remember, that the prime object of education is the\nmoulding of the unconscious and instinctive nature, the home of habit.\nIf we can give this the desired tendency and tone of feeling, we can\ntrust the rational mind to find good reasons with which to reinforce its\nattitudes and preferences. So it is not so much the specific belief, as\nthe whole spiritual attitude to existence which we seek to affirm; and\nthis will be done on the whole more effectively by the generalized\nsuggestions which come to the pupil from his own surroundings, and the\nlives of those whom he admires, than by the limited and special\nsuggestions of a creed. It is found that the less any desired motive is\nbound up with particular acts, persons, or ideas, the greater is the\nchance of its being universalized and made good for life all round. I do\nnot intend by this statement to criticize any particular presentation\nof religion. Nevertheless, educators ought to remember that a religion\nwhich is first entirely bound up with narrow and childish theological\nideas, and is then presented as true in the absolute sense, is bound to\nbreak down under greater knowledge or hostile criticism; and may then\ninvolve the disappearance of the religious impulse as a whole, at least\nfor a long period.\n\nDid we know our business, we ought surely to be able to ensure in our\nyoung people a steady and harmonious spiritual growth. The \"conversion\"\nor psychic convulsion which is sometimes regarded as an essential\npreliminary of any vivid awakening of the spiritual consciousness, is\nreally a tribute exacted by our wrong educational methods. It is a proof\nthat we have allowed the plastic creature confided to us to harden in\nthe wrong shape. But if, side by side and in simplest language, we teach\nthe conceptions: first, of God as the transcendent yet indwelling Spirit\nof love, of beauty and of power; next, of man's constant dependence on\nHim and possible contact with His nature in that arduous and loving act\nof attention which is the essence of prayer; last, of unselfish work and\nfellowship as the necessary expressions of all human ideals--then, I\nthink, we may hope to lay the foundations of a balanced and a wholesome\nlife, in which man's various faculties work together for good, and his\nvigorous instinctive life is directed to the highest ends.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 146: Spencer: \"Education,\" Cap. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 147: \"The Cloud of Unknowing,\" Cap. 39.]\n\n[Footnote 148: Ruysbroeck: \"The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,\"\nBk. I, Caps. 12-24.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND THE SOCIAL ORDER\n\n\nWe have come to the last chapter of this book; and I am conscious that\nthose who have had the patience to follow its argument from the\nbeginning, may now feel a certain sense of incompleteness. They will\nobserve that, though many things have been said about the life of the\nSpirit, not a great deal seems to have been said, at any rate directly,\nabout the second half of the title--the life of to-day--and especially\nabout those very important aspects of our modern active life which are\nresumed in the word Social. This avoidance has been, at least in part,\nintentional. We have witnessed in this century a violent revulsion from\nthe individualistic type of religion; a revulsion which parallels\nupon-its own levels, and indeed is a part of, the revolt from Victorian\nindividualism in political economic life. Those who come much into\ncontact with students, and with the younger and more vigorous clergy,\nare aware how far this revolt has proceeded: how completely, in the\nminds of those young people who are interested in religion, the Social\nGospel now overpowers all other aspects of the spiritual life. Again\nand again we are assured by the most earnest among them that in their\nview religion is a social activity, and service is its proper\nexpression: that all valid knowledge of God is social, and He is chiefly\nknown in mankind: that the use of prayer is mainly social, in that it\nimproves us for service, otherwise it must be condemned as a merely\nselfish activity: finally, that the true meaning and value of suffering\nare social too. A visitor to a recent Swanwick Conference of the Student\nChristian Movement has publicly expressed his regret that some students\nstill seemed to be concerned with the problems of their own spiritual\nlife; and were not prepared to let that look after itself, whilst they\nstarted straight off to work for the social realization of the Kingdom\nof God. When a great truth becomes exaggerated to this extent, and is\nheld to the exclusion of its compensating opposite, it is in a fair way\nto becoming a lie. And we have here, I think, a real confusion of ideas\nwhich will, if allowed to continue, react unfavourably upon the religion\nof the future; because it gives away the most sacred conviction of the\nidealist, the belief in the absolute character of spiritual values, and\nin the effort to win them as the great activity of man. Social service,\nsince it is one form of such an effort, a bringing in of more order,\nbeauty, joy, is a fundamental duty--the fundamental duty--of the active\nlife. Man does not truly love the Perfect until he is driven thus to\nseek its incarnation in the world of time. No one doubts this. All\nspiritual teachers have said it, in one way or another, for centuries.\nThe mere fact that they feel impelled to teach at all, instead of saying\n\"My secret to myself\"--which is so much easier and pleasanter to the\nnatural contemplative--is a guarantee of the claim to service which they\nfeel that love lays upon them. But this does not make such service of\nman, however devoted, either the same thing as the search for, response\nto, intercourse with God; or, a sufficient substitute for these\nspecifically spiritual acts.\n\nPlainly, we are called upon to strive with all our power to bring in the\nKingdom; that is, to incarnate in the time world the highest spiritual\nvalues which we have known. But our ability to do this is strictly\ndependent on those values being known, at least by some of us, at\nfirst-hand; and for this first-hand perception, as we have seen, the\nsoul must have a measure of solitude and silence. Therefore, if the\nswing-over to a purely social interpretation of religion be allowed to\ncontinue unchecked, the result can only be an impoverishment of our\nspiritual life; quite as far-reaching and as regrettable as that which\nfollows from an unbridled individualism. Without the inner life of\nprayer and-meditation, lived for its own sake and for no utilitarian\nmotive, neither our judgments upon the social order nor our active\nsocial service will be perfectly performed; because they will not be the\nchannel of Creative Spirit expressing itself through us in the world of\nto-day.\n\nChrist, it is true, gives nobody any encouragement for supposing that a\nmerely self-cultivating sort of spirituality, keeping the home fires\nburning and so on, is anybody's main job. The main job confided to His\nfriends is the preaching of the Gospel. That is, spreading Reality,\nteaching it, inserting it into existence; by prayers, words, acts, and\nalso if need be by manual work, and always under the conditions and\nsymbolisms of our contemporary world. But since we can only give others\nthat which we already possess, this presupposes that we have got\nsomething of Reality as a living, burning fire in ourselves. The soul's\ntwo activities of reception and donation must be held in balance, or\nimpotence and unreality will result. It is only out of the heart of his\nown experience that man really helps his neighbour: and thus there is an\nultimate social value in the most secret responses of the soul to grace.\nNo one, for instance, can help others to repentance who has not known it\nat first-hand. Therefore we have to keep the home fires burning, because\nthey are the fires which raise the steam that does the work: and we do\nthis mostly by the fuel with which we feed them, though partly too by\ngiving free access to currents of fresh air from the outer world.\n\nWe cannot read St. Paul's letters with sympathy and escape the\nconviction that in the midst of his great missionary efforts he was\nprofoundly concerned too with the problems of his own inner life. The\nlittle bits of self-revelation that break into the epistles and,\nthreaded together, show us the curve of his growth, also show us how\nmuch, lay behind them, how intense, and how exacting was the inward\ntravail that accompanied his outward deeds. Here he is representative of\nthe true apostolic type. It is because St. Augustine is the man of the\n\"Confessions\" that he is also the creator of \"The City of God.