THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

AND

THE LIFE OF TO-DAY

BY

EVELYN UNDERHILL

Author of "MYSTICISM, " "THE ESSENTIALS OF MYSTICISM, " etc. 

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

681 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1922. 

BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

_All rights reserved_

IN MEMORIAM

E. R. B. 

PREFACE

This book owes its origin to the fact that in the autumn of 1921 theauthorities of Manchester College, Oxford invited me to deliver theinaugural course of a lectureship in religion newly established underthe will of the late Professor Upton. No conditions being attached tothis appointment, it seemed a suitable opportunity to discuss, so far aspossible in the language of the moment, some of the implicits which Ibelieve to underlie human effort and achievement in the domain of thespiritual life. The material gathered for this purpose has now beenadded to, revised, and to some extent re-written, in order to make itappropriate to the purposes of the reader rather than the hearer. As theobject of the book is strictly practical, a special attempt has beenmade to bring the classic experiences of the spiritual life into linewith the conclusions of modern psychology, and in particular, to suggestsome of the directions in which recent psychological research may castlight on the standard problems of the religious consciousness. Thissubject is still in its infancy; but it is destined, I am sure, in thenear future to exercise a transforming influence on the study ofspiritual experience, and may even prove to be the starting point of anew apologetic. Those who are inclined either to fear or to resent theapplication to this experience of those laws which--as we are nowgradually discovering--govern the rest of our psychic life, or who areoffended by the resulting demonstrations of continuity between our mosthomely and most lofty reactions to the universe, might take tothemselves the plain words of Thomas à Kempis: "Thou art a man and notGod, thou art flesh and no angel. "

Since my subject is not the splendor of historic sanctity but the normallife of the Spirit, as it may be and is lived in the here-and-now, Ihave done my best to describe the character and meaning of this life inthe ordinary terms of present day thought, and with little or no use ofthe technical language of mysticism. For the same reason, no attentionhas been given to those abnormal experiences and states ofconsciousness, which, too often regarded as specially "mystical, " arenow recognized by all competent students as representing the unfortunateaccidents rather than the abiding substance of spirituality. Readers ofthese pages will find nothing about trances, Ecstasies and other rarepsychic phenomena; which sometimes indicate holiness, and sometimes onlydisease. For information on these matters they must go to larger andmore technical works. My aim here is the more general one, of indicatingfirst the characteristic experiences--discoverable within all greatreligions--which justify or are fundamental to the spiritual life, andthe way in which these experiences may be accommodated to theworld-view of the modern man: and next, the nature of that spirituallife as it appears in human history. The succeeding sections of the booktreat in some detail the light cast on spiritual problems by mentalanalysis--a process which need not necessarily be conducted from thestandpoint of a degraded materialism--and by recent work on thepsychology of autistic thought and of suggestion. These investigationshave a practical interest for every man who desires to be the "captainof his soul. " The relation in which institutional religion does orshould stand to the spiritual life is also in part a matter forpsychology; which is here called upon to deal with the religious aspectof the social instincts, and the problems surrounding symbols and cults. These chapters lead up to a discussion of the personal aspect of thespiritual life, its curve of growth, characters and activities; and afurther section suggests some ways in which educationists might promotethe up springing of this life in the young. Finally, the last chapterattempts to place the fact of the life of the Spirit in its relation tothe social order, and to indicate some of the results which might followupon its healthy corporate development. It is superfluous to point outthat each of these subjects needs, at least, a volume to itself: and tosome of them I shall hope to return in the future. Their treatment inthe present work is necessarily fragmentary and suggestive; and isintended rather to stimulate thought, than to offer solutions. 

Part of Chapter IV has already appeared in "The Fortnightly Review"under the title "Suggestion and Religious Experience. " Chapter VIIIincorporates several passages from an article on "Sources of Power inHuman Life" originally contributed to the "Hubert Journal. " These arereprinted by kind permission of the editors concerned. My numerous debtsto previous writers are obvious, and for the most part are acknowledgedin the footnotes; the greatest, to the works of Baron Von Hugely, willbe clear to all students of his writings. Thanks are also due to my oldfriend William Scott Palmer, who read part of the manuscript and gave memuch generous and valuable advice. It is a pleasure to express in thisplace my warm gratitude first to the Principal and authorities ofManchester College, who gave me the opportunity of delivering thesechapters in their original form, and whose unfailing sympathy andkindness so greatly helped me: and secondly, to the members of theOxford Faculty of Theology, to whom I owe the great Honor of being thefirst woman lecturer in religion to appear in the University list. 

 E. U. 

 _Epiphany_, 1922. 

[** Transcriber's Note: This text contains just a few instances of a character with a diacritical mark. The character is a lower-case 'u' with a macron (straight line) above it. In the text, that character is depicted thusly: [=u] **]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

 PREFACE vii

 I. THE CHARACTERS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 1

 II. HISTORY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT 38

 III. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT: (I) THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 74

 IV. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT: (II) CONTEMPLATION AND SUGGESTION 112

 V. INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT 153

 VI. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL 191

 VII. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND EDUCATION 228

VIII. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND THE SOCIAL ORDER 266

 PRINCIPAL WORKS USED AND CITED 300

 INDEX 307

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

AND

THE LIFE OF TO-DAY

 Initio tu, Domine, terram fundasti; et opera manuum tuarum sunt caeli. Ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanes; et omnes sicut vestimentum veterascent. Et sicut opertorium mutabis eos, et mutabuntur; Tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient. Filii servorum tuorum habitabunt; et semen eorum in seculum dirigetur. 

 --Psalm cii: 25-28

CHAPTER I

THE CHARACTERS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

This book has been called "The Life of the Spirit and the Life ofTo-day" in order to emphasize as much as possible the practical, here-and-now nature of its subject; and specially to combat the ideathat the spiritual life--or the mystic life, as its more intensemanifestations are sometimes called--is to be regarded as primarily amatter of history. It is not. It is a matter of biology. Though wecannot disregard history in our study of it, that history will only bevaluable to us in so far as we keep tight hold on its direct connectionwith the present, its immediate bearing on our own lives: and this weshall do only in so far as we realize the unity of all the higherexperiences of the race. In fact, were I called upon to choose a mottowhich should express the central notion of these chapters, that mottowould be--"There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. " Thisdeclaration I would interpret in the widest possible sense; assuggesting the underlying harmony and single inspiration of all man'svarious and apparently conflicting expressions of his instinct forfullness of life. For we shall not be able to make order, in any hopefulsense, of the tangle of material which is before us, until we havesubdued it to this ruling thought: seen one transcendent Object towardswhich all our twisting pathways run, and one impulsion pressing ustowards it. 

As psychology is now teaching us to find, at all levels of our craving, dreaming, or thinking, the diverse expressions of one psychic energy; sothat type of philosophy which comes nearest to the religion of theSpirit, invites us to find at all levels of life the workings andstrivings of one Power: "a Reality which both underlies and crowns allour other, lesser strivings. "[1] Variously manifested in partialachievements of order and goodness, in diversities of beauty, and in ourgraded apprehensions of truth, this Spirit is yet most fully known to usin the transcendent values of holiness and love. The more deeply it isloved by man, the nearer he draws to its heart: and the greater hislove, the more fully does he experience its transforming and energizingpower. The words of Plotinus are still true for every one of us, and areunaffected by the presence or absence of creed:

"Yonder is the true object of our love, which it is possible to graspand to live with and truly to possess, since no envelope of fleshseparates us from it. He who has seen it knows what I say, that the soulthen has another life, when it comes to God, and having come possessesHim, and knows when in that state that it is in the presence of thedispenser of true life and that it needs nothing further. "[2]

So, if we would achieve anything like a real integration of life--anduntil we have done so, we are bound to be restless and uncertain in ourtouch upon experience--we are compelled to press back towards contactwith this living Reality, however conceived by us. And this not by wayof a retreat from our actual physical and mental life, but by way of afulfilment of it. 

More perhaps than ever before, men are now driven to ask themselves thesearching question of the disciple in Boehme's Dialogue on theSupersensual Life: "Seeing I am in nature, how may I come through natureinto the supersensual ground, without destroying nature?"[3] And such acoming through into the ground, such a finding and feeling of EternalLife, is I take it the central business of religion. For religion iscommitted to achieving a synthesis of the eternal and the ever-fleeting, of nature and of spirit; lifting up the whole of life to a greaterreality, because a greater participation in eternity. Such aparticipation in eternity, manifested in the time-world, is the veryessence of the spiritual life: but, set as we are in mutability, ourapprehensions of it can only be partial and relative. Absolutes areknown only to absolute mind; our measurements, however careful andintricate, can never tally with the measurements of God. As Einsteinconceives of space curved round the sun we, borrowing his symbolism fora moment, may perhaps think of the world of Spirit as curved round thehuman soul; shaped to our finite understanding, and therefore presentingto us innumerable angles of approach. This means that God can and mustbe sought only within and through our human experience. "Where, " saysJacob Boehme, "will you seek for God? Seek Him in your soul, which hasproceeded out of the Eternal Nature, the living fountain of forceswherein the Divine working stands. "[4]

But, on the other hand, such limitation as this is no argument foragnosticism. For this our human experience in its humbling imperfection, however we interpret it, is as real within its own system of referenceas anything else. It is our inevitably limited way of laying hold on thestuff of existence: and not less real for that than the monkeys' way onone hand, or the angels' way on the other. Only we must be sure that wedo it as thoroughly and completely as we can; disdaining the indolencewhich so easily relapses to the lower level and the smaller world. 

And the first point I wish to make is, that the experience which we callthe life of the Spirit is such a genuine fact; which meets us at alltimes and places, and at all levels of life. It is an experience whichis independent of, and often precedes, any explanation orrationalization we may choose to make of it: and no one, as a matter offact, takes any real interest in the explanation, unless he has had someform of the experience. We notice, too, that it is most ordinarily andalso most impressively given to us as such an objective experience, whole and unanalyzed; and that when it is thus given, and perceived aseffecting a transfiguration of human character, we on our part mostreadily understand and respond to it. 

Thus Plotinus, than whom few persons have lived more capable ofanalysis, can only say: "The soul knows when in that state that it is inthe presence of the dispenser of true life. " Yet in saying this, does henot tell us far more, and rouse in us a greater and more fruitfullonging, than in all his disquisitions about the worlds of Spirit and ofSoul? And Kabir, from another continent and time, saying "More than allelse do I cherish at heart the love which makes me to live a limitlesslife in this world, "[5] assures us in these words that he too has knownthat more abundant life. These are the statements of the pure religiousexperience, in so far as "pure" experience is possible to us; which isonly of course in a limited and relative sense. The subjective element, all that the psychologist means by apperception, must enter in, andcontrol it. Nevertheless, they refer to man's communion with anindependent objective Reality. This experience is more real andconcrete, therefore more important, than any of the systems by whichtheology seeks to explain it. We may then take it, without prejudice toany special belief, that the spiritual life we wish to study is _onelife_; based on experience of one Reality, and manifested in thediversity of gifts and graces which men have been willing to call true, holy, beautiful and good. For the moment at least we may accept thedefinition of it given by Dr. Bosanquet, as "oneness with the SupremeGood in every facet of the heart and will. "[6] And since withoutderogation of its transcendent character, its vigour, wonder and worth, it is in human experience rather than in speculation that we are boundto seek it, we shall look first at the forms taken by man's intuition ofEternity, the life to which it seems to call him; and next at the actualappearance of this life in history. Then at the psychological machineryby which we may lay hold of it, the contributions which religiousinstitutions make to its realization; and last, turning our backs onthese partial explorations of the living Whole, seek if we can to seizesomething of its inwardness as it appears to the individual, the way inwhich education may best prepare its fulfilment, and the part it mustplay in the social group. 

We begin therefore at the starting point of this life of Spirit: inman's vague, fluctuating, yet persistent apprehension of an enduring andtranscendent reality--his instinct for God. The characteristic formstaken by this instinct are simple and fairly well known. Complicationonly comes in with the interpretation we put on them. 

By three main ways we tend to realize our limited personal relationswith that transcendent Other which we call divine, eternal or real; andthese, appearing perpetually in the vast literature of religion, mightbe illustrated from all places and all times. 

First, there is the profound sense of security: of being safely held ina cosmos of which, despite all contrary appearance, peace is the veryheart, and which is not inimical to our true interests. For those whosereligious experience takes this form, God is the Ground of the soul, theUnmoved, our Very Rest; statements which meet us again and again inspiritual literature. This certitude of a principle of permanence withinand beyond our world of change--the sense of Eternal Life--lies at thevery centre of the religious consciousness; which will never on thispoint capitulate to the attacks of philosophy on the one hand (such asthose of the New Realists) or of psychology on the other hand, assuringhim that what he mistakes for the Eternal World is really his ownunconscious mind. Here man, at least in his great representatives--thepersons of transcendent religious genius--seems to get beyond alllabels. He finds and feels a truth that cannot fail him, and thatsatisfies both his heart and mind; a justification of thattranscendental feeling which is the soul alike of philosophy and of art. If his life has its roots here, it will be a fruitful tree; and whateverits outward activities, it will be a spiritual life, since it is lived, as George Fox was so fond of saying, in the Universal Spirit. All knowthe great passage In St. Augustine's Confessions in which he describeshow "the mysterious eye of his soul gazed on the Light that neverchanges; above the eye of the soul, and above intelligence. "[7] There isnothing archaic in such an experience. Though its description may dependon the language of Neoplatonism, it is in its essence as possible and asfruitful for us to-day as it was in the fourth century, and the doctrineand discipline of Christian prayer have always admitted its validity. 

Here and in many other examples which might be quoted, the spiritualfact is interpreted in a non-personal and cosmic way; and we mustremember that what is described to us is always, inevitably, the more orless emotional interpretation, never the pure immediacy of experience. This interpretation frequently makes use of the symbolisms of space, stillness, and light: the contemplative soul is "lost in the ocean ofthe Godhead, " "enters His silence" or exclaims with Dante:

 "la mia vista, venendo sincera, e più e più entrava per lo raggio dell' alta luce, che da sè è vera. "[8]

But in the second characteristic form of the religious experience, therelationship is felt rather as the intimate and reciprocal communion ofa person with a Person; a form of apprehension which is common to thegreat majority of devout natures. It is true that Divine Reality, whiledoubtless including in its span all the values we associate withpersonality, must far overpass it: and this conclusion has been reachedagain and again by profoundly religious minds, of whom among Christianswe need only mention Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, and Ruysbroeck. Yet these very minds have always in the end discovered the necessity offinding place for the overwhelming certitude of a personal contact, aprevenient and an answering love. For it is always in a personal andemotional relationship that man finds himself impelled to surrender toGod; and this surrender is felt by him to evoke a response. It issignificant that even modern liberalism is forced, in the teeth ofrationality, to acknowledge this fact of the religious experience. Thuswe have on the one hand the Catholic-minded but certainly unorthodoxSpanish thinker, Miguel de Unamuno, confessing--

"I believe in God as I believe in my friends, because I feel the breathof His affection, feel His invisible and intangible hand, drawing me, leading me, grasping me.... Once and again in my life I have seen myselfsuspended in a trance over the abyss; once and again I have found myselfat the cross-roads, confronted by a choice of ways and aware that inchoosing one I should be renouncing all the others--for there is noturning back upon these roads of life; and once and again in such uniquemoments as these I have felt the impulse of a mighty power, conscious, sovereign and loving. And then, before the feet of the wayfarer, opensout the way of the Lord. "[9]

Compare with this Upton the Unitarian: "If, " he says, "this AbsolutePresence, which meets us face to face in the most momentous of ourlife's experiences, which pours into our fainting the elixir of newlife-mud strength, and into our wounded hearts the balm of a quiteinfinite sympathy, cannot fitly be called a personal presence, it isonly because this word personal is too poor and carries with itassociations too human and too limited adequately to express thisprofound God-consciousness. "[10]

Such a personal God-consciousness is the one impelling cause of thosemoral struggles, sacrifices and purifications, those costing and heroicactivities, to which all greatly spiritual souls find themselves drawn. We note that these souls experience it even when it conflicts with theirphilosophy: for a real religious intuition is always accepted by theself that has it as taking priority of thought, and carrying with it soto speak its own guarantees. Thus Blake, for whom the Holy Ghost was an"intellectual fountain, " hears the Divine Voice crying:

 "I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend; Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me. "[11]

Thus in the last resort the Sufi poet can only say:

 "O soul, seek the Beloved; O friend, seek the Friend!"[12]

Thus even Plotinus is driven to speak of his Divine Wisdom as the Fatherand ever-present Companion of the soul, [13] and Kabir, for whom God isthe Unconditioned and the Formless, can yet exclaim:

"From the beginning until the end of time there is love between me andthee: and how shall such love be extinguished?"[14]

Christianity, through its concepts of the Divine Fatherhood and of theEternal Christ, has given to this sense of personal communion itsfullest and most beautiful expression:

 "Amore, chi t'ama non sta ozioso, tanto li par dolce de te gustare, ma tutta ora vive desideroso como te possa stretto piú amare; ché tanto sta per te lo cor gioioso, chi nol sentisse, nol porría parlare quanto é dolce a gustare lo tuo sapore. "[15]

On the immense question of _what_ it is that lies behind this sense ofdirect intercourse, this passionate friendship with the Invisible, Icannot enter. But it has been one of the strongest and most fruitfulinfluences in religious history, and gives in particular its specialcolour to the most perfect developments of Christian mysticism. 

Last--and here is the aspect of religious experience which is speciallyto concern us--Spirit is felt as an inflowing power, a veritableaccession of vitality; energizing the self, or the religious group, impelling it to the fullest and most zealous living-out of itsexistence, giving it fresh joy and vigour, and lifting it to freshlevels of life. This sense of enhanced life is a mark of all religionsof the Spirit. "He giveth power to the faint, " says the Second Isaiah, "and to them that hath no might he increaseth strength ... They thatwait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up withwings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. "[16] "I live--yet not I, " "I can do all things, " says St. Paul, seeking to express his dependence on this Divine strength invadingand controlling him: and assures his neophytes that they too havereceived "the Spirit of power. " "My life, " says St. Augustine, "shall bea real life, being wholly full of Thee. "[17] "Having found God, " says amodern Indian saint, "the current of my life flowed on swiftly, I gainedfresh strength. "[18] All other men and women of the Spirit speak in thesame sense, when they try to describe the source of their activity andendurance. 

So, the rich experiences of the religious consciousness seem to beresumed in these three outstanding types of spiritual awareness. Thecosmic, ontological, or transcendent; finding God as the infiniteReality outside and beyond us. The personal, finding Him as the livingand responsive object of our love, in immediate touch with us. Thedynamic, finding Him as the power that dwells within or energizes us. These are not exclusive but complementary apprehensions, givingobjectives to intellect feeling and will. They must all be taken intoaccount in any attempt to estimate the full character of the spirituallife, and this life can hardly achieve perfection unless all three bepresent in some measure. Thus the French contemplative Lucie-Christinesays, that when the voice of God called her it was at one and the sametime a Light, a Drawing, and a Power, [19] and her Indian contemporarythe Maharishi Devendranath Tagore, that "Seekers after God must realizeBrahma in these three places. They must see Him within, see Him without, and see Him in that abode of Brahma where He exists in Himself. "[20] Andit seems to me, that what we have in the Christian doctrine of theTrinity, is above all the crystallization and mind's interpretation ofthese three ways in which our simple contact with God is actualized byus. It is, like so many other dogmas when we get to the bottom of them, an attempt to describe experience. What is that supernal symphony ofwhich this elusive music, with its three complementary strains, formspart? We cannot know this, since we are debarred by our situation fromknowledge of wholes. But even those strains which we do hear, assure ushow far we are yet from conceiving the possibilities of life, of power, of beauty which are contained in them. 

And if the first type of experience, with the immense feeling ofassurance, of peace, and of quietude which comes from our intuitivecontact with that world which Ruysbroeck called the "world that isunwalled, "[21] and from the mind's utter surrender and abolition ofresistances--if all this seems to lead to a merely static orcontemplative conception of the spiritual life; the third type ofexperience, with its impulse towards action, its often strongly feltaccession of vitality and power, leads inevitably to a complementary anddynamic interpretation of that life. Indeed, if the first moment in thelife of the Spirit be man's apprehension of Eternal Life, the secondmoment--without which the first has little worth for him--consists ofhis response to that transcendent Reality. Perception of it lays on himthe obligation of living in its atmosphere, fulfilling its meaning, ifhe can: and this will involve for him a measure of inwardtransformation, a difficult growth and change. Thus the ideas of newbirth and regeneration have always been, and I think must ever be, closely associated with man's discovery of God: and the soul's true pathseems to be from intuition, through adoration, to moral effort, andthence to charity. 

Even so did the Oxford Methodists, who began by trying only to worshipGod and _be_ good by adhering to a strict devotional rule, soon findthemselves impelled to try to _do_ good by active social work. [22] Andat his highest development, and in so far as he has appropriated thefull richness of experience which is offered to him, man will and shouldfind himself, as it were, flung to and fro between action andcontemplation. Between the call to transcendence, to a simple self-lossin the unfathomable and adorable life of God, and the call to a full, richand various actualization of personal life, in the energetic strivings of afellow worker with Him: between the soul's profound sense of transcendentlove, and its felt possession of and duty towards immanent love--a paradoxwhich only some form of incarnational philosophy can solve. It is saidof Abu Said, the great S[=u]fi, at the full term of his development, that he "did all normal things while ever thinking of God. "[23] Here, Ibelieve, we find the norm of the spiritual life, in such a completeresponse both to the temporal and to the eternal revelations and demandsof the Divine nature: on the one hand, the highest and most costingcalls made on us by that world of succession in which we find ourselves;on the other, an unmoved abiding in the bosom of eternity, "where wasnever heard quarter-clock to strike, never seen minute glasse toturne. "[24]

There have been many schools and periods in which one half of this duallife of man has been unduly emphasized to the detriment of the other. Often in the East--and often too in the first, pre-Benedictine phase ofChristian monasticism--there has been an unbalanced cultivation of thecontemplative life, resulting in a narrow, abnormal, imperfectlyvitalized a-social type of spirituality. On the other hand, in our ownday the tendency to action usually obliterates the contemplative side ofexperience altogether: and the result is the feverishness, exhaustionand uncertainty of aim characteristic of the over-driven and theunderfed. But no one can be said to live in its fulness the life of theSpirit who does not observe a due balance between the two: bothreceiving and giving, both apprehending and expressing, and thusachieving that state of which Ruysbroeck said "Then only is our life awhole, when work and contemplation dwell in us side by side, and we areperfectly in both of them at once. "[25] All Christian writers on thelife of the Spirit point to the perfect achievement of this two-foldideal in Christ; the pattern of that completed humanity towards whichthe indwelling Spirit is pressing the race. His deeds of power andmercy, His richly various responses to every level of human existence, His gift to others of new faith and life, were directly dependent on thenights spent on the mountain in prayer. When St. Paul entreats us togrow up into the fulness of His stature, this is the ideal that isimplied. 

In the intermediate term of the religious experience, that feltcommunion with a Person which is the _clou_ of the devotional life, weget as it were the link between the extreme apprehensions oftranscendence and of immanence, and their expression in the lives ofcontemplation and of action; and also a focus for thatreligious-emotion which is the most powerful stimulus to spiritualgrowth. It is needless to emphasize the splendid use which Christianityhas made of this type of experience; nor unfortunately, theexaggerations to which it has led. Both extremes are richly representedin the literature of mysticism. But we should remember that Christianityis not alone in thus requiring place to be made for such a conception ofGod as shall give body to all the most precious and fruitful experiencesof the heart, providing simple human sense and human feeling withsomething on which to lay hold. In India, there is the existence, withinand alongside the austere worship of the unconditioned Brahma, of theardent personal Vaishnavite devotion to the heart's Lord, known asBhakti Marga. In Islam, there is the impassioned longing of the S[=u]fisfor the Beloved, who is "the Rose of all Reason and all Truth. "

 "Without Thee, O Beloved, I cannot rest; Thy goodness towards me I cannot reckon. Tho' every hair on my body becomes a tongue A thousandth part of the thanks due to Thee I cannot tell. "[26]

There is the sudden note of rapture which startles us in theNeoplatonists, as when Plotinus speaks of "the name of love for what isthere to know--the passion of the lover testing on the 'bosom of hislove. "[27] Surely we may accept all these, as the instinctive responsesof a diversity of spirits to the one eternal Spirit of life and love:and recognize that without such personal response, such a discovery ofimperishable love, a fully lived spiritual life is no more possible thanis a fully lived physical life from which love has been left out. 

When we descend from experience to interpretation, the paradoxicalcharacter of such a personal sense of intimacy is eased for us, if weremember that the religious man's awareness of the indwelling Spirit, orof a Divine companionship--whatever name he gives it--is just hislimited realization, achieved by means of his own mental machinery, of auniversal and not a particular truth. To this realization he brings allhis human--more, his sub-human--feelings and experiences: not only thosewhich are vaguely called his spiritual intuitions, but the full weightof his impulsive and emotional life. His experience and itsinterpretation are, then, inevitably conditioned by this apperceivingmass. And here I think the intellect should show mercy, and not probewithout remorse into those tender places where the heart and the spiritare at one. Let us then be content to note, that when we consult theworks of those who have best and most fully interpreted their religionin a universal sense, we find how careful they are to provide a categoryfor this experience of a personally known and loved indwellingDivinity--man's Father, Lover, Saviour, ever-present Companion--whichshall avoid its identification with the mere spirit of Nature, whilstsafeguarding its immanence no less than its transcendent quality. Thus, Julian of Norwich heard in her meditations the voice of God saying toher, "See! I am in all things! See! I lift never mine hand from off myworks, nor ever shall!"[28] Is it possible to state more plainly theindivisible identity of the Spirit of Life? "See! I am in _all_ things!"In the terrific energies of the stellar universe, and the smallest songof the birds. In the seething struggle of modern industrialism, as mucha part of nature, of those works on which His hands are laid, as themore easily comprehended economy of the ant-heap and the hive. Thissense of the personal presence of an abiding Reality, fulfilling andtranscending all our highest values, here in our space-time world ofeffort, may well be regarded as the differential mark of real spiritualexperience, wherever found. It chimes well with the definition ofProfessor Pratt, who observes that the truly spiritual man, though hemay not be any better morally than his non-religious neighbour, "has aconfidence in the universe and an inner joy which the other does notknow--is more at-home in the universe as a whole, than other men. "[29]

If, in their attempt to describe their experience of this companioningReality, spiritual men of all types have exhausted all the resources andsymbols of poetry, even earthly lovers are obliged to do that, in orderto suggest a fraction of the values contained in earthly love. Such adivine presence is dramatized for Christianity in the historicincarnation, though not limited by it: and it is continued into historyby the beautiful Christian conception of the eternal indwelling Christ. The distinction made by the Bhakti form of Hinduism between the Manifestand the Unmanifest God seeks to express this same truth; and shows thatthis idea, in one form or another, is a necessity for religious thought. 

Further and detailed illustration of spiritual experience in itself, asa genuine and abiding human fact--a form of life--independent of thedogmatic interpretations put on it, will come up as we proceed. I nowwish to go on to a second point: this--that it follows that any completedescription of human life as we know it, must find room for thespiritual factor, and for that religious life and temper in which itfinds expression. This place must be found, not merely in the phenomenalseries, as we might find room for any special human activity oraberration, from the medicine-man to the Jumping Perfectionists; butdeep-set in the enduring stuff of man's true life. We must believe thatthe union of this life with supporting Spirit cannot _in fact_ bebroken, any more than the organic unity of the earth with the universeas a whole. But the extent in which we find and feel it is the measureof the fullness of spiritual life that we enjoy. Organic union must belifted to conscious realization: and this to do, is the business ofreligion. In this act of realization each aspect of the psychiclife--thought, will and feeling--must have its part, and from each mustbe evoked a response. Only in so far as such all-round realization andresponse are achieved by us do we live the spiritual life. We do itperhaps in some degree, every time that we surrender to pure beauty orunselfish devotion; for then all but the most insensitive must beconscious of an unearthly touch, and hear the cadence of a heavenlymelody. In these partial experiences something, as it were, of therichness of Reality overflows and is experienced by us. But it is in thewholeness of response characteristic of religion--that uncalculatedresponse to stimulus which is the mark of the instinctive life--thatthis Realty of love and power is most truly found and felt by us. Inthis generous and heart-searching surrender of religion, rightly made, the self achieves inner harmony, and finds a satisfying objective forall its cravings and energies. It then finds its life, and thepossibilities before it, to be far greater than it knew. 

We need not claim that those men and women who have most fully realized, and so at first hand have described to us, this life of the Spirit, haveneither discerned or communicated the ultimate truth of things; nor needwe claim that the symbols they use have intrinsic value, beyond thepoetic power of suggesting to us the quality and wonder of theirtransfigured lives. Still less must we claim this discovery as themonopoly of any one system of religion. But we can and ought to claim, that no system shall be held satisfactory which does not find a placefor it: and that only in so far as we at least apprehend and respond tothe world's spiritual aspect, do we approach the full stature ofhumanity. Psychologists at present are much concerned to entreat us to"face reality, " discarding idealism along with the other phantasies thathaunt the race. Yet this facing of reality can hardly be complete if wedo not face the facts of the spiritual life. Certainly we shall find itmost difficult to interpret these facts; they are confused, and morethan one reading of them is possible. But still we cannot leave them outand claim to have "faced reality. "

Höffding goes so far as to say that any real religion implies and mustgive us a world-view. [30] And I think it is true that any vividly livedspiritual life must, as soon as it passes beyond the level of merefeeling and involves reflection, involve too some more or lessarticulated conception of the spiritual universe, in harmony with whichthat life is to be lived. This may be given to us by authority, in theform of creed: but if we do not thus receive it, we are committed to thebuilding of our own City of God. And to-day, that world-view, thatspiritual landscape, must harmonize--if it is needed to help ourliving--with the outlook, the cosmic map, of the ordinary man. If it beadequate, it will inevitably transcend this; but must not be in hopelessconflict with it. The stretched-out, graded, striving world ofbiological evolution, the many-faced universe of the physicalrelativist, the space-time manifold of realist philosophy--these greatconstructions of human thought, so often ignored by the religious mind, must on the contrary be grasped, and accommodated to the world-viewwhich centres on the God known in religious experience. They are truewithin their own systems of reference; and the soul demands a synthesiswide enough to contain them. 

It is true that most religious systems, at least of the traditionaltype, do purport to give us a world-view, a universe, in whichdevotional experience is at home and finds an objective and anexplanation. They give us a self-consistent symbolic world in which tolive. But it is a world which is almost unrelated to the universe ofmodern physics, and emerges in a very dishevelled state from theexplorations of history and of psychology. Even contrasted with ourevery-day unresting strenuous life, it is rather like a conservatory ina wilderness. Whilst we are inside everything seems all right. 

Beauty and fragrance surround us. But emerging from its doors, we findourselves meeting the cold glances of those who deal in other kinds ofreality; and discover that such spiritual life as we possess has got toaccommodate itself to the conditions in which they live. If the claim ofreligion be true at all, it is plain that the conservatory-type ofspiritual world is inconsistent with it. Imperfect though any conceptionwe frame of the universe must be--and here we may keep in mind SamuelButler's warning that "there is no such source of error as the pursuitof absolute truth"--still, a view which is controlled by the religiousfactor ought to be, so to speak, a hill-top view. Lifting us up tohigher levels, it ought to give us a larger synthesis. Hence, the widerthe span of experience which we are able to bring within our system, themore valid its claim becomes: and the setting apart of spiritualexperience in a special compartment, the keeping of it under glass, isdaily becoming less possible. That experience is life in its fullness, or nothing at all. Therefore it must come out into the open, and mustwitness to its own most sacred conviction; that the universe as a wholeis a religious fact, and man is not living completely until he is livingin a world religiously conceived. 