\" The\nregenerative work of St. Francis was accompanied by an unremitting life\nof penitence and recollection. Fox and Wesley, abounding in labours, yet\nnever relaxed the tension of their soul's effort to correspond with a\ntranscendent Reality. These and many other examples warn us that only by\nsuch a sustained and double movement can the man of the Spirit actualize\nall his possibilities and do his real work. He must, says Ruysbroeck,\n\"both ascend and descend with love.\"[149] On any other basis he misses\nthe richness of that fully integrated human existence \"swinging between\nthe unseen and the seen\" in which the social and individual,\nincorporated and solitary responses to the demands of Spirit are fully\ncarried through. Instead, he exhibits restriction and lack balance. This\nin the end must react as unfavourably on the social as on the personal\nside of life: since the place and influence of the spiritual life in the\nsocial order will depend entirely on its place in the individual\nconsciousness of which that social order will be built, the extent in\nwhich loyalty to the one Spirit governs their reactions to common daily\nexperience.\n\nHere then, as in so much else, the ideal is not an arbitrary choice but\na struck balance. First, a personal contact with Eternal Reality,\ndeepening, illuminating and enlarging all of our experience of fact, all\nour responses to it: that is, faith. Next, the fullest possible sense of\nour membership of and duty towards the social organism, a completely\nrich, various, heroic, self-giving, social life: that is, charity. The\ndissociation of these two sides of human experience is fatal to that\ndivine hope which should crown and unite them; and which represents the\nhuman instinct for novelty in a sublimated form.\n\nIt is of course true that social groups may be regenerated. The success\nof such group-formations as the primitive Franciscans, the Friends of\nGod, the Quakers, the Salvation Army, demonstrates this. But groups, in\nthe last resort, consist of individuals, who must each be regenerated\none by one; whose outlook, if they are to be whole men, must include in\nits span abiding values as well as the stream of time, and who, for the\nfull development of this their two-fold destiny, require each a measure\nboth of solitude and of association. Hence it follows, that the final\nanswer to the repeated question: \"Does God save men, does Spirit work\ntowards the regeneration of humanity (the same thing), one by one, or in\ngroups?\" is this: that the proposed alternative is illusory. We cannot\nsay that the Divine action in the world as we know it, is either merely\nsocial or merely individual; but both. And the next question--a highly\npractical question--is, \"How _both_?\" For the answer to this, if we can\nfind it, will give us at last a formula by which we can true up our own\neffort toward completeness of self-expression in the here-and-now.\n\nHow, then, are groups of men moved up to higher spiritual levels; helped\nto such an actual possession of power and love and a sound mind as shall\ntransfigure and perfect their lives? For this, more than all else, is\nwhat we now want to achieve. I speak in generalities, and of average\nhuman nature, not of these specially sensitive or gifted individuals who\nare themselves the revealers of Reality to their fellow-men.\n\nHistory suggests, I think, that this group-regeneration is effected in\nthe last resort through a special sublimation of the herd-instinct; that\nis, the full and willing use on spiritual levels of the characters which\nare inherent in human gregariousness.[150] We have looked at some of\nthese characters in past chapters. Our study of them suggests, that the\nfirst stage in any social regeneration is likely to be brought about by\nthe instinctive rallying of individuals about a natural leader, strong\nenough to compel and direct them; and whose appeal is to the impulsive\nlife, to an acknowledged of unacknowledged lack or craving, not to the\nfaculty of deliberate choice. This leader, then, must offer new life and\nlove, not intellectual solutions. He must be able to share with his\nflock his own ardour and apprehension of Reality; and evoke from them\nthe profound human impulse to imitation. They will catch his enthusiasm,\nand thus receive the suggestions of his teaching and of his life. This\nfirst stage, supremely illustrated in the disciples of Christ, and again\nin the groups who gathered round such men as St. Francis, Fox, or Booth,\nis re-experienced in a lesser way in every successful revival: and each\ngenuine restoration of the life of Spirit, whether its declared aim be\nsocial or religious, has a certain revivalistic character. We must\ntherefore keep an eye on these principles of discipleship and contagion,\nas likely to govern any future spiritualization of our own social life;\nlooking for the beginnings of true reconstruction, not to the general\ndissemination of suitable doctrines, but to the living burning influence\nof an ardent soul. And I may add here, as the corollary of this\nconclusion, first that the evoking and fostering of such ardour is in\nitself a piece of social service of the highest value, and next that it\nmakes every individual socially responsible for the due sharing of even\nthe small measure of ardour, certitude or power he or she has received.\nWe are to be conductors of the Divine energy; not to insulate it. There\nis of course nothing new in all this: but there is nothing new\nfundamentally in the spiritual life, save in St. Augustine's sense of\nthe eternal youth and freshness of all beauty.[151] The only novelty\nwhich we can safely introduce will be in the terms in which we describe\nit; the perpetual new exhibition of it within the time-world, the fresh\nand various applications which we can give to its abiding laws, in the\nspecial circumstances and opportunities of our own day.\n\nBut the influence of the crowd-compeller, the leader, whether in the\ncrude form of the revivalist or in the more penetrating and enduring\nform of the creative mystic or religious founder, the loyalty and\nimitation of the disciple, the corporate and generalized enthusiasm of\nthe group can only be the first educative phase in any veritable\nincarnation of Spirit upon earth. Each member of the herd is now\ncommitted to the fullest personal living-out of the new life he has\nreceived. Only in so far as the first stage of suggestion and imitation\nis carried over to the next stage of personal actualization, can we say\nthat there is any real promotion of spiritual _life_: any hope that this\nlife will work a true renovation of the group into which it has been\ninserted and achieve the social phase.\n\nIf, then, it does achieve the social phase what stages may we expect it\nto pass through, and by what special characters will it be graced?\n\nLet us look back for a moment at some of our conclusions about the\nindividual life. We said that this life, if fully lived, exhibited the\nfour characters of work and contemplation, self-discipline and service:\ndeepening and incarnating within its own various this-world experience\nits other-world apprehensions of Eternity, of God. Its temper should\nthus be both social and ascetic. It should be doubly based, on humility\nand on given power. Now the social order--more exactly, the social\norganism--in which Spirit is really to triumph, can only be built up of\nindividuals who do with a greater or less perfection and intensity\nexhibit these characters, some upon independent levels of creative\nfreedom, some on those of discipleship: for here all men are not equal,\nand it is humbug to pretend that they are. This social order, being so\nbuilt of regenerate units, would be dominated by these same implicits of\nthe regenerate consciousness; and would tend to solve in their light the\nspecial problems of community life. And this unity of aim would really\nmake of it one body; the body of a fully socialized _and_ fully\nspiritualized humanity, which perhaps we might without presumption\ndescribe as indeed the son of God.