More and more, as it seems to me, philosophy moves toward this readingof existence. The revolt from the last century's materialism is almostcomplete. In religious language, abstract thought is again finding andfeeling God within the world; and finding too in this discovery andrealization the meaning, and perhaps--if we may dare to use such aword--the purpose of life. It suggests--and here, more and more, psychology supports it--that, real and alive as we are in relation tothis system with which we find ourselves in correspondence, yet we arenot so real, nor so alive, as it is possible to be. The characters ofour psychic life point us on and up to other levels. Already we perceivethat man's universe is no fixed order; and that the many ways in whichhe is able to apprehend it are earnests of a greater transfiguration, amore profound contact with reality yet possible to him. Higher forms ofrealization, a wider span of experience, a sharpening of our vague, uncertain consciousness of value--these may well be before us. We haveto remember how dim, tentative, half-understood a great deal of ourso-called "normal" experience is: how narrow the little field ofconsciousness, how small the number of impressions it picks up from therich flux of existence, how subjective the picture it constructs fromthem. To take only one obvious example, artists and poets have given usplenty of hints that a real beauty and significance which we seldomnotice lie at our very doors; and forbid us to contradict the statementof religion that God is standing there too. 

That thought which inspires the last chapters of Professor 'Alexander's"Space, Time, and Deity, " that the universe as a whole has a tendencytowards deity, does at least seem true of the fully awakened humanconsciousness. [31] Though St. Thomas Aquinas may not have covered allthe facts when he called man a contemplative animal, [32] he came nearerthe mark than more modern anthropologists. Man has an ineradicableimpulse to transcendence, though sometimes--as we may admit--it isexpressed in strange ways: and no psychology which fails to take accountof it can be accepted by us as complete. He has a craving which nothingin his material surroundings seems adequate either to awaken or tosatisfy; a deep conviction that some larger synthesis of experience ispossible to him. The sense that we are not yet full grown has alwayshaunted the race. "I am the Food of the full-grown. _Grow, _ and thoushalt feed on Me!"[33] said the voice of supreme Reality to St. Augustine. Here we seem to lay our finger on the distinguishing mark ofhumanity: that in man the titanic craving for a fuller life and lovewhich is characteristic of all living things, has a teleologicalobjective. He alone guesses that he may or should be something other;yet cannot guess what he may be. And from this vague sense of being _invia, _ the restlessness and discord of his nature proceed. In him, theonward thrust of the world of becoming achieves self-consciousness. 

The best individuals and communities of each age have felt this cravingand conviction; and obeyed, in a greater or less degree, its persistentonward push. "The seed of the new birth, " says William Law, "is not anotion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting, a magneticdesire. "[34] Over and over again, rituals have dramatized this, desireand saints have surrendered to it. The history of religion andphilosophy is really the history of the profound human belief that wehave faculties capable of responding to orders of truth which, did weapprehend them, would change the whole character of our universe;showing us reality from another angle, lit by another light. And timeafter time too--as we shall see, when we come to consider the testimonyof history--favourable variations have arisen within the race and provedin their own persons that this claim is true. Often at the cost of greatpain, sacrifice, and inward conflict they have broken their attachmentsto the narrow world of the senses: and this act of detachment has beenrepaid by a new, more lucid vision, and a mighty inflow of power. Theprinciple of degrees assures us that such changed levels ofconsciousness and angles of approach may well involve introduction intoa universe of new relations, which we are not competent tocriticize. [35] This is a truth which should make us humble in ourefforts to understand the difficult and too often paradoxical utterancesof religious genius. It suggests the puzzlings of philosophers andtheologians--and, I may add, of psychologists too--over experienceswhich they have not shared, are not of great authority for those whoseobject is to find the secret of the Spirit, and make it useful for life. Here, the only witnesses we can receive are, on the one part, thefirst-hand witnesses of experience, and on the other part, our ownprofound instinct that these are telling us news of our native land. 

Baron von Hügel has finely said, that the facts of this spiritual lifeare themselves the earnests of its objective. These facts cannot beexplained merely as man's share in the cosmic movement towards a yetunrealized perfection; such as the unachieved and self-evolving Divinityof some realist philosophers. "For we have no other instance of anunrealized perfection producing such pain and joy, such volitions, suchendlessly varied and real results; and all by means of just this vividand persistent impression that this Becoming is an already realizedPerfection. "[36] Therefore though the irresistible urge and the effortforward, experienced on highest levels of love and service, are plainlyone-half of the life of the Spirit--which can never be consistent with apious indolence, an acceptance of things as they are, either in thesocial or the individual life--yet, the other half, and the veryinspiration of that striving, is this certitude of an untarnishablePerfection, a great goal really there; a living God Who draws allspirits to Himself. "Our quest, " said Plotinus, "is of an End, not ofends: for that only can be chosen by us which is ultimate and noblest, that which calls forth the tenderest longings of our soul. "[37]

There is of course a sense in which such a life of the Spirit is thesame yesterday, to-day and for ever. Even if we consider it in relationto historical time, the span within which it has appeared is so short, compared with the ages of human evolution, that we may as well regard itas still in the stage of undifferentiated infancy. Yet even babieschange, and change quickly, in their relations with the external world. And though the universe with which man's childish spirit is in contactbe a world of enduring values; yet, placed as we are in the stream ofsuccession, part of the stuff of a changing world and linked at everypoint with it, our apprehensions of this life of spirit, the symbols weuse to describe it--and we must use symbols--must inevitably change too. Therefore from time to time some restatement becomes imperative, ifactuality is not to be lost. Whatever God meant man to do or to be, thewhole universe assures us that He did not mean him to stand still. Sucha restatement, then, may reasonably be called a truly religious work;and I believe that it is indeed one of the chief works to which religionmust find itself committed in the near future. Hence my main object Inthis book is to recommend the consideration of this enduring fact of thelife of the Spirit and what it can mean to us, from various points ofview; thus helping to prepare the ground for that synthesis which we maynot yet be able to achieve, but towards which we ought to look. It isfrom this stand-point, and with this object of examining what we have, of sorting out if we can the permanent from the transitory, of noticinglacks and bridging cleavages, that we shall consider in turn thetestimony of history, the position in respect of psychology, and theinstitutional personal and social aspects of the spiritual life. 

In such a restatement, such a reference back to actual man, here at thepresent day as we have him--such a demand for a spiritual interpretationof the universe, which will allow us to fit in all his many-levelledexperiences--I believe we have the way of approach to which religionto-day must look as its best hope. Thus only can we conquer thatmuseum-like atmosphere of much traditional piety which--agreeable as itmay be to the historic or æsthetic sense--makes it so unreal to ourworkers, no less than to our students. Such a method, too, will mean thetightening of that alliance between philosophy and psychology which isalready a marked character of contemporary thought. 

And note that, working on this basis, we need not in order to find roomfor the facts commit ourselves to the harsh dualism, the oppositionbetween nature and spirit, which is characteristic of some earlier formsof Christian thought. In this dualism, too, we find simply an effort todescribe felt experience. It is an expression of the fact, so stronglyand deeply felt by the richest natures, that there _is_ an utterdifference in kind between the natural life of use and wont, as most ofus live it, and the life that is dominated by the spiritualconsciousness. The change is indeed so great, the transfiguration socomplete, that they seize on the strongest language in which to stateit. And in the good old human way, referring their own feelings to theuniverse, they speak of the opposing and incompatible worlds of matterand of spirit, of nature and of grace. But those who have most deeplyreflected, have perceived that the change effected is not a change ofworlds. It is rather such a change of temper and attitude as willdisclose within our one world, here and now, the one Spirit in thediversity of His gifts; the one Love, in homeliest incidents as well asnoblest vision, laying its obligations on the soul; and so the truenature and full possibilities of this our present life. 

Although it is true that we must register our profound sense of thetranscendental character of this spirit-life, its otherness from merenature, and the humility and penitence in which alone mere naturereceive it; yet I think that our movement from one to the other is morenaturally described by us in the language of growth than in the languageof convulsion. The primal object of religion is to disclose to us thisperdurable basis of life, and foster our growth into communion with it. And whatever its special, language and personal colour be--for all ournews of God comes to us through the consciousness of individual men, andarrives tinctured by their feelings and beliefs--in the end it doesthis by disclosing us to ourselves as spirits growing up, thoughunevenly and hampered by our past, through the physical order intocompleteness of response to a universe that is itself a spiritual fact. "Heaven, " said Jacob Boehme, "is nothing else but a manifestation of theEternal One, wherein all worketh and willeth in quiet love. "[38] Such amanifestation of Spirit must clearly be made through humanity, at leastso far as our own order is concerned: by our redirection and full use ofthat spirit of life which energizes us, and which, emerging from themore primitive levels of organic creation, is ours to carry on andup--either to new self-satisfactions, or to new consecrations. 

It is hardly worth while to insist that the need for such a redirectionhas never been more strongly felt than at the present day. There isindeed no period in which history exhibits mankind as at once moreactive, more feverishly self-conscious, and more distracted, than is ourown bewildered generation; nor any which stood in greater need ofBlake's exhortation: "Let every Christian as much as in him lies, engagehimself openly and publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuitfor the Building up of Jerusalem. "[39]

How many people do each of us know who work and will in quiet love, andthus participate in eternal life?

Consider the weight of each of these words. The energy, the clearpurpose, the deep calm, the warm charity they imply. Willed work; notgrudging toil. Quiet love, not feverish emotionalism. Each term is quiteplain and human, and each has equal importance as an attribute ofheavenly life. How many politicians--the people to whom we have confidedthe control of our national existence--work and will in quiet love? Whatabout industry? Do the masters, or the workers, work and will in quietlove? that is to say with diligence and faithful purpose, withoutselfish anxiety, without selfish demands and hostilities? What about thehurried, ugly and devitalizing existence of our big towns? Can wehonestly say that young people reared in them are likely to acquire thistemper of heaven? Yet we have been given the secret, the law ofspiritual life; and psychologists would agree that it represents too themost favourable of conditions for a full psychic life, the state inwhich we have access to all our sources of power. 

But man will not achieve this state unless he dwells on the idea of it;and, dwelling on that idea, opening his mind to its suggestions, bringsits modes of expression into harmony with his thought about the world ofdaily life. Our spiritual life to-day, such as it is, tends above all toexpress itself in social activities. Teacher after teacher comes forwardto plume himself on the fact that Christianity is now taking a "socialform"; that love of our neighbour is not so much the corollary as theequivalent of the love of God, and so forth. Here I am sure that all cansupply themselves with illustrative quotations. Yet is there in thisstate of things nothing but food for congratulation? Is such a viewcomplete? Is nothing left out? Have we not lost the wonder and poetry ofthe forest in our diligent cultivation of the economically valuabletrees; and shall we ever see life truly until we see it with the poet'seyes? There is so much meritorious working and willing; and so littletime left for quiet love. A spiritual fussiness--often a materialfussiness too--seems to be taking the place of that inward resort to thefontal sources of our being which is the true religious act, our chanceof contact with the Spirit. This compensating beat of the fully livedhuman life, that whole side of existence resumed in the wordcontemplation, has been left out. "All the artillery of the world, " saidJohn Everard, "were they all discharged together at one clap, could notmore deaf the ears of our bodies than the clamourings of desires in thesoul deaf its ears, so you see a man must go into the silence, or elsehe cannot hear God speak. "[40] And until we remodel our currentconception of the Christian life in such a sense as to give that silenceand its revelation their full value, I do not think that we can hope toexhibit the triumphing power of the Spirit in human character and humansociety. Our whole notion of life at present is such as to set upresistances to its inflow. Yet the inner mood, the consciousness, whichmakes of the self its channel, are accessible to all, if we would butbelieve this and act on our belief. "Worship, " said William Penn, "isthe supreme act of a man's life. "[41] And what is worship but areach-out of the finite spirit towards Infinite Life? Here thought mustmend the breach which thought has made: for the root of our troubleconsists in the fact that there is a fracture in our conception of Godand of our relation with Him. We do not perceive the "hidden unity inthe Eternal Being"; the single nature and purpose of that Spirit whichbrought life forth, and shall lead it to full realization. 

Here is our little planet, chiefly occupied, to our view, in rushinground the sun; but perhaps found from another angle to fill quiteanother part in the cosmic scheme. And on this apparently unimportantspeck, wandering among systems of suns, the appearance of life and itsslow development and ever-increasing sensitization; the emerging of painand of pleasure; and presently man with his growing capacity forself-affirmation and self-sacrifice, for rapture and for grief. Lovewith its unearthly happiness, unmeasured devotion, and limitless pain;all the ecstasy, all the anguish that we extract from the rhythm of lifeand death. It is much, really, for one little planet to bring to birth. And presently another music, which some--not many perhaps yet, incomparison with its population--are able to hear. The music of a moreinward life, a sort of fugue in which the eternal and temporal aremingled; and here and there some, already, who respond to it. Those whohear it would not all agree as to the nature of the melody; but allwould agree that it is something different in kind from the rhythm oflife and death. And in their surrender to this--to which, as they feelsure, the physical order too is really keeping time--they taste a largerlife; more universal, more divine. As Plotinus said, they are looking atthe Conductor in the midst; and, keeping time with Him, find thefulfilment both of their striving and of their peace. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Von Hügel: "Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy ofReligion, " p. 60. ]

[Footnote 2: Ennead I, 6. 7. ]

[Footnote 3: Jacob Boehme: "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 4: Op. Cit. , loc. Cit. ]

[Footnote 5: "One Hundred Poems of Kabir, " p. 31. ]

[Footnote 6: Bernard Bosanquet: "What Religion Is" p. 32. ]

[Footnote 7: Aug. : Conf. VII, 27. ]

[Footnote 8: "My vision, becoming more purified, entered deeper anddeeper into the ray of that Supernal Light, which in itself istrue"--Par. XXXIII, 52. ]

[Footnote 9: "The Tragic Sense of Life In Men and Peoples, " p. 194. ]

[Footnote 10: T. Upton: "The Bases of Religious Belief, " p. 363. ]

[Footnote 11: Blake: "Jerusalem, " Cap. I. ]

[Footnote 12: Nicholson: "The Divãni Shamsi Tabriz, " p. 141. ]

[Footnote 13: Ennead V. I. 3. ]

[Footnote 14: Kabir, op. Cit. , p. 41. ]

[Footnote 15: "Love, whoso loves thee cannot idle be, so sweet to him totaste thee; but every hour he lives in longing that he may love theemore straitly. For in thee the heart so joyful dwells, that he who feelsit not can never say how sweet it is to taste thy savour"--Jacopone daTodi: Lauda 101. ]

[Footnote 16: Isaiah xl, 29-31. ]

[Footnote 17: Aug. : Conf. X, 28. ]

[Footnote 18: "Autobiography of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagore, " Cap. 12. ]

[Footnote 19: "Le Journal Spirituel de Lucie-Christine, " p. Ii. ]

[Footnote 20: "Autobiography of Maharishi Devendranath Tagore, " Cap. 20. ]

[Footnote 21: Ruysbroeck: "The Book of the XII Béguines;" Cap. 8. ]

[Footnote 22: Overton: "Life of Wesley. " Cap. 2. ]

[Footnote 23: R. A. Nicholson: "Studies In Islamic Mysticism, " Cap. I. ]

[Footnote 24: "Donne's Sermons, " edited by L. Pearsall Smith, p. 236. ]

[Footnote 25: Ruysbroeck, "The Sparkling Stone, " Cap. 14. ]

[Footnote 26: Bishr-i-Yasin, cf. Nicholson, op. Cit. , loc. Cit. ]

[Footnote 27: Ennead VI. 9. 4. ]

[Footnote 28: "Revelations of Divine Love, " Cap. II. ]

[Footnote 29: Pratt: "The Religious Consciousness, " Cap. 2. ]

[Footnote 30: Höffding: "Philosophy of Religion, " Pt. II, A]

[Footnote 31: Op. Cit. , Bk. 4, Cap. 1. ]

[Footnote 32: "Summa contra Gentiles, " L. III. Cap. 37. ]

[Footnote 33: Aug: Conf. VII, 10. ]

[Footnote 34: "The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law, " p. 154. ]

[Footnote 35: Cf. Haldane, "The Reign of Relativity, " Cap. VI. ]

[Footnote 36: Von Hügel: "Eternal Life, " p. 385. ]

[Footnote 37: Ennead I. 4. 6. ]

[Footnote 38: Boehme: "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 39: Blake: "Jerusalem": To the Christians. ]

[Footnote 40: "Some Gospel Treasures Opened, " p. 600. ]

[Footnote 41: William Penn, "No Cross, No Crown. "]

CHAPTER II

HISTORY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

We have already agreed that, if we wish to grasp the real character ofspiritual life, we must avoid the temptation to look at it as merely ahistorical subject. If it is what it claims to be, it is a form ofeternal life, as constant, as accessible to us here and now, as in anyso-called age of faith: therefore of actual and present importance, orelse nothing at all. This is why I think that the approach to it throughphilosophy and psychology is so much to be preferred to the approachthrough pure history. Yet there is a sense in which we must not neglectsuch history; for here, if we try to enter by sympathy into the past, wecan see the life of the Spirit emerging and being lived in all degreesof perfection and under many different forms. Here, through and behindthe immense diversity of temperaments which it has transfigured, we canbest realise its uniform and enduring character; and therefore our ownpossibility of attaining to it, and the way that we must tread so to do. History does not exhort us or explain to us, but exhibits livingspecimens to us; and these specimens witness again and again to the factthat a compelling power does exist in the world--little understood, even by those who are inspired by it--which presses men to transcendtheir material limitations and mental conflicts, and live a new creativelife of harmony, freedom and joy. Directly human character emerges asone of man's prime interests, this possibility emerges too, and is neverlost sight of again. Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, Greek, Alexandrian, Moslem and Christian all declare with more or less completeness a way oflife, a path, a curve of development which shall end in its attainment;and history brings us face to face with the real and human men and womenwho have followed this way, and found its promise to be true. 

It is, indeed, of supreme importance to us that these men and women didtruly and actually thus grow, suffer and attain: did so feel thepressure of a more intense life, and the demand of a more authenticlove. Their adventures, whatsoever addition legend may have made tothem, belong at bottom to the realm of fact, of realistic happening, notof phantasy: and therefore speak not merely to our imagination but toour will. Unless the spiritual life were thus a part of history, itcould only have for us the interest of a noble dream: an interestactually less than that of great poetry, for this has at least beengiven to us by man's hard passionate work of expressing in concreteimage--and ever the more concrete, the greater his art--the results ofhis transcendental contacts with Beauty, Power or Love. Thus, as thetracking-out of a concrete life, a Man, from Nazareth to Calvary, madeof Christianity a veritable human revelation of God and not a Gnosticanswer to the riddle of the soul; so the real and solid men and women ofthe Spirit--eating, drinking, working, suffering, loving, each in thecircumstances of their own time--are the earnests of our own latentdestiny and powers, the ability of the Christian to "grow taller inChrist. "[42] These powers--that ability--are factually present in therace, and are totally independent of the specific religious system whichmay best awaken, nourish, and cause them to grow. 

In order, then, that we may be from the first clear of all suspicion ofvague romancing about indefinite types of perfection and keep tight holdon concrete life, let us try to re-enter history, and look at thequality of life exhibited by some of these great examples of dynamicspirituality, and the movements which they initiated. It is true that wecan only select from among them, but we will try to keep to those whohave followed on highest levels a normal course; the upstanding types, varying much in temperament but little in aim and achievement, of thatform of life which is re-made and controlled by the Spirit, entincturedwith Eternal Life. If such a use of history is indeed to be educativefor us, we must avoid the conventional view of it, as a mere chronicleof past events; and of historic personalities as stuffed specimensexhibited against a flat tapestried background, more or lesspicturesque, but always thought of in opposition to the concretethickness of the modern world. We are not to think of spiritual epochsnow closed; of ages of faith utterly separated from us; of saints assome peculiar species, God's pet animals, living in an incense-ladenatmosphere and less vividly human and various than ourselves. Suchconceptions are empty of historical content in the philosophic sense;and when we are dealing with the accredited heroes of the Spirit--thatis to say, with the Saints--they are particularly common andparticularly poisonous. As Benedetto Croce has observed, the verycondition of the existence of real history is that the deed celebratedmust live and be present in the soul of the historian; must beemotionally realized by him _now, _ as a concrete fact weighted withsignificance. It must answer to a present, not to a past interest of therace, for thus alone can it convey to us some knowledge of its inwardtruth. 

Consider from this point of view the case of Richard Rolle, who has beencalled the father of English mysticism. It is easy enough for those whoregard spiritual history as dead chronicle and its subjects as somethingdifferent from ourselves, to look upon Rolle's threefold experience ofthe soul's reaction to God--the heat of his quick love, the sweetness ofhis spiritual intercourse, the joyous melody with which it filled hisaustere, self-giving life[43]--as the probable result of the reaction ofa neurotic temperament to mediæval traditions. But if, for instance theOxford undergraduate of to-day realizes Rolle, not as a picturesquefourteenth-century hermit, but as a fellow-student--another Oxfordundergraduate, separated from him only by an interval of time--who gaveup that university and the career it could offer him, under thecompulsion of another Wisdom and another Love, then he re-enters theliving past. If, standing by him in that small hut in the Yorkshirewolds, from which the urgent message of new life spread through thenorth of England, he hears Rolle saying "Nought more profitable, noughtmerrier than grace of contemplation, the which lifteth us from lowthings and presenteth us to God. What thing is grace but beginning ofjoy? And what is perfection of joy but grace complete?"[44]--if, I say, he so re-enters history that he can hear this as Rolle meant it, not asa poetic phrase but as a living fact, indeed life's very secret--then, his heart may be touched and he may begin to understand. And then it mayoccur to him that this ardour, and the sacrifice it impelled, the hardlife which it supported, witness to another level of being; reprove hisown languor and comfort, his contentment with a merely physical mentallife, and are not wholly to be accounted for in terms of superstitionor of pathology. 

When the living spirit in us thus meets the living spirit of the past, our time-span is enlarged, and history is born and becomes contemporary;thus both widening and deepening our vital experience. It then becomesnot only a real mode of life to us; but more than this, a mode of sociallife. Indeed, we can hardly hope without this re-entrance into the timestream to achieve by ourselves, and in defiance of tradition, a trueintegration of existence. Thus to defy tradition is to refuse all thegifts the past can make to us, and cut ourselves off from the cumulativeexperiences of the race. The Spirit, as Croce[45] reminds us, ishistory, makes history, and is also itself the living result of allpreceding history; since Becoming is the essential reality, the creativeformula, of that life in which we find ourselves immersed. 

It is from such an angle as this that I wish to approach the historicalaspect of the life of Spirit; re-entering the past by sympatheticimagination, refusing to be misled by superficial characteristics, butseeking the concrete factors of the regenerate life, the features whichpersist and have significance for it--getting, if we can, face to facewith those intensely living men and women who have manifested it. Thisis not easy. In studying all such experience, we have to remember thatthe men and women of the Spirit are members of two orders. They haveattachments both to time and to eternity. Their characteristicexperiences indeed are non-temporal, but their feet are on the earth;the earth of their own day. Therefore two factors will inevitably appearin those experiences, one due to tradition, the other to the freemovements of creative life: and we, if we would understand, mustdiscriminate between them. In this power of taking from the past andpushing on to the future, the balance maintained between stability andnovelty, we find one of their abiding characteristics. When this balanceis broken--when there is either too complete a submission to traditionand authority, or too violent a rejection of it--full greatness is notachieved. 

In complete lives, the two things overlap: and so perfectly that nosharp distinction is made between the gifts of authority and of freshexperience. Traditional formulæ, as we all know, are often used becausethey are found to tally with life, to light up dark corners of our ownspirits and give names to experiences which we want to define. Ceremonial deeds are used to actualize free contacts with Reality. Andwe need not be surprised that they can do this; since traditionrepresents the crystallization, and handling on under symbols, of allthe spiritual experiences of the race. 

Therefore the man or woman of the Spirit will always accept and use sometradition; and unless he does so, he is not of much use to hisfellow-men. He must not, then, be discredited on account of thesymbolic system he adopts; but must be allowed to tell his news in hisown way. We must not refuse to find reality within the Hindu's accountof his joyous life-giving communion with Ram, any more than we refuse tofind it within the Christian's description of his personal converse withChrist. We must not discredit the assurance which comes to the devoutBuddhist who faithfully follows the Middle Way, or deny that Pagansacramentalism was to its initiates a channel of grace. For all theseare children of tradition, occupy a given place in the stream ofhistory; and commonly they are better, not worse, for accepting thisfact with all that it involves. And on the other hand, as we shall seewhen we come to discuss the laws of suggestion and the function ofbelief, the weight of tradition presses the loyal and humble soul whichaccepts it, to such an interpretation of its own spiritual intuitions asits Church, its creed, its environment give to it. Thus St. Catherine ofGenoa, St. Teresa, even Ruysbroeck, are able to describe their intuitivecommunion with God in strictly Catholic terms; and by so doing renew, enrich and explicate the content of those terms for those who followthem. Those who could not harmonize their own vision of reality with thecurrent formulæ--Fox, Wesley or Blake, driven into opposition by thesterility of the contemporary Church--were forced to find elsewhere sometradition through which to maintain contact with the past. Fox found itin the Bible; Wesley in patristic Christianity. Even Blake's propheticsystem, when closely examined, is found to have many historic andChristian connections. And all these regarded themselves far less asbringers-in of novelty, than as restorers of lost truth. So we must beprepared to discriminate the element of novelty from the element ofstability; the reality of the intuition, the curve of growth, the moralsituation, from the traditional and often symbolic language in which itis given to us. The comparative method helps us towards this; and isthus not, as some would pretend, the servant of scepticism, but rightlyused the revealer of the Spirit of Life in its variety of gifts. In thisconnection we might remember that time--like space--is only of secondaryimportance to us. Compared with the eons of preparation, the millions ofyears of our animal and sub-human existence, the life of the Spirit asit appears in human history might well be regarded as simultaneousrather than successive. We may borrow the imagery of Donne's greatdiscourse on Eternity and say, that those heroic livers of the spirituallife whom we idly class in comparison with ourselves as antique, ormediæval men, were "but as a bed of flowers some gathered at six, someat seven, some at eight--all in one morning in respect of this day. "[46]

Such a view brings them more near to us, helps us to neglect meredifferences of language and appearance, and grasp the warmly living andcontemporary character of all historic truth. It preserves us, too, fromthe common error of discriminating between so-called "ages of faith" andour own. The more we study the past, the more clearly we recognize thatthere are no "ages of faith. " Such labels merely represent the arbitrarycuts which we make in the time-stream, the arbitrary colours which wegive to it. The spiritual man or woman is always fundamentally the samekind of man or woman; always reaching out with the same faith and lovetowards the heart of the same universe, though telling that faith andlove in various tongues. He is far less the child of his time, than thetransformer of it. His this-world business is to bring in novelty, newreality, fresh life. Yet, coming to fulfil not to destroy, he uses forthis purpose the traditions, creeds, even the institutions of his day. But when he has done with them, they do not look the same as they didbefore. Christ himself has been well called a ConstructiveRevolutionary, [47] yet each single element of His teaching can be foundin Jewish tradition; and the noblest of His followers have the samecharacter. Thus St. Francis of Assisi only sought consistently to applythe teaching of the New Testament, and St. Teresa that of the CarmeliteRule. Every element of Wesleyanism is to be found in primitiveChristianity; and Wesleyanism is itself the tradition from which the newvigour of the Salvation Army sprang. The great regenerators of historyare always in fundamental opposition to the common life of their day, for they demand by their very existence a return to first principles, arevolution in the ways of thinking and of acting common among men, aheroic consistency and single-mindedness: but they can use for their ownfresh constructions and contacts with Eternal Life the material whichthis life offers to them. The experiments of St. Benedict, St. Francis, Fox or Wesley, were not therefore the natural products of ages of faith. They each represented the revolt of a heroic soul against surroundingapathy and decadence; an invasion of novelty; a sharp break withsociety, a new use of antique tradition depending on new contacts withthe Spirit. Greatness is seldom in harmony with its own epoch, andspiritual greatness least of all. It is usually startlingly modern, eveneccentric at the time at which it appears. We are accustomed to think of"The Imitation of Christ" as the classic expression of mediævalspirituality. But when Thomas à Kempis wrote his book, it was themanifesto of that which was called the Modern Devotion; and representeda new attempt to live the life of the Spirit, in opposition tosurrounding apathy. 

When we re-enter the past, what we find, there is the persistentconflict between this novelty and this apathy; that is to say betweenman's instinct for transcendence, in which we discern the pressure ofthe Spirit and the earnest of his future, and his tendency to lagbehind towards animal levels, in which we see the influence of hisracial past. So far as the individual is concerned, all that religionmeans by grace is resumed under the first head, much that it means bysin under the second head. And the most striking--though not theonly--examples of the forward reach of life towards freedom (that is, ofconquering grace) are those persons whom we call men and women of theSpirit. In them it is incarnate, and through them, as it were, itspreads and gives the race a lift: for their transfiguration is neverfor themselves alone, they impart it to all who follow them. But thedownward falling movement ever dogs the emerging life of spirit; andtends to drag back to the average level the group these have vivified, when their influence is withdrawn. Hence the history of the Spirit--and, incidentally, the history of all churches--exhibits to us a series ofstrong movements towards completed life, inspired by vigorous andtranscendent personalities; thwarted by the common indolence andtendency to mechanization, but perpetually renewed. We have no reason tosuppose that this history is a closed book, or that the spiritual lifestruggling to emerge among ourselves will follow other laws. 

We desire then, if we can, to discover what it was that thesetranscendent personalities possessed. We may think, from the point atwhich we now stand, that they had some things which were false, or, atleast, were misinterpreted by them. We cannot without insincerity maketheir view of the universe our own. But, plainly, they also possessedtruths and values which most of us have not: they obtained from theirreligion, whether we allow that it had as creed an absolute or asymbolic value, a power of living, a courage and clear vision, which wedo not as a rule obtain. When we study the character and works of thesemen and women, observing their nobility, their sweetness, their power ofendurance, their outflowing love, we must, unless we be utterlyinsensitive, perceive ourselves to be confronted by a quality of beingwhich we do not possess. And when we are so fortunate as to meet one ofthem in the flesh, though his conduct is commonly more normal than ourown, we know then with Plotinus that the soul _has_ another life. Yetmany of us accept the same creedal forms, use the same liturgies, acknowledge the same scale of values and same moral law. But assomething, beyond what the ordinary man calls beauty rushes out to thegreat artist from the visible world, and he at this encounter becomesmore vividly alive; so for these there was and is in religion a new, intenser life which they can reach. They seem to represent favourablevariations, genuine movements of man towards new levels; a type of lifeand of greatness, which remains among the hoarded possibilities of therace. 

Now the main questions which we have to ask of history fall into twogroups:

First, _Type. _ What are the characters which mark this life of theSpirit?

Secondly, _Process. _ What is the line of development by which theindividual comes to acquire and exhibit these characters?