\n\nThe life of such a social organism, its growth, its cycle of corporate\nbehaviour, would be strung on that same fourfold cord which combined the\ndesires and deeds of the regenerate self into a series: namely,\nPenitence, Surrender, Recollection, and Work. It would be actuated first\nby a real social repentance. That is, by a turning from that constant\ncapitulation to its past, to animal and savage impulse, the power of\nwhich our generation at least knows only too well; and by the\ncomplementary effort to unify vigorous instinctive action and social\nconscience. I think every one can find for themselves some sphere,\nnational, racial, industrial, financial, in which social penitence could\nwork; and the constant corporate fall-back into sin, which we now\ndisguise as human nature, or sometimes--even more insincerely--as\neconomic and political necessity, might be faced and called by its true\nname. Such a social penitence--such a corporate realization of the mess\nthat we have made of things--is as much a direct movement of the Spirit,\nand as great an essential of regeneration, as any individual movement of\nthe broken and contrite heart.\n\nCould a quick social conscience, aware of obligations to Reality which\ndo not end with making this world a comfortable place--though we have\nnot even managed that for the majority of men--feel quite at ease, say,\nafter an unflinching survey of our present system of State punishment?\nOr after reading the unvarnished record of our dealings with the problem\nof Indian immigration into Africa? Or after considering the inner nature\nof international diplomacy and finance? Or even, to come nearer home,\nafter a stroll through Hoxton: the sort of place, it is true, which we\nhave not exactly made on purpose but which has made itself because we\nhave not, as a community, exercised our undoubted powers of choice and\naction in an intelligent and loving way. Can we justify the peculiar\ncharacteristics of Hoxton: congratulate ourselves on the amount of\nlight, air and beauty which its inhabitants enjoy, the sort of children\nthat are reared in it, as the best we can do towards furthering the\nracial aim? It is a monument of stupidity no less than of meanness. Yet\nthe conception of God which the whole religious experience of growing\nman presses on us, suggests that both intelligence and love ought to\ncharacterize His ideal for human life. Look then at these, and all the\nother things of the same kind. Look at our attitude towards\nprostitution, at the drink traffic, at the ugliness and injustice of the\nmany institutions which we allow to endure. Look at them in the\nUniversal Spirit; and then consider, whether a searching corporate\nrepentance is not really the inevitable preliminary of a social and\nspiritual advance. All these things have happened because we have as a\nbody consistently fallen below our best possible, lacked courage to\nincarnate our vision in the political sphere. Instead, we have, acted on\nthe crowd level, swayed by unsublimated instincts of acquisition,\ndisguised lust, self-preservation, self-assertion, and ignoble fear: and\nsuch a fall-back is the very essence of social sin.\n\nWe have made many plans and elevations; but we have not really tried to\nbuild Jerusalem either in our own hearts or in \"England's pleasant\nland.\" Blake thought that the preliminary of such a building up of the\nharmonious social order must be the building up or harmonizing of men,\nof each man; and when this essential work was really done, Heaven's\n\"Countenance Divine\" would suddenly declare itself \"among the dark\nSatanic mills.\"[152] What was wrong with man, and ultimately therefore\nwith society, was the cleavage between his \"Spectre\" or energetic\nintelligence, and \"Emanation\" or loving imagination. Divided, they only\ntormented one another. United, they were the material of divine\nhumanity. Now the complementary affirmative movement which shall balance\nand complete true social penitence will be just such a unification and\ndedication of society's best energies and noblest ideals, now commonly\nseparated. The Spectre is attending to economics: the Emanation is\ndreaming of Utopia. We want to see them united, for from this union\nalone will come the social aspect for surrender. That is to say, a\nsingle-minded, unselfish yielding to those good social impulses which we\nall feel from time to time, and might take more seriously did, we\nrealize them as the impulsions of holy and creative Spirit pressing us\ntowards novelty, giving us our chance; our small actualization of the\nuniversal tendency to the Divine. As it is, we do feel a little\nuncomfortable when these stirrings reach us; but commonly console\nourselves with the thought that their realization is at present outside\nthe sphere of practical politics. Yet the obligation of response to\nthose stirrings is laid on all who feel them; and unless some will first\nmake this venture of faith, our possible future will never be achieved.\nChrist was born among those who _expected_ the Kingdom of God. The\nfavouring atmosphere of His childhood is suggested by these words. It is\nour business to prepare, so far as we may, a favourable atmosphere and\nenvironment for the children who will make the future: and this\nenvironment is not anything mysterious, it is simply ourselves. The men\nand women who are now coming to maturity, still supple to experience and\ncapable of enthusiastic and disinterested choice--that is, of surrender\nin the noblest sense--will have great opportunities of influencing those\nwho are younger than themselves. The torch is being offered to them; and\nit is of vital importance to the unborn future that they should grasp\nand hand it on, without worrying about whether their fingers are going\nto be burnt. If they do grasp it, they may prove to be the bringers in\nof a new world, a fresh and vigorous social order, which is based upon\ntrue values, controlled by a spiritual conception of life; a world in\nwhich this factor is as freely acknowledged by all normal persons, as is\nthe movement of the earth round the sun.\n\nI do not speak here of fantastic dreams about Utopias, or of the\ncoloured pictures of the apocalyptic imagination; but of a concrete\ngenuine possibility, at which clear-sighted persons have hinted again\nand again. Consider our racial past. Look at the Piltdown skull:\nreconstruct the person or creature whose brain that skull contained, and\nactualize the directions in which his imperious instincts, his vaguely\nconscious will and desire, were pressing into life. They too were\nexpressions of Creative Spirit; and there is perfect continuity between\nhis vital impulse and our own. Now, consider one of the better\nachievements of civilization; say the life of a University, with its\ndevotion to disinterested learning, its conservation of old beauty and\nquest of new truth. Even if we take its lowest common measure, the\ntransfiguration of desire is considerable. Yet in the things of the\nSpirit we must surely acknowledge ourselves still to be primitive men;\nand no one can say that it yet appears what we shall be. All really\ndepends on the direction in which human society decides to push into\nexperience, the surrender which it makes to the impulsion of the Spirit;\nhow its tendency to novelty is employed, the sort of complex habits\nwhich are formed by it, as more and more crude social instinct is lifted\nup into conscious intention, and given the precision of thought.\n\nIn our regenerate society, then, if we ever get it, the balanced moods\nof Repentance of our racial past and Surrender to our spiritual calling,\nthe pull-forward of the Spirit of Life even in its most austere\ndifficult demands, will control us; as being the socialized extensions\nof these same attitudes of the individual soul. And they will press the\ncommunity to those same balanced expressions of its instinct for\nreality, which completed the individual life: that is to say, to\nRecollection and Work. In the furnishing of a frame for the regular\nsocial exercise of recollection--the gathering in of the corporate mind\nand its direction to eternal values, the abiding foundations of\nexistence; the consideration of all its problems in silence and peace;\nthe dramatic and sacramental expression of its unity and of its\ndependence on the higher powers of life--in all this, the institutional\nreligion of the future will perhaps find its true sphere of action, and\ntake its rightful place in the socialized life of the Spirit.\n\nFinally, the work which is done by a community of which the inner life\nis controlled by these three factors will be the concrete expression of\nthese factors in the time-world; and will perpetuate and hand on all\nthat is noble, stable and reasonable in human discovery and tradition,\nwhether in the sphere of conduct, of thought, of creation, of manual\nlabour, or the control of nature, whilst remaining supple towards the\ndemands and gifts of novelty. New value will be given to craftsmanship\nand a sense of dedication--now almost unknown--to those who direct it.