First, then, the _Spiritual Type. _

What we see above all in these men and women, so frequently repeatedthat we may regard it as classic, is a perpetual serious heroic effortto integrate life about its highest factors. Their central quality andreal source of power is this single-mindedness. They aim at God: thephrase is Ruysbroeck's, but it pervades the real literature of theSpirit. Thus it is the first principle of Hinduism that "the householdermust keep touch with Brahma in all his actions. "[48] Thus the Sufi sayshe has but two laws--to look in one direction and to live in oneway. [49] Christians call this, and with reason, the Imitation of Christ;and it was in order to carry forward this imitation more perfectly thatall the great Christian systems of spiritual training were framed. TheNew Testament leaves us in no doubt that the central fact of Our Lord'slife was His abiding sense of direct connection with and responsibilityto the Father; that His teaching and works of charity alike wereinspired by this union; and that He declared it, not as a unique fact, but as a possible human ideal. This Is not a theological, but ahistorical statement, which applies, in its degree to every man andwoman who has been a follower of Christ: for He was, as St. Paul hassaid, "the eldest in a vast family of brothers. " The same single-mindedeffort and attainment meet us in other great faiths; though these maylack a historic ideal of perfect holiness and love. And by a paradoxrepeated again and again in human history, it is this utter devotion tothe spiritual and eternal which is seen to bring forth the most abundantfruits in the temporal sphere; giving not only the strength to dodifficult things, but that creative charity which "wins and redeems theunlovely by the power of its love. "[50] The man or woman of prayer, thecommunity devoted to it, tap some deep source of power and use it in themost practical ways. Thus, the only object of the Benedictine rule wasthe fostering of goodness in those who adopted it, the education of thesoul; and it became one of the chief instruments in the civilization ofEurope, carrying forward not only religion, but education, purescholarship, art, and industrial reform. The object of St. Bernard'sreform was the restoration of the life of prayer. His monks, going outinto the waste places with no provision but their own faith, hope andcharity, revived agriculture, established industry, literally compelledthe wilderness to flower for God. The Brothers of the Common Lifejoined together, in order that, living simply and by their own industry, they might observe a rule of constant prayer: and they became inconsequence a powerful educational influence. The object of Wesley andhis first companions was by declaration the saving of their own soulsand the living only to the glory of God; but they were impelled at onceby this to practical deeds of mercy, and ultimately became theregenerators of religion in the English-speaking world. 

It is well to emphasize this truth, for it conveys a lesson which we canlearn from history at the present time with much profit to ourselves. Itmeans that reconstruction of character and reorientation of attentionmust precede reconstruction of society; that the Sufi is right when hedeclares that the whole secret lies in looking in one direction andliving in one way. Again and again it has been proved, that those whoaim at God do better work than those who start with the declaredintention of benefiting their fellow-men. We must _be_ good before wecan _do_ good; be real before we can accomplish real things. Nogeneralized benevolence, no social Christianity, however beautiful anddevoted, can take the place of this centring of the spirit on eternalvalues; this humble, deliberate recourse to Reality. To suppose that itcan do so, is to fly in the face of history and mistake effect forcause. 

This brings us to the _Second Character_: the rich completeness of thespiritual life, the way in which it fuses and transfigures thecomplementary human tendencies to contemplation and action, thenon-successive and successive aspects of reality. "The love of God, "said Ruysbroeck, "is an indrawing _and_ outpouring tide";[51] andhistory endorses this. In its greatest representatives, the rhythm ofadoration and work is seen in an accentuated form. These people seldomor never answer to the popular idea of idle contemplatives. They do notwithdraw from the stream of natural life and effort, but plunge into itmore deeply, seek its heart. They have powers of expression andcreation, and use them to the full. St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Teresa, St. Ignatius organizing families which shallincarnate the gift of new life; Fox, Wesley and Booth striving to saveother men; Mary Slessor driven by vocation from the Dundee mill to theAfrican swamps--these are characteristic of them. We perceive that theyare not specialists, as more earthly types of efficiency are apt to be. Theirs are rich natures, their touch on existence has often an artisticquality, St. Paul in his correspondence could break into poetry, as theonly way of telling the truth. St. Jerome lived to the full the lives ofscholar and of ascetic. St. Francis, in his perpetual missionaryactivities, still found time for his music songs; St. Hildegarde and St. Catherine of Siena had their strong political interests; Jacopone daTodi combined the careers of contemplative politician and poet. So tooin practical matters. St. Catherine of Genoa was one of the firsthospital administrators, St. Vincent de Paul a genius in the sphere oforganized charity, Elizabeth Fry in that of prison reform. BrotherLaurence assures us that he did his cooking the better for doing it inthe Presence of God. Jacob Boehme was a hard-working cobbler, andafterwards as a writer showed amazing powers of composition. Theperpetual journeyings and activities of Wesley reproduced in smallercompass the career of St. Paul: he was also an exact scholar and apractical educationist. Mary Slessor showed the quality of a ruler aswell as that of a winner of souls. In the intellectual region, Richardof St. Victor was supreme in contemplation, and also a psychologist farin advance of his time. We are apt to forget the mystical side ofAquinas; who was poet and contemplative as well as scholasticphilosopher. 

And the third feature we notice about these men and women is, that thisnew power by which they lived was, as Ruysbroeck calls it, "a spreadinglight. "[52] It poured out of them, invading and illuminating other men:so that, through them, whole groups or societies were re-born, if onlyfor a time, on to fresh levels of reality, goodness and power. Their ownintense personal experience was valid not only for themselves. Theybelonged to that class of natural, leaders who are capable, --ofinfecting the herd with their own ideals; leading it to new feedinggrounds, improving the common level It is indeed the main socialfunction of the man or woman of the Spirit to be such a crowd-compellerIn the highest sense; and, as the artist reveals new beauty to hisfellow-men, to stimulate in their neighbours the latent human capacityfor God. In every great surge forward to new life, we can trace back theradiance to such a single point of light; the transfiguration of anindividual soul. Thus Christ's communion with His Father was thelife-centre, the point of contact with Eternity, whence radiated the joyand power of the primitive Christian flock: the classic example of acorporate spiritual life. When the young man with great possessionsasked Jesus, "What shall I do to be saved?" Jesus replied in effect, "Put aside all lesser interests, strip off unrealities, and come, giveyourself the chance of catching the Infection of holiness from Me. "Whatever be our view of Christian dogma, whatever meaning we attach tothe words "redemption" and "atonement, " we shall hardly deny that in thelife and character of the historic Christ something new was thus evokedfrom, and added to, humanity. No one can read with attention the Gospeland the story of the primitive Church, without being struck by theconsciousness of renovation, of enhancement, experienced by all whoreceived the Christian secret in its charismatic stage. This new factoris sometimes called re-birth, sometimes grace, sometimes the power ofthe Spirit, sometimes being "in Christ. " We misread history if we regardit either as a mere gust of emotional fervour, or a theological idea, ordiscount the "miracles of healing" and other proofs of enhanced power bywhich it was expressed. Everything goes to prove that the "more abundantlife" offered by the Johannine Christ to His followers, was literallyexperienced by them; and was the source of their joy, their enthusiasm, their mutual love and power of endurance. 

On lower levels, and through the inspiration of lesser teachers, historyshows us the phenomena of primitive Christianity repeated again andagain; both within and without the Christian circle of ideas. Everyreligion looks for, and most have possessed, some revealer of theSpirit; some Prophet, Buddha, Mahdi, or Messiah. In all, thecharacteristic demonstrations of the human power of transcendence--asupernatural life which can be lived by us--have begun in one person, who has become a creative centre mediating new life to his fellow-men:as were Buddha and Mohammed for the faiths which they founded. Suchlives as those of St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Francis, Fox, Wesley, Booth are outstanding examples of the operation of this law. The parableof the leaven is in fact an exact description of the way in which thespiritual consciousness--the supernatural urge--is observed to spread inhuman society. It is characteristic of the regenerate type, that heshould as it were overflow his own boundaries and energize other souls:for the gift of a real and harmonized life pours out inevitably fromthose who possess it to other men. We notice that the great mysticsrecognize again and again such a fertilizing and creative power, as amark of the soul's full vitality. It is not the personal rapture of thespiritual marriage, but rather the "divine fecundity" of one who is aparent of spiritual children; which seems to them the goal of humantranscendence, and evidence of a life truly lived on eternal levels, inreal union with God. "In the fourth and last degree of love the soulbrings forth its children, " says Richard of St. Victor. [53] "The lastperfection to supervene upon a thing, " says Aquinas, "is its becomingthe cause of other things. "[54] In a word, it is creative. And thespiritual life as we see it in history is thus creative; the cause ofother things. 

History is full of examples of this law: that the man or woman of thespirit is, fundamentally, a life-giver; and all corporate achievement ofthe life of the spirit flows from some great apostle or initiator, isthe fruit of discipleship. Such corporate achievement is a form of groupconsciousness, brought into being through the power and attraction of afully harmonized life, infecting others with its own sharp sense ofDivine reality. Poets and artists thus infect in a measure all thosewho yield to their influence. The active mystic, who is the poet ofEternal Life, does it in a supreme degree. Such a relation of master anddisciples is conspicuous in every true spiritual revival; and is thelink between the personal and corporate aspects of regeneration. We seeit in the little flock that followed Christ, the Little Poor Men whofollowed Francis, the Friends of Fox, the army of General Booth. NotChristianity alone, but Hindu and Moslem history testify to thisnecessity. The Hindu who is drawn to the spiritual life must find a_guru_ who can not only teach its laws but also give its atmosphere; andmust accept his discipline in a spirit of obedience. The S[=u]fineophyte is directed to place himself in the hands of his _sheikh_ "as acorpse in the hands of the washer"; and all the great saints of Islamhave been the inspiring centres of more or less organized groups. 

History teaches us, in fact, that God most often educates men throughmen. We most easily recognize Spirit when it is perceived transfiguringhuman character, and most easily achieve it by means of sympatheticcontagion. Though the new light may flash, as it seems, directly intothe soul of the specially gifted or the inspired, this spontaneousoutbreaking of novelty is comparatively rare; and even here, carefulanalysis will generally reveal the extent in which environment, tradition, teaching literary or oral, have prepared the way for it. There is no aptitude so great that it can afford to dispense with humanexperience and education. Even the noblest of the sons and daughters ofGod are also the sons and daughters of the race; and are helped by thosewho go before them. And as regards the generality, not isolated effortbut the love and sincerity of the true spiritual teacher--and every manand woman of the Spirit is such a teacher within his own sphere ofinfluence--the unselfconscious trust of the disciple, are the means bywhich the secret of full life has been handed on. "One loving spirit, "said St. Augustine, "sets another on fire"; and expressed in this phrasethe law which governs the spiritual history of man. This law findsnotable expression in the phenomena of the Religious Order; a type ofassociation, found in more or less perfection in every great religion, which has not received the attention it deserves from students ofpsychology. If we study the lives of those who founded theseOrders--though such a foundation was not always intended by them--wenotice one general characteristic: each was an enthusiast, abounding inzest and hope, and became in his lifetime a fount of regeneration, asource of spiritual infection, for those who came under his influence. In each the spiritual world was seen "through a temperament, " and somediated to the disciples; who shared so far as they were able themaster's special secret and attitude to life. Thus St. Benedict's saneand generous outlook is crystallized in the Benedictine rule. St. Francis' deep sense of the connection between poverty and freedom gaveFranciscan regeneration its peculiar character. The heroisms of theearly Jesuit missionaries reflected the strong courageous temper of St. Ignatius. The rich contemplative life of Carmel is a direct inheritancefrom St. Teresa's mystical experience. The great Orders in their puritywere families, inheriting and reproducing the salient qualities of theirpatriarch; who gave, as a father to his children, life stamped with hisown characteristics. 

Yet sooner or later after the withdrawal of its founder, the groupappears to lose its spontaneous and enthusiastic character. Zest fails. Unless a fresh leader be forthcoming, it inevitably settles down againtowards the general level of the herd. Thence it can only be roused bymeans of "reforms" or "revivals, " the arrival of new, vigorous leaders, and the formation of new enthusiastic groups: for the bulk of men as weknow them cannot or will not make the costing effort needed for afirst-hand participation in eternal life. They want a "crowd-compeller"to lift them above themselves. Thus the history of Christianity is thehistory of successive spiritual group-formations, and their struggle tosurvive; from the time when Jesus of Nazareth formed His little flockwith the avowed aim of "bringing in the Kingdom of God"--transmuting thementality of the race, and so giving it more abundant life. 

Christians appeal to the continued teaching and compelling power oftheir Master, the influence and infection of His spirit and atmosphere, as the greatest of the regenerative forces still at work within life:and this is undoubtedly true of those devout spirits able to maintaincontact with the eternal world in prayer. The great speech of Serenus deCressy in "John Inglesant" described once for all the highest type ofChristian spirituality. [55] But in practice this link and this influenceare too subtle for the mass of men. They must constantly bere-experienced by ardent and consecrated souls; and by them be mediatedto fresh groups, formed within or without the institutional frame. Thusin the thirteenth century St. Francis, and in the fourteenth the Friendsof God, created a true spiritual society within the Church, by restoringin themselves and their followers the lost consistency between Christianidea and Christian life. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Fox and Wesley possessed by the same essential vision, broke away fromthe institution which was no longer supple enough to meet their needs, and formed their fresh groups outside the old herd. 

When such creative personalities appear and such groups are founded bythem, the phenomena of the spiritual life reappear in their full vigour, and are disseminated. A new vitality, a fresh power of endurance, isseen in all who are drawn within the group and share its mind. This iswhat St. Paul seems to have meant, when he reminded his converts thatthey had the mind of Christ. The primitive friars, living under theinfluence of Francis, did practice the perfect poverty which is alsoperfect joy. The assured calm and willing sufferings of the earlyChristians were reproduced in the early Quakers, secure in theirpossession of the inner light. We know very well the essentialcharacters of this fresh mentality; the power, the enthusiasm, theradiant joy, the indifference to pain and hardship it confers. But wecan no more produce it from these raw materials than the chemist'scrucible can produce life. The whole experience of St. Francis isimplied in the Beatitudes. The secret of Elizabeth Fry is the secret ofSt. John. The doctrine of General Booth is fully stated by St. Paul. Butit was not by referring inquirers to the pages of the New Testament thatthe first brought men fettered by things to experience the freedom ofpoverty; the second faced and tamed three hundred Newgate criminals, whoseemed at her first visit "like wild beasts"; or the third createdarmies of the redeemed from the dregs of the London Slums. They didthese things by direct personal contagion; and they will be done amongus again when the triumphant power of Eternal Spirit is again exhibited, not in ideas but in human character. 

I think, then, that history justifies us in regarding the full living ofthe spiritual life as implying at least these three characters. First, single-mindedness: to mean only God. Second, the full integration of thecontemplative and active sides of existence, lifted up, harmonized, andcompletely consecrated to those interests which the self recognizes asDivine. Third, the power of reproducing this life; incorporating it in agroup. Before we go on, we will look at one concrete example whichillustrates all these points. This example is that of St. Benedict andthe Order which he founded; for in the rounded completeness of his lifeand system we see what should be the normal life of the Spirit, and itsresult. 

Benedict was born in times not unlike our own, when wars had shakencivilization, the arts of peace were unsettled, religion was at a lowebb. As a young man, he experienced an intense revulsion from thevicious futility of Roman society, fled into the hills, and lived in acave for three years alone with his thoughts of God. It would be easy toregard him as an eccentric boy: but he was adjusting himself to the realcentre of his life. Gradually others who longed for a more realexistence joined him, and he divided them into groups of twelve, andsettled them in small houses; giving them a time-table by which to live, which should make possible a full and balanced existence of body, mindand soul. Thanks to those years of retreat and preparation, he knew whathe wanted and what he ought to do; and they ushered in a long life ofintense mental and spiritual activity. His houses were schools, whichtaught the service of God and the perfecting of the soul as the aims oflife. His rule, in which genial human tolerance, gentle courtesy, and aprofound understanding of men are not less marked than loftyspirituality, is the classic statement of all that the Christianspiritual life implies and should be. [56]

What, then, is the character of the life which St. Benedict proposed asa remedy for the human failure and disharmony that he saw around him? Itwas framed, of course, for a celibate community: but it has manypermanent features which are unaffected by his limitation. It offersbalanced opportunities of development to the body, the mind and thespirit; laying equal emphasis on hard work, study, and prayer. It aimsat a robust completeness, not at the production of professionalascetics; indeed, its Rule says little about physical austerities, insists on sufficient food and rest, and countenances no extremes. According to Abbot Butler, St. Benedict's day was divided into three anda half hours for public worship, four and a half for reading andmeditation, six and a half for manual work, eight and a half for sleep, and one hour for meals. So that in spite of the time devoted tospiritual and mental interests, the primitive Benedictine did a goodday's work and had a good night's rest at the end of it. The work mightbe anything that wanted doing, so long as the hours of prayer were notinfringed. Agriculture, scholarship, education, handicrafts and art haveall been done perfectly by St. Benedict's sons, working and willing inquiet love. This is what one of the greatest constructive minds ofChristendom regarded as a reasonable way of life; a frame within whichthe loftiest human faculties could grow, and man's spirit achieve thatharmony with God which is its goal. Moreover, this life was to besocial. It was in the beginning just the busy useful life of an Italianfarm, lived in groups--in monastic families, under the rule andinspiration not of a Master but of an Abbot; a Father who really was thespiritual parent of his monks, and sought to train them in the humility, obedience, self-denial and gentle suppleness of character which are theauthentic fruits of the Spirit. This ideal, it seems to me, hassomething still to say to us; some reproof to administer to our hurriedand muddled existence, our confusion of values, our failure to find timefor reality. We shall find in it and its creator, if we look, all thosemarks of the regenerate life of the Spirit which history has shown to usas normal: namely the transcendent aim, the balanced career of actionand contemplation, the creative power, and above all the principle ofsocial solidarity and discipleship. 

We go on to ask history what it has to tell us on the second point, theprocess by which the individual normally develops this life of theSpirit, the serial changes it demands; for plainly, to know this is ofpractical importance to us. The full inwardness of these changes will beconsidered when we come to the personal aspect of the spiritual life. Now we are only concerned to notice that history tends to establish theconstant recurrence of a normal process, recognizable alike in great andsmall personalities under the various labels which have been given toit, by which the self moves from its usually exclusive correspondencewith the temporal order to those full correspondences with reality, thatunion with God, characteristic of the spiritual life. This life we mustbelieve in some form and degree to be possible for all; but we study itbest on heroic levels, for here its moments are best marked and itsfullest records survive. 

The first moment of this process seems to be, that man falls out of lovewith life as he has commonly lived it, and the world as he has known it. Dissatisfaction and disillusion possess him; the negative marks of hisnascent intuition of another life, for which he is intended but which hehas not yet found. We see this initial phase very well in St. Benedict, disgusted by the meaningless life of Roman society; in St. Francis, abandoning his gay and successful social existence; in Richard Rolle, turning suddenly from scholarship to a hermit's life; in the restlessmisery of St. Catherine of Genoa; in Fox, desperately seeking "somethingthat could speak to his condition"; and also in two outstandingexamples from modern India, those of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagoreand the Sadhu Sundar Singh. This dissatisfaction, sometimes associatedwith the negative vision or conviction of sin, sometimes with thepositive longing for holiness and peace, is the mental preparation ofconversion; which, though not a constant, is at least a characteristicfeature of the beginning of the spiritual life as seen in history. Wemight, indeed, expect some crucial change of attitude, some innercrisis, to mark the beginning of a new life which is to aim only at God. Here too we find one motive of that movement of world-abandonment whichso commonly follows conversion, especially in heroic souls. Thus St. Paul hides himself in Arabia; St. Benedict retires for three years tothe cave at Subiaco; St. Ignatius to Manresa. Gerard Groot, thebrilliant and wealthy young Dutchman who founded the brotherhood of theCommon Life, began his new life by self-seclusion in a Carthusian cell. St. Catherine of Siena at first lived solitary in her own room. St. Francis with dramatic completeness abandoned his whole past, even theclothing that was part of it. Jacopone da Todi, the prosperous lawyerconverted to Christ's poverty, resorted to the most grotesque devices toexpress his utter separation from the world. Others, it is true, havechosen quieter methods, and found in that which St. Catherine calls thecell of self-knowledge the solitude they required; but _some_ decisivebreak was imperative for all. History assures us that there is no easysliding into the life of the Spirit. 

A secondary cause of such world refusal is the first awakening of thecontemplative powers; the intuition of Eternity, hitherto dormant, andfelt at this stage to be--in its overwhelming reality and appeal--inconflict with the unreal world and unsublimated active life. This is thecontrolling idea of the hermit and recluse. It is well seen in St. Teresa; whom her biographers describe as torn, for years, between theinterests of human intercourse and the imperative inner voice urging herto solitary self-discipline and prayer. So we may say that in thebeginning of the life of the Spirit, as history shows it to us, ifdisillusion marks the first moment, some measure of asceticism, ofworld-refusal and painful self-schooling, is likely to mark the secondmoment. 

What we are watching is the complete reconstruction of personality; apersonality that has generally grown into the wrong shape. This islikely to be a hard and painful business; and indeed history assures usthat it is, and further that the spiritual life is never achieved bytaking the line of least resistance and basking in the divine light. With world-refusal, then, is intimately connected stern moral conflict;often lasting for years, and having as its object the conquest ofselfhood in all its insidious forms. "Take one step out of yourself, "say the S[=u]fis, "and you will arrive at God. "[57] This one step is themost difficult act of life; yet urged by love, man has taken it againand again. This phase is so familiar to every reader of spiritualbiography, that I need not insist upon it. "In the field of this body, "says Kabir, "a great war goes forward, against passion, anger, pride andgreed. It is in the Kingdom of Truth, Contentment and Purity that thisbattle is raging, and the sword that rings forth most loudly is thesword of His Name. "[58] "Man, " says Boehme, "must here be at war withhimself if he wishes to be a heavenly citizen ... Fighting must be thewatchword, not with tongue and sword, but with mind and spirit; and notto give over. "[59] The need of such a conflict, shown to us in history, is explained on human levels by psychology. On spiritual levels it ismade plain to all whose hearts are touched by the love of God. By thisway all must pass who achieve the life of the Spirit; subduing to itspurposes their wayward wills, and sublimating in its power theirconflicting animal impulses. This long effort brings, as its reward aunification of character, an inflow of power: from it we see the matureman or woman of the Spirit emerge. In St. Catherine of Genoa thisconflict lasted for four years, after which the thought of sin ceased torule her consciousness. [60] St. Teresa's intermittent struggles aresaid to have continued for thirty years. John Wesley, always deeplyreligious, did not attain the inner stability he calls assurance till hewas thirty-five years old. Blake was for twenty years in mentalconflict, shut off from the sources of his spiritual life. So slowly dogreat personalities come to their full stature, and subdue theirvigorous impulses to the one ruling idea. 

The ending of this conflict, the self's unification and establishment inthe new life, commonly means a return more or less complete to thatworld from which the convert had retreated; taking up of the fullyenergized and fully consecrated human existence, which must expressitself in work no less than in prayer; an exhibition too of the capacityfor leadership which is the mark of the regenerate mind. Thus the "firstreturn" of the Buddhist saint is "from the absolute world to the worldof phenomena to save all sentient beings. "[61] Thus St. Benedict's andSt. Catherine of Siena's three solitary years are the preparation fortheir great and active life works. St. Catherine of Genoa, first adisappointed and world-weary woman and then a penitent, emerges as abusy and devoted hospital matron and inspired teacher of a group ofdisciples. St. Teresa's long interior struggles precede her vigorouscareer as founder and reformer; her creation of spiritual families, newcentres of contemplative life. The vast activities of Fox and Wesleywere the fruits first of inner conflict, then of assurance--theexperience of God and of the self's relation to Him. And on the highestlevels of the spiritual life as history shows them to us, thisexperience and realization, first of profound harmony with Eternity andits interests, next of a personal relation of love, last of anindwelling creative power, a givenness, an energizing grace, reachesthat completeness to which has been given the name of union with God. 

The great man or woman of the Spirit who achieves this perfectdevelopment is, it is true, a special product: a genius, comparable withgreat creative personalities in other walks of life. But he neitherinvalidates the smaller talent nor the more general tendency in whichhis supreme gift takes its rise. Where he appears, that tendency isvigorously stimulated. Like other artists, he founds a school; thespiritual life flames up, and spreads to those within his circle ofinfluence. Through him, ordinary men, whose aptitude for God might haveremained latent, obtain a fresh start; an impetus to growth. There is asense in which he might say with the Johannine Christ, "He thatreceiveth me receiveth Him that sent me"; for yielding to his magnetism, men really yield to the drawing of the Spirit itself. And when they dothis, their lives are found to reproduce--though with lessintensity--the life history of their leader. Therefore the maincharacters of that life history, that steady undivided process ofsublimation; are normal human characters. We too may heal the discordsof our moral nature, learn to judge existence in the universal light, bring into consciousness our latent transcendental sense, and keepourselves so spiritually supple that alike in times of stress and hoursof prayer and silence we are aware of the mysterious and energizingcontact of God. Psychology suggests to us that the great spiritualpersonalities revealed in history are but supreme instances of asearching self-adjustment and of a way of life, always accessible tolove and courage, which all men may in some sense undertake. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: Everard, "Some Gospel Treasures Opened, " p. 555]

[Footnote 43: _Canor Dulcor, Canor;_ cf. Rolle: "The Fire of Love, " Bk. 1, Cap. 14]

[Footnote 44: Rolle: "The Mending of Life, " Cap. XII. ]

[Footnote 45: Benedetto Croce: "Theory and History of Historiography, "trans. By Douglas Ainslie, p. 25. ]

[Footnote 46: "Donne's Sermons, " p. 236. ]

[Footnote 47: B. H. Streeter, in "The Spirit, " p. 349 _seq_. ]

[Footnote 48: "Autobiography of Maharishi Devendranath Tagore, " Cap. 23. ]

[Footnote 49: R. A. Nicholson: "Studies in Islamic Mysticism, " Cap. I. ]

[Footnote 50: Baron von Hügel In the "Hibbert Journal, " July, 1921. ]

[Footnote 51: Ruysbroeck: "The Sparkling Stone, " Cap. 10. ]

[Footnote 52: Ruysbroeck: "The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, " Bk. II, Cap. 39. ]

[Footnote 53: R. Of St. Victor: "De Quatuor Gradibus ViolentæCharitatis" (Migne, Pat. Lat. ) T. 196, Col. 1216. ]

[Footnote 54: "Summa Contra Gentiles, " Bk. III, Cap. 21. ]

[Footnote 55: J. E. Shorthouse: "John Inglesant, " Cap. 19. ]

[Footnote 56: Cf. Delatte: "The Rule of St. Benedict"; and C. Butler:"Benedictine Monachism. "]

[Footnote 57: R. A. Nicholson: "Studies in Islamic Mysticism, " Cap. 1. ]

[Footnote 58: "One Hundred Poems of Kabir, " p. 44. ]

[Footnote 59: Boehme: "Six Theosophic Points, " p. 111. ]

[Footnote 60: Cf. Von Hügel: "The Mystical Element of Religion, " Vol. I, Pt. II. ]

[Footnote 61: McGovern: "An Introduction to Mahãyãna Buddhism, " p. 175. ]

CHAPTER III

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

(I) THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

Having interrogated history in our attempt to discover the essentialcharacter of the life of the Spirit, wherever it is found, we are now tosee what psychology has to tell us or hint to us of its nature; and ofthe relation in which it stands to the mechanism of our psychic life. Itis hardly necessary to say that such an inquiry, fully carried out, would be a life-work. Moreover, it is an inquiry which we are not yet ina position to undertake. True, more and more material is daily becomingavailable for it: but many of the principles involved are, even yet, obscure. Therefore any conclusions at which we may arrive can only betentative; and the theories and schematic representations that we shallbe obliged to use must be regarded as mere working diagrams--almostcertainly of a temporary character--but useful to us, because they dogive us an interpretation of inner experience with which we can deal. Ineed not emphasize the extent in which modern developments of psychologyare affecting our conceptions of the spiritual life, and our reading ofmany religious phenomena on which our ancestors looked with awe. When wehave eliminated the more heady exaggerations of the psycho-analysts, andthe too-violent simplifications of the behaviourists, it remains truethat many problems have lately been elucidated in an unexpected, andsome in a helpful, sense. We are learning in particular to see in trueproportion those abnormal states of trance and ecstasy which were onceregarded as the essentials, but are now recognized as the by-products, of the mystical life. But a good deal that at first sight seemsstartling, and even disturbing to the religious mind, turns out oninvestigation to be no more than the re-labelling of old facts, whichbehind their new tickets remain unchanged. Perhaps no generation hasever been so much at the mercy of such labels as our own. Thus manypeople who are inclined to jibe at the doctrine of original sin welcomeit with open arms when it is reintroduced as the uprush of primitiveinstinct. Opportunity of confession to a psychoanalyst is eagerly soughtand gladly paid for, by troubled spirits who would never resort for thesame purpose to a priest. The formulæ of auto-suggestion are freely usedby those who repudiate vocal prayer and acts of faith with scorn. If, then, I use for the purpose of exposition some of those labels which areaffected by the newest schools, I do so without any suggestion that theyrepresent the only valid way of dealing with the psychic life of man. Indeed, I regard these labels as little more than exceedingly cleverguesses at truth. But since they are now generally current and oftensuggestive, it is well that we should try to find a place for spiritualexperience within the system which they represent; thus carrying throughthe principle on which we are working, that of interpreting the abidingfacts of the spiritual life, so far as we can, in the language of thepresent day. 

First, then, I propose to consider the analysis of mind, and what It hasto tell us about the nature of Sin, of Salvation, of Conversion; whatlight it casts on the process of purgation or self-purification which isdemanded by all religions of the Spirit; what are the respective partsplayed by reason and instinct in the process of regeneration; and theimportance for religious experience of the phenomena of apperception. 

We need not at this point consider again all that we mean by the life ofthe Spirit. We have already considered it as it appears in history--itsinexhaustible variety, its power, nobility, and grace. We need only toremind ourselves that what we have got to find room for in ourpsychological scheme is literally, a changed and enhanced life; a lifewhich, immersed in the stream of history, is yet poised on the eternalworld. This life involves a complete re-direction of our desires andimpulses, a transfiguration of character; and often, too, a sense ofsubjugation to superior guidance, of an access of impersonal strength, so overwhelming as to give many of its activities an inspirational orautomatic character. We found that this life was marked by a rhythmicalternation between receptivity and activity, more complete andpurposeful than the rhythm of work and rest which conditions, or shouldcondition, the healthy life of sense. This re-direction andtransfiguration, this removal to a higher term of our mental rhythm, areof course psychic phenomena; using this word in a broad sense, withoutprejudice to the discrimination of any one aspect of it as spiritual. All that we mean at the moment is, that the change which brings in thespiritual life is a change in the mind and heart of man, working in thestuff of our common human nature, and involving all that the modernpsychologist means by the word psyche. 

We begin therefore with the nature of the psyche as this modern, growing, changing psychology conceives it; for this is the raw materialof regenerate man. If we exclude those merely degraded and pathologicaltheories which have resulted from too exclusive a study of degenerateminds, we find that the current conception of the psyche--by which ofcourse I do not mean the classic conceptions of Ward or even WilliamJames--was anticipated by Plotinus, when he said in the Fourth Ennead, that every soul has something of the lower life for the purposes of thebody and of the higher for the purposes of the Spirit, and yetconstitutes a unity; an unbroken series of ascending values and powersof response, from the levels of merely physical and mainly unconsciouslife to those of the self-determining and creative consciousness. [62] Wefirst discover psychic energy as undifferentiated directive power, controlling response and adaption to environment; and as it develops, ever increasing the complexity of its impulses and habits, yet neverabandoning anything of its past. Instinct represents the correspondenceof this life-force with mere nature, its effort as it were to keep itsfooting and accomplish its destiny in the world of time. Spiritrepresents this same life acting on highest levels, with most vividpurpose; seeking and achieving correspondence with the eternal world, and realities of the loftiest order yet discovered to be accessible tous. We are compelled to use words of this kind; and the proceeding isharmless enough so long as we remember that they are abstractions, andthat we have no real reason to suppose breaks in the life process whichextends from the infant's first craving for food and shelter to thesaint's craving for the knowledge of God. This urgent, craving life isthe dominant characteristic of the psyche. Thought is but the last comeand least developed of its powers; one among its various responses toenvironment, and ways of laying hold on experience. 