\nConsider the effect of this attitude on worker, trader, designer,\nemployer: how many questions would then answer themselves, how many sore\nplaces would be healed.\n\nIt is not necessary, in order to take sides with this possible new\norder and work for it, that we should commit ourselves to any one party\nor scheme of social reform. Still less is it necessary to suppose such\nreform the only field in which the active and social side of the\nspiritual life is to be lived. Repentance, surrender, recollection and\nindustry can do their transfiguring work in art, science, craftsmanship,\nscholarship, and play: making all these things more representative of\nreality, nearer our own best possible, and so more vivid and worth\nwhile. If Tauler was right, and all kinds of skill are gifts of the Holy\nGhost--a proposition which no thorough-going theist can refuse--then\nwill not a reference back on the part of the worker to that fontal\nsource of power make for humility and perfection in all work? Personally\nI am not at all afraid to recognize a spiritual element in all good\ncraftsmanship, in the delighted and diligent creation of the fine\npotter, smith or carpenter, in the well-tended garden and beehive, the\nperfectly adjusted home; for do not all these help the explication of\nthe one Spirit of Life in the diversity of His gifts?\n\nThe full life of the Spirit must be more rich and various in its\nexpression than any life that we have yet known, and find place for\nevery worthy and delightful activity. It does not in the least mean a\nbloodless goodness; a refusal of fun and everlasting fuss about uplift.\nBut it does mean looking at and judging each problem in a particular\nlight, and acting on that judgment without fear. Were this principle\nestablished, and society poised on this centre, reforms would follow its\napplication almost automatically; specific evils would retreat. New\nknowledge of beauty would reveal the ugliness of many satisfactions\nwhich we now offer to ourselves, and new love the defective character of\nmany of our social relations. Certain things would therefore leave off\nhappening, would go; because the direction of desire had changed. I do\nnot wish to particularize, for this only means blurring the issue by\nputting forward one's own pet reforms. But I cannot help pointing out\nthat we shall never get spiritual values out of a society harried and\ntormented by economic pressure, or men and women whose whole attention\nis given up to the daily task of keeping alive. This is not a political\nstatement: it is a plain fact that we must face. Though the courageous\nlives of the poor, their patient endurance of insecurity may reveal a\nnobility that shames us, it still remains true that these lives do not\nrepresent the most favourable conditions of the soul. It is not poverty\nthat matters; but strain and the presence of anxiety and fear, the\nimpossibility of detachment. Therefore this oppression at least would\nhave to be lightened, before the social conscience could be at ease.\nMoreover as society advances along this way, every--even the most\nsubtle--kind of cruelty and exploitation of self-advantage obtained to\nthe detriment of other individuals, must tend to be eliminated; because\nhere the drag-back of the past will be more and more completely\nconquered, its instincts fully sublimated, and no one will care to do\nthose things any more. Bringing new feelings and more real concepts to\nour contact with our environment, we shall, in accordance with the law\nof apperception, see this environment in a different way; and so obtain\nfrom it a fresh series of experiences. The scale of pain and pleasure\nwill be altered. We shall feel a searching responsibility about the way\nin which our money is made, and about any disadvantages to others which\nour amusements or comforts may involve.\n\nHere, perhaps, it is well to register a protest against the curious but\nprevalent notion that any such concentrated effort for the\nspiritualization of society must tend to work itself out in the\ndirection of a maudlin humanitarianism, a soft and sentimental reading\nof life. This idea merely advertises once more the fact that we still\nhave a very mean and imperfect conception of God, and have made the\nmistake of setting up a water-tight bulkhead; between His revelation, in\nnature and His discovery in the life of prayer. It shows a failure to\nappreciate the stern, heroic aspect of Reality; the element of austerity\nin all genuine religion, the distinction between love and\nsentimentalism, the rightful place of risk, effort, even suffering, in\nall full achievement and all joy. If we are surrendered in love to the\npurposes of the Spirit, we are committed to the bringing out of the\nbest possible in life; and this is a hard business, involving a quite\ndefinite social struggle with evil and atavism, in which some one is\nlikely to be hurt. But surely that manly spirit of adventure which has\ndriven men to the North Pole and the desert, and made them battle with\ndelight against apparently impossible odds, can here find its\nappropriate sublimation?\n\nIf anyone who has followed these arguments, and now desires to bring\nthem from idea into practice, asks: \"What next?\" the answer simply\nis--Begin. Begin with ourselves; and if possible, do not begin in\nsolitude. \"The basal principles of all collective life,\" says McDougall,\n\"are sympathetic contagion, mass suggestion, imitation\":[153] and again\nand again the history of spiritual experience illustrates this law, that\nits propagation is most often by way of discipleship and the corporate\nlife, not by the intensive culture of purely solitary effort. It is for\nthose who believe in the spiritual life to take full advantage now of\nthis social suggestibility of man; though without any detraction from\nthe prime importance of the personal spiritual life. Therefore, join up\nwith somebody, find fellowship; whether it be in a church or society, or\namong a few like-minded friends. Draw together for mutual support, and\nface those imperatives of prayer and work which we have seen to be the\ncondition of the fullest living-out of our existence. Fix and keep a\nreasonably balanced daily rule. Accept leadership where you find\nit--give it, if you feel the impulse and the strength. Do not wait for\nsome grand opportunity, and whilst you are waiting stiffen in the wrong\nshape. The great opportunity may not be for us, but for the generation\nwhose path we now prepare: and we do our best towards such preparation,\nif we begin in a small and humble way the incorporation of our hopes and\ndesires as for instance Wesley and the Oxford Methodists did. They\nsought merely to put their own deeply felt ideas into action quite\nsimply and without fuss; and we know how far the resulting impulse\nspread. The Bab movement in the East, the Salvation Army at home, show\nus this principle still operative; what a \"little flock\" dominated by a\nsuitable herd-leader and swayed by love and adoration can do--and these,\nlike Christianity itself, began as small and inconspicuous groups. It\nmay be that our hope for the future depends on the formation of such\ngroups--hives of the Spirit--in which the worker of every grade, the\nthinker, the artist, might each have their place: obtaining from\nincorporation the herd-advantages of mutual protection and unity of aim,\nand forming nuclei to which others could adhere.