This conception of the multiplicity in unity of the psyche, consciousand unconscious, is probably one of the most important results ofrecent psychological advance. It means that we cannot any longer in thegood old way rule off bits or aspects of it, and call them intellect, soul, spirit, conscience and so forth; or, on the other hand, refer toour "lower" nature as if it were something separate from ourselves. I amspirit when I pray, if I pray rightly. I am my lower nature, when mythoughts and deeds are swayed by my primitive impulses and physicallongings, declared or disguised. I am most wholly myself when thatimpulsive nature and that craving spirit are welded into one, subject tothe same emotional stimulus, directed to one goal. When theologians andpsychologists, ignoring this unity of the self, set up arbitrarydivisions--and both classes are very fond of doing so--they are merelymaking diagrams for their own convenience. We ourselves shall probablybe compelled to do this: and the proceeding is harmless enough, so longas we recollect that these diagrams are at best symbolic pictures offact. Specially is it necessary to keep our heads, and refuse to be ledaway by the constant modern talk of the primitive, unconscious, foreconscious instinctive and other minds which are so prominent inmodern psychological literature, or by the spatial suggestions of suchterms as threshold, complex, channel of discharge: remembering alwaysthe central unity and non-material nature of that many-faced psychiclife which is described under these various formulæ. 

If we accept this central unity with all its implications, it followsthat we cannot take our superior and conscious faculties, set themapart, and call them "ourselves"; refusing responsibility for the moreanimal and less fortunate tendencies and instincts which surge up withsuch distressing ease and frequency from the deeps, by attributing theseto nature or heredity. Indeed, more and more does it become plain thatthe sophisticated surface-mind which alone we usually recognize is thesmallest, the least developed, and in some respects still the leastimportant part of the real self: that whole man of impulse, thought anddesire, which it is the business of religion to capture and domesticatefor God. That whole man is an animal-spirit, a living, growing, plasticunit; moving towards a racial future yet unperceived by us, and carryingwith him a racial past which conditions at every moment his choices, impulses and acts. Only the most rigid self-examination will disclose tous the extent in which the jungle and the Stone Age are still active inour games, our politics and our creeds; how many of our motives arestill those of primitive man, and how many of our social institutionsoffer him a discreet opportunity of self-expression. 

Here, as it seems to me, is a point at which the old thoughts ofreligion and the new thoughts of psychology may unite and complete oneanother. Here the scientific conception of the psyche is merelyrestating the fundamental Christian paradox, that man is truly one, aliving, growing spirit, the creature and child of the Divine Life; andyet that there seem to be in him, as it were, two antagonisticnatures--that duality which St. Paul calls the old Adam and the newAdam. The law of the flesh and the law of the spirit, theearthward-tending life of mere natural impulse and the quickening lifeof re-directed desire, the natural and the spiritual man, areconceptions which the new psychologist can hardly reject or despise. True, religion and psychology may offer different rationalizations ofthe facts. That which one calls original sin, the other calls theinstinctive mind: but the situation each puts before us is the same. "Ifind a law, " says St. Paul, "that when I would do good evil is presentwith me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man _but_ Isee another law in my members warring against the law of my mind.... With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the lawof sin. " Without going so far as a distinguished psychoanalyst who saidin my hearing, "If St. Paul had come to me, I feel I could have helpedhim, " I think it is clear that we are learning to give a new content tothis, and many other sayings of the New Testament. More and morepsychology tends to emphasize the Pauline distinction; demonstratingthat the profound disharmony existing in most civilized men between theimpulsive and the rational life, the many conflicts which sap hisenergy, arise from the persistence within us of the archaic andprimitive alongside the modern mind. It demonstrates that the manystages and constituents of our psychic past are still active in each oneof us; though often below the threshold of consciousness. The blindlyinstinctive life, with its almost exclusive interests in food, safetyand reproduction; the law of the flesh in its simplest form, carriedover from our pre-human ancestry and still capable of taking charge whenwe are off our guard. The more complex life of the human primitive; withits outlook of wonder, self-interest and fear, developed underconditions of ignorance, peril and perpetual struggle for life. Thehistory of primitive man covers millions of years: the history ofcivilized man, a few thousand at the most. Therefore it is notsurprising that the primitive outlook should have bitten hard into theplastic stuff of the developing psyche, and forms still the infantilefoundation of our mental life. Finally, there is the rational life, sofar as the rational is yet achieved by us; correcting, conflicting with, and seeking to refine and control the vigour of primitive impulse. 

But if it is to give an account of all the facts psychology must alsopoint out, and find place for, the last-comer in the evolutionaryseries: the rare and still rudimentary achievement of the spiritualconsciousness, bearing witness that we are the children of God, andpointing, not backward to the roots but onward to the fruits of humangrowth. But it cannot allow us to think of this spiritual life assomething separate from, and wholly unconditioned by, our racial past. We must rather conceive it as the crown of our psychic evolution, theend of that process which began in the dawn of consciousness and whichSt. Paul calls "growing up into the stature of Christ. " Here psychologyis in harmony with the teaching of those mystics who invite us torecognize, not a completed spirit, but rather a seed within us. In thespiritual yearnings, the profound and yet uncertain stirrings of thereligious consciousness, its half-understood impulses to God, weperceive the floating-up into the conscious field of this deep germinallife. And psychology warns us, I think, that in our efforts to forwardthe upgrowth of this spiritual life, we must take into account thoseearlier types of reaction to the universe which still continueunderneath our bright modern appearance, and still inevitably conditionand explain so many of our motives and our deeds. It warns us that thepsychic growth of humanity is slow and uneven; and that every one of usstill retains, though not always it is true in a recognizable form, manyof the characters of those stages of development through which the racehas passed--characters which inevitably give their colour to ourreligious no less than to our social life. 

"I desire, " says à Kempis, "to enjoy thee inwardly but I cannot takethee. I desire to cleave to heavenly things but fleshly things andunmortified passions depress me. I will in my mind be above all thingsbut in despite of myself I am constrained to be beneath, so I unhappyman fight with myself and am made grievous to myself while the spiritseeketh what is above and the flesh what is beneath. O what I sufferwithin while I think on heavenly things in my mind; the company offleshly things cometh against me when I pray. "[63]

"Oh Master, " says the Scholar in Boehme's great dialogue, "the creaturesthat live in me so withhold me, that I cannot wholly yield and givemyself up as I willingly would. "[64]

No psychologist has come nearer to a statement of the human situationthan have these old specialists in the spiritual life. 

The bearing of all this on the study of organized religion is of courseof great importance; and will be discussed in a subsequent section. Allthat I wish to point out now is that the beliefs, and the explanationsof action, put forward by our rationalizing surface consciousness areoften mere veils which drape the crudeness of our real desires andreactions to life; and that before life can be reintegrated about itshighest centres, these real beliefs and motives must be tracked down, and their humiliating character acknowledged. The ape and the tiger, infact, are not dead in any one of us. In polite persons they are caged, which Is a very different thing: and a careful introspection will teachus to recognize their snarls and chatterings, their urgent requests formore mutton chops or bananas, under the many disguises which theyassume--disguises which are not infrequently borrowed from ethics orfrom religion. Thus a primitive desire for revenge often masquerades asjustice, and an unedifying interest in personal safety can be discernedin at least some interpretations of atonement, and some aspirationstowards immortality. [65]

I now go on to a second point. It will already be clear that the modernconception of the many-levelled psyche gives us a fresh standpoint fromwhich to consider the nature of Sin. It suggests to us, that the essenceof much sin is conservatism, or atavism: that it is rooted in thetendency of the instinctive life to go on, in changed circumstances, acting in the same old way. Virtue, perfect rightness of correspondencewith our present surroundings, perfect consistency of our deeds with ourbest ideas, is hard work. It means the sublimation of crude instinct, the steady control of impulse by such reason as we possess; andperpetually forces us to use on new and higher levels that machinery ofhabit-formation, that power of implanting tendencies in the plasticpsyche, to which man owes his earthly dominance. When our unstablepsychic life relaxes tension and sinks to lower levels than this, andit Is always tending so to do, we are relapsing to antique methods ofresponse, suitable to an environment which is no longer there. Fewpeople go through life without knowing what it is to feel a sudden, evenmurderous, impulse to destroy the obstacle in their path; or seize, atall costs, that which they desire. Our ancestors called these uprushesthe solicitations of the devil, seeking to destroy the Christian soul;and regarded them with justice as an opportunity of testing ourspiritual strength. It is true that every man has within him such atempting spirit; but its characters can better be studied in theZoological Gardens than in the convolutions of a theological hell. "External Reason, " says Boehme, "supposes that hell is far from us. Butit is near us. Every one carries it in himself. "[66] Many of our vices, in fact, are simply savage qualities--and some are even savagevirtues--in their old age. Thus in an organized society theacquisitiveness and self-assertion proper to a vigorous primitivedependent on his own powers survive as the sins of envy andcovetousness, and are seen operating in the dishonesty of the burglar, the greed and egotism of the profiteer: and, on the highest levels, thegreat spiritual sin of pride may be traced back to a pervertedexpression of that self-regarding instinct without which the individualcould hardly survive. 

When therefore qualities which were once useful on their own level areoutgrown but unsublimated, and check the movement towards life'sspiritualization, then--whatever they may be--they belong to the body ofdeath, not to the body of life, and are "sin. " "Call sin a lump--noneother thing than thyself, " says "The Cloud of Unknowing. "[67]Capitulation to it is often brought about by mere slackness, or, asreligion would say, by the mortal sin of sloth; which Julian of Norwichdeclares to be one of the two most deadly sicknesses of the soul. Sometimes; too, sin is deliberately indulged in because of the perversesatisfaction which this yielding to old craving gives us. Theviolent-tempered man becomes once more a primitive, when he yields towrath. A starved and repressed side of his nature--the old Adam, infact--leaps up into consciousness and glories in its strength. Heobtains from the explosion an immense feeling of relief; and so too withthe other great natural passions which our religious or social moralitykeeps in check. Even the saints have known these revenges of naturalinstincts too violently denied. Thoughts of obscene words and gesturescame unasked to torment the pure soul of Catherine of Siena. [68] St. Teresa complained that the devil sometimes sent her so offensive aspirit of bad temper that she could eat people up. [69] Games and sportof a combative or destructive kind provide an innocent outlet for acertain amount of this unused ferocity; and indeed the chief function ofgames in the modern state is to help us avoid occasions of sin. Thesinfulness of any deed depends, therefore, on this theory, on the extentin which it involves retrogression from the point we have achieved:failure to correspond with the light we possess. The inequality of themoral standard all over the world is a simple demonstration of thisfact: for many a deed which is innocent in New Guinea, would in Londonprovoke the immediate attention of the police. 

Does not this view of sin, as primarily a fall-back to past levels ofconduct and experience, a defeat of the spirit of the future in itsconflict with the undying past, give us a fresh standpoint from which tolook at the idea of Salvation? We know that all religions of the spirithave based their claim upon man on such an offer of salvation: on theconviction that there is something from which he needs to be rescued, ifhe is to achieve a satisfactory life. What is it, then, from which hemust be saved?

I think that the answer must be, from conflict: the conflict between thepull-back of his racial origin and the pull-forward of his spiritualdestiny, the antagonism between the buried Titan and the emerging soul, each tending towards adaptation to a different order of reality. We mayas well acknowledge that man as he stands is mostly full of conflictsand resistances: that the trite verse about "fightings and fearswithin, without" does really describe the unregenerate yet sensitivemind with its ineffective struggles, its inveterate egotism, itsinconsistent impulses and loves. Man's young will and reason need somereinforcement, some helping power, if they are to conquer and controlhis archaic impulsive life. And this salvation, this extrication fromthe wrongful and atavistic claims of primitive impulse in its manystrange forms, is a prime business of religion; sometimes achieved inthe sudden convulsion we call conversion, and sometimes by the slowerprocess of education. The wrong way to do it is seen in the methods ofthe Puritan and the extreme ascetic, where all animal impulse isregarded as "sin" and repressed: a proceeding which involves the risk ofgrave physical and mental disorder, and produces even at the best abloodless pietism. The right way to do it was described once for all byJacob Boehme, when he said that it was the business of a spiritual manto "harness his fiery energies to the service of the light--" that is tosay, change the direction of our passionate cravings for satisfaction, harmonize and devote them to spiritual ends. This is true regeneration:this is the salvation offered to man, the healing of his psychicconflict by the unification of his instinctive and his ideal life. Thevoice which St. Mechthild heard, saying "Come and be reconciled, "expresses the deepest need of civilized but unspiritualized humanity. 

This need for the conversion or remaking of the instinctive life, rather than the achievement of mere beliefs, has always been appreciatedby real spiritual teachers; who are usually some generations in advanceof the psychologists. Here they agree in finding the "root of evil, " theheart of the "old man" and best promise of the "new. " Here is the rawmaterial both of vice and of virtue--namely, a mass of desires andcravings which are in themselves neither moral nor immoral, but naturaland self-regarding. "In will, imagination and desire, " says William Law, "consists the life or fiery driving of every intelligent creature. "[70]The Divine voice which said to Jacopone da Todi "Set love in order, thouthat lovest Me!" declared the one law of mental growth. [71] To use for amoment the language of mystical theology, conversion, or repentance, thefirst step towards the spiritual life, consists in a change in thedirection of these cravings and desires; purgation or purification, inwhich the work begun in conversion is made complete, in their steadfastsetting in order or re-education, and that refinement and fixation ofthe most desirable among them which we call the formation of habit, andwhich is the essence of character building. It is from this hard, conscious and deliberate work of adapting our psychic energy to new andhigher correspondences, this costly moral effort and trueself-conquest, that the spiritual life in man draws its earnestness, reality and worth. 

"Oh, Academicus, " says William Law, in terms that any psychologist wouldendorse, "forget your scholarship, give up your art and criticism, be aplain man; and then the first rudiments of sense may teach you thatthere, and there only, can goodness be, where it comes forth as a birthof Life, and is the free natural work and fruit of that which liveswithin us. For till goodness thus comes from a Life within us, we havein truth none at all. For reason, with all its doctrine, discipline, andrules, can only help us to be so good, so changed, and amended, as awild beast may be, that by restraints and methods is taught to put on asort of tameness, though its wild nature is all the time onlyrestrained, and in a readiness to break forth again as occasion shalloffer. "[72] Our business, then, is not to restrain, but to put the wildbeast to work, and use its mighty energies; for thus only shall we findthe power to perform hard acts. See the young Salvation Army convertturning over the lust for drink or sexual satisfaction to the lust tosave his fellow-men. This transformation or sublimation is not the workof reason. His instinctive life, the main source of conduct, has beendirected into a fresh channel of use. 

We may now look a little more closely at the character andpotentialties of our instinctive life: for this life is plainly of thehighest importance to us, since it will either energize or thwart allthe efforts of the rational self. Current psychology, even more plainlythan religion, encourages us to recognize in this powerful instinctivenature the real source of our conduct, the origin of all those dynamicpersonal demands, those impulses to action, which condition the full andsuccessful life of the natural man. Instincts in the animal and thenatural man are the methods by which the life force takes care of itsown interests, insures its own full development, its unimpeded forwarddrive. In so far as we form part of the animal kingdom our own safety, property, food, dominance, and the reproduction of our own type, areinevitably the first objects of our instinctive care. Civilized life hasdisguised some of these crude demands and the behaviour which isinspired by them, but their essential character remains unchanged. Loveand hate, fear and wonder, self-assertion and self-abasement, thegregarious, the acquisitive, the constructive tendencies, are allexpressions of instinctive feeling; and can be traced back to oursimplest animal needs. 