\n\nSuch a small group--and I am now thinking of something quite practical,\nsay to begin with a study-circle, or a company of like-minded friends\nwith a definite rule of life--may not seem to the outward eye very\nimpressive. Regarded as a unit, it will even tend to be inferior to its\nbest members: but it will be superior to the weakest, and with its\nleader will possess a dynamic character and reproductive power which he\ncould never have exhibited alone. It should form a compact organization,\nboth fervent and business-like; and might take as its ideal a\ncombination of the characteristic temper of the contemplative order,\nwith that of active and intelligent Christianity as seen in the best\ntype of social settlement. This double character of inwardness and\npracticality seems to me to be essential to its success; and\nincorporation will certainly help it to be maintained. The rule should\nbe simple and unostentatious, and need indeed be little more than the\n\"heavenly rule\" of faith, hope, and charity. This will involve first the\nrealization of man's true life within a spiritual world-order, his utter\ndependence upon its realities and powers of communion with them; next\nhis infinite possibilities of recovery and advancement; last his duty of\nlove to all other selves and things. This triple law would be applied\nwithout shirking to every problem of existence; and the corporate spirit\nwould be encouraged by meetings, by associated prayer, and specially I\nhope by the practice of corporate silence. Such a group would never\npermit the intrusion of the controversial element, but would be based on\nmutual trust; and the fact that all the members shared substantially the\nsame view of human life, strove though in differing ways for the same\nideals, were filled by the same enthusiasms, would allow the problems\nand experiences of the Spirit to be accepted as real, and discussed with\nfrankness and simplicity. Thus oases of prayer and clear thinking might\nbe created in our social wilderness, gradually developing such power and\ngroup-consciousness as we see in really living religious bodies. The\ngroup would probably make some definite piece of social work, or some\ndefinite question, specially its own. Seeking to judge the problem this\npresented in the Universal Spirit, it would work towards a solution,\nusing for this purpose both heart and head. It would strive in regard to\nthe special province chosen and solution reached to make its weight\nfelt, either locally or nationally, in a way the individual could never\nhope to do; and might reasonably hope that its conclusions and its\nactions would exceed in balance and sanity those which any one of the\nmembers could have achieved alone.\n\nI think that these groups would develop their own discipline, not borrow\nits details from the past: for they would soon find that some drill was\nnecessary to them, and that luxury, idleness, self-indulgence and\nindifference to the common-good were in conflict with the inner spirit\nof the herd. They would inevitably come to practise that sane\nasceticism, not incompatible with gaiety of heart, which consists in\nconcentration on the real, and quiet avoidance of the attractive sham.\nPlainness and simplicity do help the spiritual life, and these are more\neasy and wholesome when practised in common than when they are displayed\nby individuals in defiance of the social order that surrounds them. The\ndifferences of temperament and of spiritual level in the group members\nwould prevent monotony; and insure that variety of reaction to the life\nof the Spirit which we so much wish to preserve. Those whose chief gift\nwas for action would thus be directly supported by those natural\ncontemplatives who might, if they remained in solitude, find it\ndifficult to make their special gift serve their fellows as it must.\nGroup-consciousness would cause the spreading and equalization of that\nspiritual sensitiveness which is, as a matter of fact, very unequally\ndistributed amongst men. And in the backing up of the predominantly\nactive workers by the organized prayerful will of the group, all the\nreal values of intercession would be obtained: for this has really\nnothing to do with trying to persuade God to do specific acts, it is a\nparticular way of exerting love, and thus of reaching and using\nspiritual power.\n\nThis incorporation, as I see it, would be made for the express purpose\nof getting driving force with which to act directly upon life. For\nspirituality, as we have seen all along, must not be a lovely fluid\nnotion or a merely self-regarding education; but an education for\naction, for the insertion of eternal values into the time-world, in\nconformity with the incarnational philosophy which justifies it. Such\naction--such Insertion--depends on constant recourse to the sources of\nspiritual power. At present we tend to starve our possible centres of\nregeneration, or let them starve themselves, by our encouragement of the\nactive at the expense of the contemplative life; and till this is\nmended, we shall get nothing really done. Forgetting St. Teresa's\nwarning, that to give our Lord a perfect service, Martha and Mary must\ncombine,[154] we represent the service of man as being itself an\nattention to God; and thus drain our best workers of their energies, and\nleave them no leisure for taking in Fresh supplies. Often they are\nwearied and confused by the multiplicity in which they must struggle;\nand they are not taught and encouraged to seek the healing experience of\nunity. Hence even our noblest teachers often show painful signs of\nspiritual exhaustion, and tend to relapse into the formal repetition of\na message which was once a burning fire.\n\nThe continued force of any regenerative movement depends above all else\non continued vivid contact with the Divine order, for the problems of\nthe reformer are only really understood and seen in true proportion in\nits light. Such contact is not always easy: it is a form of work. After\na time the weary and discouraged will need the support of discipline if\nthey are to do it. Therefore definite role of silence and\nwithdrawal--perhaps an extension of that system of periodical retreats\nwhich is one of the most hopeful features of contemporary religious\nlife--is essential to any group-scheme for the general and social\nfurtherance of the spiritual life. It is not to be denied for a moment,\nthat countless good men and women who love the world in the divine and\nnot in the self-regarding sense, are busy all their lives long in\nforwarding the purposes of the Spirit: which is acting through them, as\ntruly as through the conscious prophets and regenerators of the race.\nBut, to return for a moment to psychological language, whilst the Divine\nimpulsion remains for us below the threshold, it is not doing all that\nit could for us nor we all that we could do for it; for we are not\ncompletely unified. We can by appropriate education bring up that\nimperative yet dim impulsion to conscious realization, and wittingly\ndedicate to its uses our heart, mind and will; and such realization in\nits most perfect form appears to be the psychological equivalent of the\nstate which is described by spiritual writers, in their own special\nlanguage, as \"union with God.\"\n\nI have been at some pains to avoid the use of this special language of\nthe mystics; but now perhaps we may remind ourselves that, by the\ndeclaration of all who have achieved it, the mature spiritual life is\nsuch a condition of completed harmony--such a theopathetic state.\nTherefore here to-day, in the worst confusions of our social scramble,\nno less that in the Indian forest or the mediaeval cloister, man's really\nreligious method and self-expression must be harmonious with a\nlife-process of which this is the recognized if distant goal: and in all\nthe work of restatement, this abiding objective must be kept in view.\nSuch union, such full identification with the Divine purpose, must be a\nsocial as well as an individual expression of full life. It cannot be\nsatisfied by the mere picking out of crumbs of perfection from the\nwelter, but must mean in the end that the real interests of society are\nindentical with the interests of Creative Spirit, in so far as these are\nfelt and known by man; the interests, that is, of a love that is energy\nand an energy that is love. Towards this identification, the willed\ntendency of each truly awakened individual must steadfastly be set; and\nalso the corporate desire of each group, as expressed in its prayer and\nwork. For the whole secret of life lies in directed desire.\n\nA wide-spreading love to all in common, says Ruysbroeck in a celebrated\npassage, is the authentic mark of a truly spiritual man.[155] In this\nphrase is concealed the link between the social and personal aspects of\nthe spiritual life. It means that our passional nature with its cravings\nand ardours, instead of making self-centred whirlpools, flows out in\nstreams of charity and power towards all life. And we observe too that\nthe Ninth Perfection of the Buddhist is such a state of active charity.\n\"In his loving, sympathizing, joyful and steadfast mind he will\nrecognize himself in all things, and will shed warmth and light on the\nworld in all directions out of his great, deep, unbounded heart.\"[156]\n\nLet this, then, be the teleological objective on which the will and the\ndesire of individual and group are set: and let us ask what it involves,\nand how it is achieved. It involves all the ardour, tenderness and\nidealism of the lover, spent not on one chosen object but on all living\nthings. Thus it means an immense widening of the arc of human sympathy;\nand this it is not possible to do properly, unless we have found the\ncentre of the circle first. The glaring defect of current religion--I\nmean the vigorous kind, not the kind that is responsible for empty\nchurches--is that it spends so much time in running round the arc, and\nrather takes the centre for granted. We see a great deal of love in\ngenerous-minded people, but also a good many gaps in it which reference\nto the centre might help us to find and to mend. Some Christian people\nseem to have a difficulty about loving reactionaries, and some about\nloving revolutionaries. And in institutional religion there are people\nof real ardour, called by those beautiful names Catholic and\nEvangelical, who do not seem able to see each other in the light of this\nwide-spreading love. Yet they would meet at the centre. And it is at the\ncentre that the real life of the Spirit aims first; thence flowing out\nto the circumference--even to its most harsh, dark, difficult and\nrugged limits--in unbroken streams of generous love.\n\nSuch love is creative. It does not flow along the easy paths, spending\nitself on the attractive. It cuts new channels, goes where it is needed,\nand has as its special vocation--a vocation identical with that of the\ngreat artist--the \"loving of the unlovely into lovableness.\" Thus does\nit participate according to its measure in the work of Divine\nincarnation. This does not mean a maudlin optimism, or any other kind of\nsentimentality; for as we delve more deeply into life, we always leave\nsentimentality behind. But it does mean a love which is based on a deep\nunderstanding of man's slow struggles and of the unequal movements of\nlife, and is expressed in both arduous and highly skillful actions. It\nmeans taking the grimy, degraded, misshapen, and trying to get them\nright; because we feel that essentially they can be right. And further,\nof course, it means getting behind them to the conditions that control\ntheir wrongness; and getting these right if we can. Consider what human\nsociety would be if each of its members--not merely occasional\nphilanthropists, idealists or saints, but financiers, politicians,\ntraders, employers, employed--had this quality of spreading a creative\nlove: if the whole impulse of life in every man and woman were towards\nsuch a harmony, first with God, and then with all other things and\nsouls. There is nothing unnatural in this conception. It only means that\nour vital energy would flow in its real channel at last. Where then\nwould be our most heart-searching social problems? The social order then\nwould really be an order; tallying with St. Augustine's definition of a\nvirtuous life as the ordering of love.\n\nWhat about the master and the worker in such a possibly regenerated\nsocial order? Consider alone the immense release of energy for work\nneeding to be done, if the civil wars of civilized man could cease and\nbe replaced by that other mental fight, for the upbuilding of Jerusalem:\nhow the impulse of Creative Spirit, surely working in humanity, would\nfind the way made clear. Would not this, at last, actualize the Pauline\ndream, of each single citizen as a member of the Body of Christ? It is\nbecause we are not thus attuned to life, and surrendered to it, that our\nsocial confusion arises; the conflict of impulse within society simply\nmirrors the conflict of impulse within each individual mind.\n\nWe know that some of the greatest movements of history, veritable\ntransformations of the group-mind, can be traced back to a tiny\nbeginning in the faithful spiritual experience and response of some one\nman, his contact with the centre which started the ripples of creative\nlove. If, then, we could elevate such universalized individuals into the\nposition of herd-leaders, spread their secret, persuade society first to\nimitate them, and then to share their point of view, the real and sane,\nbecause love-impelled social revolution might begin. It will begin, when\nmore and ever more people find themselves unable to participate in, or\nreap advantage from, the things which conflict with love: when tender\nemotion in man is so universalized, that it controls the instincts of\nacquisitiveness and of self-assertion. There are already for each of us\nsome things in which we cannot participate, because they conflict too\nflagrantly with some aspect of our love, either for truth, or for\njustice, or for humanity, or for God; and these things each individual,\naccording to his own level of realization, is bound to oppose without\ncompromise. Most of us have enough widespreading love to be--for\ninstance--quite free from temptation to be cruel, at any rate directly,\nto children or to animals. I say nothing about the indirect tortures\nwhich our sloth and insensitiveness still permit. Were these first\nflickers made ardent, and did they control all our reactions to\nlife--and there is nothing abnormal, no break in continuity involved in\nthis, only a reasonable growth--then, new paths of social discharge\nwould have been made for-our chief desires and impulses; and along these\nthey would tend more and more to flow freely and easily, establishing\nnew social-habits, unhampered by solicitations from our savage past. To\nus already, on the whole, these solicitations are less insistent than\nthey were to the men of earlier centuries. We see their gradual defeat\nin slave emancipation, factory acts, increased religious tolerance,\nevery movement towards social justice, every increase of the arc over\nwhich our obligations to other men obtain. They must now disguise\nthemselves as patriotic or economic necessities, if we are to listen to\nthem: as, in the Freudian dream, our hidden unworthy wishes slip through\ninto consciousness in a symbolic form. But when their energy has been\nfully sublimated, the social action will no longer be a conflict but a\nharmony. Then we shall live the life of Spirit; and from this life will\nflow all love-inspired reform.\n\nYet we are, above all, to avoid the conclusion that the spiritual life,\nin its social expression, shall necessarily push us towards mere change;\nthat novelty contains everything, and stability nothing, of the will of\nthe Spirit for the race. Surely our aim shall be this: that religious\nsensitiveness shall spread, as our discovery of religion in the universe\nspreads, so that at last every man's reaction to the whole of experience\nshall be entinctured with Reality, coloured by this dominant\nfeeling-tone. Spirit would then work from within outwards, and all life\npersonal and social, mental and physical, would be moulded by its\ninspiring power. And in looking here for our best hope of development,\nwe remain safely within history; and do not strive for any desperate\npulling down or false simplification of our complex existence, such as\nhas wrecked many attempts to spiritualize society in the past.\n\nConsider the way by which we have come. We found in man an instinct for\na spiritual Reality. A single, concrete, objective Fact, transcending\nyet informing his universe, compels his adoration, and is apperceived by\nhim in three main ways. First, as the very Being, Heart and Meaning of\nthat universe, the universal of all universals, next as a Presence\nincluding and exceeding the best that personality can mean to him, last\nas an indwelling and energizing Life. We saw in history the persistent\nemergence of a human type so fully aware of this Reality as to subdue to\nits interests all the activities of life; ever seeking to incarnate its\nabiding values in the world of time. And further, psychology suggested\nto us, even in its tentative new findings, its exploration of our\nstrange mental deeps, reason for holding such surrender to the purposes\nof the Spirit to represent the condition of man's fullest psychic\nhealth, and access to his real sources of power. We found in the\nuniversal existence of religious institutions further evidence of this\nprofound human need of spirituality. We saw there the often sharp and\nsky-piercing intensity of the individual aptitude for Reality enveloped,\ntempered and made wholesome by the social influences of the cultus and\nthe group: made too, available for the community by the symbolisms that\ncultus had preserved. So that gradually the life of the Spirit emerged\nfor us as something most actual, not archaic: a perennial possibility of\nnewness, of regeneration, a widening of our span of pain and joy. A\nhuman fact, completing and most closely linked with those other human\nfacts, the vocation to service, to beauty, to truth. A fact, then,\nwhich must control our view of personal self-discipline, of education,\nand of social effort: since it refers to the abiding Reality which alone\ngives all these their meaning and worth, and which man, consciously or\nunconsciously, must pursue.\n\nAnd last, if we ask as a summing up of the whole matter: _Why_ man is\nthus to seek the Eternal, through, behind and within the ever-fleeting?\nThe answer is that he cannot, as a matter of fact, help doing it sooner\nor later: for his heart is never at rest, till it finds itself there.\nBut he often wastes a great deal of time before he realizes this. And\nperhaps we may find the reason why man--each man--is thus pressed\ntowards some measure of union with Reality, in the fact that his\nconscious will thus only becomes an agent of the veritable purposes of\nlife: of that Power which, in and through mankind, conserves and slowly\npresses towards realization the noblest aspirations of each soul. This\npower and push we may call if we like in the language of realism the\ntendency of our space-time universe towards deity; or in the language of\nreligion, the working of the Holy Spirit. And since, so far as we know,\nit is only in man that life becomes self-conscious, and ever more and\nmore self-conscious, with the deepening and widening of his love and his\nthought; so it is only in man that it can dedicate the will and desire\nwhich are life's central qualities to the furtherance of this Divine\ncreative aim.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 149: \"The Mirror of Eternal Salvation,\" Cap. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 150: A good general discussion in Tansley: \"The New Psychology\nand its Relation to Life,\" Caps. 19, 20.]\n\n[Footnote 151: Aug. Conf., Bk. X, Cap. 27.]\n\n[Footnote 152: Blake; \"Jerusalem.\"]\n\n[Footnote 153: \"Social Psychology,\" Cap. i.]\n\n[Footnote 154: \"The Interior Castle\": Sleuth Habitation, Cap. IV.]\n\n[Footnote 155: \"The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,\" Bk. II, Cap.\n44.]\n\n[Footnote 156: Warren: \"Buddhism in Translations,\" p. 28.]\n\n\n\n\nPRINCIPAL WORKS USED OR CITED.\n\n\n_S. Alexander_. Space, Time, and Deity. London, 1920.\n\n_Blessed Angela of Foligno_. Book of Divine Consolations (New Mediaeval\nLibrary). London, 1908.\n\n_St. Thomas Aquinas_. Summa Contra Gentiles (Of God and His Creatures),\ntrans. by J. Rickaby, London, 1905.\n\n_St. Augustine_. Confessions, trans. by Rev. C. Bigg. London, 1898.\n\n_Venerable Augustine Baker_. Holy Wisdom, or Directions for the Prayer\nof Contemplation. London, 1908.\n\n_Charles Baudouin_. Suggestion et Auto-suggestion. Paris, 1920.\n\n_Harold Begbie_. William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army. London,\n1920.\n\n_William Blake_. Poetical Works, with Variorum Readings by J. Sampson,\nOxford, 1905.\n\n--Jerusalem, edited by E.R.D. Maclagan and A.E.B. Russell. London, 1904.\n\n_Jacob Boehme_. The Aurora, trans. by J. Sparrow, London, 1914.\n\n--Six Theosophic Points, trans. by J.R. Earle, London, 1919.\n\n--The Way to Christ. London, 1911.\n\n_St. Bonaventura_. Opera Omnia. Paris, 1864-71.\n\n_Bernard Bosanquet_. What Religion Is. London, 1920.\n\n_Dan Cuthbert Butler_. Benedictine Monachism. London, 1919.\n\n_St. Catherine of Siena_. The Divine Dialogue, trans. by Algar Thorold.\nLondon, 1896.\n\nThe Cloud of Unknowing, edited from B.M. Harl, 674, with an Introduction\nby Evelyn Underhill. London, 1912.\n\n_G.A. Coe_. A Social Theory of Religious Education. New York, 1920.\n\n_Benedetto Croce_. AEsthetic, or the Science of Expression, trans. by D.\nAinslie. London, 1909.\n\n--Theory and History of Historiography, trans. by D. Ainslie. London,\n1921.\n\n_Dante Alighieri_. Tutte le Opere. Rived. nel testo da Dr. E. Moore.\nOxford, 1894.\n\n_Abbot Delatte_. The Benedictine Rule. Eng. trans. London, 1921.\n\n_John Donne_. Sermons: Selected Passages, with an Essay by L. Pearsall\nSmith. Oxford, 1919.\n\n_Meister Eckhart_. Schriften und Predigten aus dem Mittelhochsdeutschen.\nUbersetzt und herausgegeben von Buttner. Leipzig, 1903.\n\n_John Everard_. Some Gospel Treasures Opened. London, 1653.\n\n_George Fox_. Journal, edited from the MSS. by N. Penney. Cambridge,\n1911.\n\n_Elizabeth Fry_. Memoir with Extracts from her Journals and Letters,\nedited by two of her Daughters, 2nd. ed. London, 1848.\n\n_Edmund Gardner_. St. Catherine of Siena. London, 1907.\n\n_Gabriela Cunninghame Graham_. St. Teresa, her Life and Times. London,\n1894.\n\n_Viscount Haldane_. The Reign of Relativity. London, 1921.\n\n_J.O. Hannay_. The Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism. London,\n1903.\n\n_F.H. Hayward_. The Lesson in Appreciation. New York, 1915.\n\n_F.H. Hayward and A. Freeman_. The Spiritual Foundations of\nReconstruction. London, 1919.\n\n_Violet Hodgkin_. A Book of Quarter Saints. London, 1918.\n\n_Harold Hoeffding_. The Philosophy of Religion. London, 1906.\n\n_Edmond Holmes_. What Is and What Might Be. London, 1911.\n\n--Give me the Young, London, 1921.\n\n_Baron Fredrick von Huegel_. The Mystical Element of Religion. London,\n1908.\n\n--Eternal Life: A Study of its Implications and Applications. London,\n1912.\n\n--Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion. London, 1921.\n\n_Jacopone da Todi_. Le Laude, secondo la stampa fiorentino del 1490. A\ncura di G. Ferri. Bari, 1915.\n\n_William James_. The Varieties of Religious Experience. London, 1902.\n\n_William James_. The Will to Believe and other Essays. London, 1897.\n\n--Principles of Psychology. London, 1901.\n\n_St. John of the Cross_. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. by David\nLewis. London, 1906.\n\n--The Dark Night of the Soul, trans. by David Lewis. London, 1908.\n\n_Sir Henry Jones and J.H. Muirhead_. The Life and Philosophy of Edward\nCaird. Glasgow, 1921.\n\n_Rufus Jones_. Studies in Mystical Religion. London, 1909.\n\n--Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.\nLondon, 1914.\n\n_Julian of Norwich_. Revelations of Divine Love, edited by Grace\nWarrack. London, 1901.\n\n_C.G. Jung_. The Psychology of the Unconscious. London, 1916.\n\n_Kabir_. One Hundred Poems, edited by Rabindranath Tagore and Evelyn\nUnderhill. London, 1915.\n\n_Thomas a Kempis_. The Imitation of Christ: the Earliest English\nTranslation (Everyman's Library). London, n.d.\n\n_S. Kettlewell_. Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life.\nLondon, 1882.\n\n_William Law_. Liberal and Mystical Writings, edited by W. Scott Palmer.\nLondon, 1908.\n\n_W.P. Livingstone_. Mary Slessor of Calabar. London, 1918.\n\nJournal Spirituel de Lucie-Christine. Paris, 1912.\n\n_W. McDougall_. An Introduction to Social Psychology, 9th ed. London,\n1915.\n\n--The Group Mind. Cambridge, 1920.\n\n_W.M. McGovern_. An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism. London, 1921.\n\n_Mechthild of Magdeburg_. Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit. Regensburg,\n1869.\n\n_Reynold Nicholson_. Selected Poems from the Divani, Shamsi Tabriz.\nCambridge, 1898.\n\n--Studies in Islamic Mysticism. Cambridge, 1921.\n\n_J.H. Overton_. John Wesley. London, 1891.\n\n_William Penn_. No Cross, No Crown. London, 1851.\n\n_Plotinus_. The Ethical Treatises, trans. from the Greek by Stephen\nMackenna. London, 1917.\n\n_Plotinus_. The Physical and Psychical Treatises, trans. from the Greek\nby Stephen Mackenna. London, 1921.\n\n_J.B. Pratt_. The Religious Consciousness; a Psychological Study. New\nYork, 1921.\n\n_Richard of St. Victor._ Opera Omnia. Migne, Pat Lat., t. 196.\n\n_W.H.R. Rivers_. Instinct and the Unconscious, Cambridge, 1920.\n\n_Richard Rolle of Hampole_. The Fire of Love and Mending of Life,\nEnglished by R. Misyn (E.E.T.S. 106).London, 1896.\n\n_Bertrand Russell_. The Analysis of Mind, London, 1921.\n\n_John Ruysbroeck_. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, the Book of\nTruth, and the Sparkling Stone, trans. from the Flemish by C.A.\nWynschenk Dom. London, 1916.\n\n--The Book of the XII Beguines, trans. by John Francis. London, 1913.\n\n_R. Semon_. Die Mneme, 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1908.\n\n_Herbert Spencer_. Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical London,\n1861.\n\n_B.H. Streeter and A.J. Appasamy_. The Sadhu: a Study in Mysticism and\nPractical Religion. London, 1921.\n\n_B.H. Streeter_. (edited by). The Spirit: God and His Relation to Man.\nLondon, 1919.\n\n_Blessed Henry Suso_. Life, by-Himself, trans. by T.F. Knox. London,\n1913.\n\n_Devendranath Tagore._ Autobiography, trans. by S. Tagore and I. Devi,\nLondon, 1914.\n\n_A.G. Tansley_. The New Psychology and its Relation to Life London,\n1920.\n\n_St. Teresa_. The Life of St. Teresa written by Herself, trans. by D,\nLewis. London, 1904.\n\n--The Interior Castle, trans. by the Benedictines of Stanbrook, 2nd ed.\nLondon, 1912.\n\n--The Way of Perfection, ed. by E.R. Waller. London, 1902.\n\nTheologia Germanica, ed. by Susanna Winkworth, 4th ed. London, 1907.\n\n_Soeur Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus:_ Histoire d'une Ame. Paris, 1911.\n\n_Francis Thompson._ St. Ignatius Loyola. London, 1909.\n\n_W.F. Trotter._ Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 3rd ed. London,\n1917.\n\n_Miguel da Unamuno._ The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples,\nEng. trans. London, 1921.\n\n_Evelyn Underhill._ Jacopone da Todi, Poet and Mystic. London, 1919.\n\n_C.B. Upton._ The Bases of Religious Belief. London, 1894.\n\n_J. Varendonck._ The Psychology of Day-Dreams. London, 1921.\n\n_H.C. Warren._ Buddhism in Translations. Cambridge, Mass., 1900.\n\n_John Wesley._ Journal, from original MSS. Standard edition, vols 1-8.\nLondon, 1909-16.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n Abreaction, 109\n\n Abu Said, 16\n\n Adolescence, 240 seq.\n\n Alexander, S. 26\n\n Angela of Foligno, Blessed, 99, 130\n\n Apperception, 179, 284\n\n Aquinas, St. Thomas, 26, 58, 200\n\n Asceticism, 69, 89, 288\n\n Augustine, St., 8, 13, 27, 60, 198, 202, 208, 270, 273, 295\n\n Autistic thought, 112, 117, seq.\n\n Auto Suggestion _see_ Suggestion\n\n\n Baudouin, C., 144, 173\n\n Benedict, St. 48, 64, seq., 68, 210\n\n Benedictine Order, 52, 61, 64, seq.\n\n Bernard, St. 52\n\n Bhakti Marga, 18, 21\n\n Bible-reading, 212\n\n Blake, W., 11, 33, 46, 71, 277\n\n Boehme, Jacob, 4, 33, 55, 70, 84, 86, 89, 118, 150, seq., 198, 201,\n 204, 244\n\n Bonaventura, St., 146\n\n Booth, General, 54, 59, 63, 96\n\n Bosanquet, Bernard 6\n\n Brahmo Samaj, 155\n\n Brothers of Common Life, 52\n\n Buddhism, 72, 182, 258, 292\n\n Butler, Dom C., 65, 169\n\n\n Caird, Edward, 246\n\n Catherine of Genoa, St., 55, 67, 70, 71\n\n Catherine of Siena, St., 68, 71, 87, 128\n\n Christianity, Primitive, 56, 164\n\n Church, 155, seq.\n essentials of, 164, seq., 171\n future, 188, 281\n gifts of, 161\n limitations, 170\n\n Cloud of Unknowing, The, 87, 96, 104, seq., 110, 123, 143, 145, 146,\n 147, 151, 248\n\n Complex, 108, seq.\n\n Conflict, Psychic, 81, 88, 100, 103, 216, seq.\n\n Consciousness, 116, seq.\n group, 162, seq., 288, seq.\n spiritual, 219, 225\n\n Contemplation, 17, 121, seq., 138, seq., 212, 219 in children, 260\n\n Conversion, 68, 75, 89, 93, 103, 265\n\n Croce, Benedetto, 41, 43\n\n Cultus, 171, seq.\n\n\n Dante, 9\n\n Delatte, Abbot, 65\n\n Dionysius, the Areopagite, 9, 141\n\n Discipleship, 58, 271, seq.\n\n Donne, John, 16, 46\n\n\n Eckhart, Master, 9, 142\n\n Education, 102, seq., 177 seq.\n factors of, 231, seq.\n Spencer on, 234\n Spiritual, 179, 206, 228, seq., 243, seq., 251, 264\n dangers of, 250, seq., 262\n\n Emotion, Religious, 18, 99, 145, 250, 263\n\n Eternal Life, 3, 48, 195, 271\n\n Everard, John, 35, 40\n\n\n Fox, George, 8, 45, 59, 62, 67, 96, 109, 155, 215, 270, 273\n\n Francis of Assisi, St., 47, 54, 59, 61, 63, 67, 270, 273\n\n Friends of God, 63, 271\n\n Fry, Elizabeth, 55, 63, 210\n\n\n Gardner, Edmund, 87\n\n God, Experience of, 7 seq., 74, 127, 214, 238, seq., 252, 275, 298\n personality of, 9, seq., 17 seq.\n\n Grace, 138, seq., 206, 211\n\n Groot, Gerard, 68\n\n Groups, 61, 271, 285, seq.\n\n Guyon, Madame, 143\n\n\n Habit, 85, 90, 102, 172\n\n Hadfield, J.A., 100\n\n Haldane, Viscount, 28\n\n Hayward, F.H., 259\n\n Hinduism, 18, 21, 45, 51, 155, 182\n\n History and spiritual life, 38, seq., 212\n in education, 256, seq.\n\n Hoeffding, H., 24, 212\n\n Huegel, Baron, F. von, 2, 29, 52, 70, 125, 209\n on spiritual life, 195, seq.\n\n Humility, 109, 217, 275, 282\n\n Hymns, 148, 173, seq.\n\n\n Ignatius, Loyola, St., 61, 68, 95\n\n Instinct, 76, 78, seq., 90, seq., 102, 263\n herd, 272\n in children, 249\n\n Intercession, 289\n\n Introversion, 121\n\n Isaiah, 12\n\n\n Jacopone da Todi, 12, 55, 68, 90, 93, 107, 131\n\n James, William, 157\n\n Jerome, St., 154\n\n Jesus Christ, 17, 40, 47, 51, 56, 59, 61, 156, 182, 198, 202, 268,\n 273, 279\n\n Joan of Arc, St., 95\n\n \"John Inglesant\", 61\n\n John, St., 107, 244\n\n John of the Cross, St., 128, 208\n\n Julian of Norwich, 20, 87, 135, 144\n\n\n Kabir, 5, 11, 70, 155, 198\n\n\n Lawrence, Brother, 55\n\n Law, William, 27, 90, 91\n\n Liturgy, _see_ Cultus\n\n Livingstone, W.P., 96\n\n Love, 90, 97, 104, 211, 244, seq., 292, seq.\n defined, 200, seq.\n\n Lucie, Christine, 14\n\n\n Mass, The, 177\n\n McDougall, W., 163, 285\n\n McGovern, W.M., 72\n\n Mechthild of Magdeburg, St., 89, 129\n\n Memory, 179, seq.\n\n Methodists, 15, 53, 286\n\n Mind, analysis of, 76, seq.\n foreconscious, 117, seq.\n instinctive, 89, seq., 137, seq.\n primitive, 82, 99, 104, 181, seq.\n rational, 100, seq.\n unconscious, 114, seq., 141, seq., 230, 264\n\n Motive, 84, 109\n\n Mystical Experience, 99, 107, 113\n\n\n Nanak, 155\n\n Nicholson, Reynold, 11, 16, 18, 51, 70\n\n\n Pascal, 137\n\n Patmore, Coventry, 119\n\n Paul, St., 13, 52, 55, 63, 68, 81, 83, 95, 136, 210, 244, 269\n\n Penn, William, 36, 125, 137\n\n Plotinus, 2, 5, 11, 18, 29, 37, 77, 201, 205\n\n Pratt, J.B., 20, 149, 157\n\n Prayer 52, 108, 113, 120, seq., 199, 204, seq., 211, 253, 265, seq.\n Childrens', 229, 243\n corporate, 169, 286\n distractions in, 126, 149\n education in, 102, 248\n of quiet, 124, 141\n Sadhu on, 209\n short act, 144\n and suggestion 138, seq.\n vocal, 144\n and work, 253\n\n Psyche, The, 77, seq., 103, 116, 230\n\n Purgation, 69, 76, 90, 108, seq., 218\n\n\n Quakers, 63, 164, 174, 258\n\n\n Ramakrishna, 149\n\n Recollection, 123, seq., 139, 208, 219, seq.\n corporate, 281\n\n Regeneration, 15, 89, 94\n corporate, 271, seq., 293, seq.\n\n Religious ceremonies, 173, seq., 188\n education, 179, seq.\n institutions, 154, seq., 281\n magic 185, seq.\n orders, 60\n\n Repentance, 108, seq., 218, 269\n social, 275, seq.\n\n Reverie, 117, 122, seq.\n\n Richard of St. Victor, 55, 58\n\n Rolle, Richard, 41, seq., 67\n\n Rosary, 144\n\n Russell, Bertrand, 102, 179\n\n Ruysbroeck, 17, 17, 51, 54, seq., 106, 120, seq., 126, 142, 199, 212,\n 261, 270, 292\n\n\n Sacrifice, 185\n\n Sadhu, Sundar, Singh, 68, 130, 209\n\n Saints, 41, 257\n\n Salvation, 76, 89, seq.\n\n Salvation Army, 48, 91, 260, 286\n\n Semon, R., 179\n\n Sin, 76, 81, 85, seq., 109, 149, 218\n corporate, 276\n\n Sins, Seven Deadly, 93\n\n Slessor, Mary, 54, seq., 96\n\n Social reform, 282, seq., 296\n service, 267, seq.\n\n Spencer, Herbert, 234\n\n Spirit of Power, 13, 52, 62, 222, 290\n\n Spiritual Life\n in adolescence, 247, seq.\n characters of, 22, seq., 32, 43, 54, 58, 64, 76, 96, seq.,\n 158, seq., 192, seq., 221, seq., 261, 269, 274, seq., 283, 292, 298\n contagious, 56, seq., 72, 169, 261, 273, 285, seq., 295\n corporate, 58, 153, seq., 168, 250, 254, 275, seq., 285, seq.\n dangers of 99, seq., 263\n development of, 67, seq., 108, 213, seq.\n and education, 228, seq.\n and history, 38, seq., 159, seq., 212\n and institutions 158, seq.\n personal, 191, seq., 250, seq., 256, 268, 274\n and prayer, 204, seq.\n and, psychology, 76, seq., 195, seq.\n and reading, 211\n social, aspect of, 266, seq.\n and work, 222, 253, 256, 282\n\n Spiritual Type, 51, 192, seq., 226\n\n Stigmata, 134\n\n Streeter, B.H., 47, 130\n\n Sublimation, 91, 96, seq., 110, 201. 297\n\n Sufis, 11, 16, 18, 51, 59, 70, 155, 258\n\n Suggestion, 75, 103, 132, seq., 167\n and faith, 137\n laws of, 141, seq.\n in worship, 148, 173, seq.\n\n Surrender, 220, 299\n\n Symbols, 127, seq., 173, seq., 180, seq.\n\n\n Tagore, Maharerhi Devendranath, 13, 14, 51, 67, 213\n\n Tansley, C., 272\n\n Tauler, 257, 282\n\n Teresa, St, 47, 54, 61, 69, 71, 88, 95, 123, 142, 150, 202, 212, 290\n\n Theologia, Germanica, 211, 222\n\n Therese de l'Enfant, Jesus, Venerable, 137, 148\n\n Thomas a Kempis, 48, 83, 128, 139, 198, 212\n\n Trinity, Doctrine of, 14\n\n Trotter, W.F., 168\n\n\n Unamuno, Don M. de, 10, 85\n\n Unification, 98, seq., 110, 195, 198, 221, 227, 278\n\n Union with God, 67, 72, 204, 291, 299\n\n Upton, T., 10\n\n\n Varendonck, J., 117\n\n Vincent de Paul, St. 55\n\n Virtues, Evangelical, 94\n\n Visions, 129, seq.\n\n Vocation, 220, 225, 294, 300\n\n\n Wesley, John, 53, 55, 62, 71, 210, 270\n\n Work, 222, 253, 282\n\n Worship, 175, 255, 260","title":"The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":77687}