But instincts are not fixed tendencies: they are adaptable. This can beseen clearly in the case of animals whose environment Is artificiallychanged. In the dog, for instance, loyalty to the interests of the packhas become loyalty to his master's household. In man, too, there hasalready been obvious modification and sublimation of many instincts. The hunting impulse begins in the jungle, and may end in thephilosopher's exploration of the Infinite. It is the combative instinctwhich drives the reformer headlong against the evils of the world, as itonce drove two cave men at each others' throats. Love, which begins inthe mergence of two cells, ends in the saint's supreme discovery, "Thouart the Love wherewith the heart loves Thee. "[73] The much advertizedherd instinct may weld us into a mob at the mercy of unreasoningpassions; but it can also make us living members of the Communion ofSaints. The appeals of the prophet and the revivalist, the Psalmist's"Taste and see, " the Baptist's "Change your hearts, " are all invitationsto an alteration in the direction of desire, which would turn ourinstinctive energies in a new direction and begin the domestication ofthe human soul for God. 

This, then, is the real business of conversion and of the characterbuilding that succeeds it; the harnessing of instinct to idea and itsdirection into new and more lofty channels of use, transmuting theturmoil of man's merely egoistic ambitions, anxieties and emotionaldesires into fresh forms of creative energy, and transferring theirinterest from narrow and unreal to universal objectives. The sevendeadly sins of Christian ethics--Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust--represent not so much deliberate wrongfulness, asthe outstanding forms of man's uncontrolled and self-regardinginstincts; unbridled self-assertion, ruthless acquisitiveness, andundisciplined indulgence of sense. The traditional evangelical virtuesof Poverty, Chastity and Obedience which sum up the demands of thespiritual life exactly oppose them. Over against the self-assertion ofthe proud and angry is set the ideal of humble obedience, with its wisesuppleness and abnegation of self-will. Over against the acquisitivenessof the covetous and envious is set the ideal of inward poverty, with itsliberation from the narrow self-interest of I, Me and Mine. Over againstthe sensual indulgence of the greedy, lustful and lazy is set the idealof chastity, which finds all creatures pure to enjoy, since it sees themin God, and God in all creatures. Yet all this, rightly understood, isno mere policy of repression. It is rather a rational policy of release, freeing for higher activities instinctive force too often thrown away. It is giving the wild beast his work to do, training him. Since theinstincts represent the efforts of this urgent life in us to achieveself-protection and self-realization, it is plain that the trueregeneration of the psyche, its redirection from lower to higher levels, can never be accomplished without their help. We only rise to the top ofour powers when the whole man acts together, urged by an enthusiasm oran instinctive need. 

Further, a complete and ungraduated response to stimulus--an"all-or-none reaction"--is characteristic of the instinctive life and ofthe instinctive life alone. Those whom it rules for the time givethemselves wholly to it; and so display a power far beyond that of thecritical and the controlled. Thus, fear or rage will often conferabnormal strength and agility. A really dominant instinct is a veritablesource of psycho-physical energy, unifying and maintaining in vigour allthe activities directed to its fulfilment. [74] A young man in love isstimulated not only to emotional ardour, but also to hard work in theinterests of the future home. The explorer develops amazing powers ofendurance; the inventor in the ecstasy of creation draws on deep vitalforces, and may carry on for long periods without sleep or food. If weapply this law to the great examples of the spiritual life, we see inthe vigour and totality of their self-giving to spiritual interests amark of instinctive action; and in the power, the indifference tohardship which these selves develop, the result of unification, of an"all-or-none" response to the religious or philanthropic stimulus. Ithelps us to understand the cheerful austerities of the true ascetic; thesuperhuman achievement of St. Paul, little hindered by the "thorn in theflesh"; the career of St. Joan of Arc; the way in which St. Teresa orSt. Ignatius, tormented by ill-health, yet brought their greatconceptions to birth; the powers of resistance displayed by George Foxand other Quaker saints. It explains Mary Slessor living and workingbare-foot and bare-headed under the tropical sun, disdaining the use ofmosquito nets, eating native food, and taking with impunity daily risksfatal to the average European. [75] It shows us, too, why the greatheroes of the spiritual life so seldom think out their positions, orhusband their powers. They act because they are impelled: often indefiance of all prudent considerations! yet commonly with an amazingsuccess. Thus General Booth has said that he was driven by "the impulsesand urgings of an undying ambition" to save souls. What was this impulseand urge? It was the instinctive energy of a great nature in asublimated form. The level at which this enhanced power is experiencedwill determine its value for life; but its character is much the same inthe convert at a revival, in the postulant's vivid sense of vocation andconsequent break with the world? in the disinterested man of scienceconsecrated to the search for truth, and in the apostle's self-giving tothe service of God, with its answering gift of new strength andfruitfulness. Its secret, and indeed the secret of all transcendence isimplied In the direction of the old English mystic: "Mean God all, allGod, so that nought work in thy wit and in thy will, but only God, "[76]The over-belief, the religious formula in which this instinctivepassion is expressed, is comparatively unimportant The revivalist, wholly possessed by concrete and anthropomorphic ideas of God which areimpossible to a man of different--and, as we suppose, superior--education, can yet, because of the burning reality with whichhe lives towards the God so strangely conceived, infect those with whomhe comes in contact with the spiritual life. 

We are now in a position to say that the first necessity of the life ofthe Spirit is the sublimation of the instinctive life, involving thetransfer of our interest and energy to new objectives, the giving of ourold vigour to new longings and new loves. It appears that the invitationof religion to a change of heart, rather than a change of belief, isfounded on solid psychological laws. I need not dwell on the way inwhich Divine love, as the saints have understood it, answers to thecomplete sublimation of our strongest natural passion; or the extent inwhich the highest experiences of the religious life satisfy man'sinstinctive craving for self-realization within a greater Reality, howhe feels himself to be fed with a mysterious food, quickened by a freshdower of life, assured of his own safety within a friendly universe, given a new objective for his energy. It is notorious that one of themost striking things about a truly spiritual man is, that he hasachieved a certain stability which others lack. In him, the centralcraving of the psyche for more life and more love has reached itsbourne; instead of feeding upon those secondary objects of desire whichmay lull our restlessness but cannot heal it He loves the thing which heought to love, wants to do the deeds which he ought to do, and finds allaspects of his personality satisfied in one objective. Every one hasreally a forced option between the costly effort to achieve thissublimation of impulse, this unification of the self on spirituallevels, and the quiet evasion of it which is really a capitulation tothe animal instincts and unordered cravings of our many-levelled being. We cannot stand still; and this steady downward pull keeps us ever inmind of all the backward-tending possibilities collectively to bethought of as sin, and explains to us why sloth, lack of spiritualenergy, is held by religion to be one of the capital forms of humanwrongness. 

I go on to another point, which I regard as of special importance. 

It must not be supposed that the life of the Spirit begins and with thesublimation of, the instinctive and emotional life; though this isindeed for it a central necessity. Nor must we take it for granted thatthe apparent redirection of impulse to spiritual objects is always andinevitably an advance. All who are or may be concerned with thespiritual training, help, and counselling of others ought clearly torecognize that there are elements in religious experience whichrepresent, not a true sublimation, but either disguised primitivecravings and ideas, or uprushes from lower instinctive levels: for theseexperiences have their special dangers. As we shall see when we come totheir more detailed study, devotional practices tend to produce thatstate which psychologists call mobility of the threshold ofconsciousness; and may easily permit the emergence of naturalinclinations and desires, of which the self does not recognize the realcharacter. As a matter of fact, a good deal of religious emotion is ofthis kind. Instances are the childish longing for mere protection, for asort of supersensual petting, the excessive desire for shelter and rest, voiced in too many popular hymns; the subtle form of self-assertionwhich can be detected in some claims to intercourse with God--e. G. Thecelebrated conversation of Angela of Foligno with the Holy Ghost;[77]the thinly veiled human feelings which find expression in the personalraptures of a certain type of pious literature, and in what has beenwell described as the "divine duet" type of devotion. Many, though notall of the supernormal phenomena of mysticism are open to the samesuspicion: and the Church's constant insistence on the need ofsubmitting these to some critical test before, accepting them at facevalue, is based on a most wholesome scepticism. Though a sense of meekdependence on enfolding love and power is the very heart of religion, and no intense spiritual life is possible unless it contain a strongemotional element, it is of first importance to be sure that itsaffective side represents a true sublimation of human feelings anddesires, and not merely an oblique indulgence of lower cravings. 

Again, we have to remember that the instinctive self, powerful though itbe? does not represent the sum total of human possibility. The maximumof man's strength is not reached until all the self's powers, theinstinctive and also the rational, are united and set on one objective;for then only is he safe from the insidious inner conflict betweennatural craving and conscious purpose which saps his energies, and iswelded into a complete and harmonious instrument of life, "The source ofpower, " says Dr. Hadfield in "The Spirit, " "lies not in instinctiveemotion alone, but in instinctive emotion expressed in a way with whichthe whole man can, for the time being at least, identify himself. Ultimately, this is impossible without the achievement of a harmony ofall the instincts _and_ the approval of the reason. "[78]

Thus we see that any unresolved conflict or divorce between thereligious instinct and the intellect will mar the full power of thespiritual life: and that an essential part of the self's readjustment toreality must consist in the uniting of these partners, as intellect andintuition are united in creative art. The noblest music, most satisfyingpoetry are neither the casual results of uncriticized inspiration northe deliberate fabrications of the brain, but are born of the perfectfusion of feeling and of thought; for the greatest and most fruitfulminds are those which are rich and active on both levels--which areperpetually raising blind impulse to the level of conscious purpose, uniting energy with skill, and thus obtaining the fiery energies of theinstinctive life for the highest uses. So too the spiritual life is onlyseen in its full worth and splendour when the whole man is subdued toit, and one object satisfies the utmost desires of heart and mind. Thespiritual impulse must not be allowed to become the centre of a group ofspecialized feelings, a devotional complex, in opposition to, or atleast alienated from, the intellectual and economic life. It must on thecontrary brim over, invading every department of the self. When themind's loftiest and most ideal thought, its conscious vivid aspiration, has been united with the more robust qualities of the natural man; then, and only then, we have the material for the making of a possible saint. 

We must also remember that, important as our primitive and instinctivelife may be--and we should neither despise nor neglect it--its religiousimpulses, taken alone, no more represent the full range of man'sspiritual possibilities than the life of the hunting tribe or theAfrican kraal represent his full social possibilities. We may, andshould, acknowledge and learn from our psychic origins. We must never becontent to rest in them. Though in many respects, mental as well asphysical, we are animals still; yet we are animals with a possiblefuture in the making, both corporate and individual, which we cannot yetdefine. All other levels of life assure us that the impulsive nature ispeculiarly susceptible to education. Not only can the whole group ofinstincts which help self-fulfilment be directed to higher levels, united and subdued to a dominant emotional interest; but merelyinstinctive actions can, by repetition and control, be raised to thelevel of habit and be given improved precision and complexity. This, ofcourse, is a primary function of devotional exercises; training thefirst blind instinct for God to the complex responses of the life ofprayer. Instinct is at best a rough and ready tool of life: practice isrequired if it is to produce its best results. Observe, for instance, the poor efforts of the young bird to escape capture; and compare thiswith the finished performance of the parent. [79] Therefore in estimatingman's capacity for spiritual response, we must reckon not only hisinnate instinct for God, but also his capacity for developing thisinstinct on the level of habit; educating and using its latent powers tothe best advantage. Especially on the contemplative side of life, education does great things for us; or would do, if we gave it thechance. Here, then, the rational mind and conscious will must play theirpart in that great business of human transcendence, which is man'sfunction within the universal plan. 

It is true that the deep-seated human tendency to God may best beunderstood as the highest form of that out-going instinctive craving ofthe psyche for more life and love which, on whatever level it beexperienced, is always one. But some external stimulus seems to beneeded, if this deep tendency is to be brought up into consciousness;and some education, if it is to be fully expressed. This stimulus andthis education, in normal cases, are given by tradition; that is to say, by religious belief and practice. Or they may come from the countlessminor and cumulative suggestions which life makes to us, and which fewof us have the subtlety to analyze. If these suggestions of tradition orenvironment are met by resistance, either of the moral or intellectualorder, whilst yet the deep instinct for full life remains unsatisfied, the result is an inner conflict of more or less severity; and as a rule, this is only resolved and harmony achieved through the crisis ofconversion, breaking down resistances, liberating emotion andreconciling inner craving with outer stimulus. There is, however, nothing spiritual in the conversion process itself. It has its parallelin other drastic readjustments to other levels of life; and is merely amethod by which selves of a certain type seem best able to achieve theunion of feeling, thought, and will necessary to stability. 

Now we have behind us and within us all humanity's funded instinct forthe Divine, all the racial habits and traditions of response to theDivine. But its valid thought about the Divine comes as yet to verylittle. Thus we see that the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" spoke asa true psychologist when he said that "a secret blind love pressingtowards God" held more hope of success than mere thought can ever do;"for He may well be loved but not thought--by love He may be gotten andholden, but by thought never. "[80] Nevertheless, if that consistency ofdeed and belief which is essential to full power is to be achieved byus, every man's conception of the God Whom he serves ought to be thevery best of which he is capable. Because ideas which we recognize aspartial or primitive have called forth the richness and devotion ofother natures, we are not therefore excused from trying all things andseeking a Reality which fulfils to the utmost our craving for truth andbeauty, as well, as our instinct for good. It is easy, natural, andalways comfortable for the human mind to sink back into something just alittle bit below its highest possible. On one hand to wallow in easyloves, rest in traditional formulæ, or enjoy a "moving type of devotion"which makes no intellectual demand. On the other, to accept withoutcriticism the sceptical attitude of our neighbours, and keep safely inthe furrow of intelligent agnosticism. 

Religious people have a natural inclination to trot along on mediocrelevels; reacting pleasantly to all the usual practices, playing down tothe hopes and fears of the primitive mind, its childish craving forcomfort and protection, its tendency to rest in symbols and spells, andsatisfying its devotional inclinations by any "long psalter unmindfullymumbled in the teeth. "[81] And a certain type of intelligent people havean equally natural tendency to dismiss, without further worry, thetraditional notions of the past. In so far as all this represents aslipping back in the racial progress, it has the character of sin: atany rate, it lacks the true character of spiritual life. Such lifeinvolves growth, sublimation, the constant and difficult redirection ofenergy from lower to higher levels; a real effort to purge motive, seethings more truly, face and resolve the conflict between the deepinstinctive and the newer rational life. Hence, those who realize thenature of their own mental processes sin against the light if they donot do with them the very best that they possibly can: and the penaltyof this sin must be a narrowing of vision, an arrest. The laws ofapperception apply with at least as much force to our spiritual as toour sensual impressions: what we bring with us will condition what weobtain. 

"We behold that which we are!" said Ruysbroeck long ago. [82] The mind'scontent and its ruling feeling-tone, says psychology, all its memoriesand desires, mingle with all incoming impressions, colour them andcondition those which our consciousness selects. This intervention ofmemory and emotion in our perceptions is entirely involuntary; andexplains why the devotee of any specific creed always finds in the pureimmediacy of religious experience the special marks of his own belief. In most acts of perception--and probably, too, in the intuitionalawareness of religious experience--that which the mind brings is bulkierif less important than that which it receives; and only the closestanalysis will enable us to separate these two elements. Yet thismachinery of apperception--humbling though its realization must be tothe eager idealist--does not merely confuse the issue for us; or compelus to agnosticism as to the true content of religious intuition. On thecontrary, its comprehension gives us the clue to many theologicalpuzzles; whilst its existence enables us to lay hold of supersensualexperiences we should otherwise miss, because it gives to us the meansof interpreting them. Pure immediacy, as such, is almost ungraspable byus. As man, not as pure spirit, the High Priest entered the Holy ofHolies: that is to say, he took to the encounter of the Infinite thefinite machinery of sense. This limitation is ignored by us at ourperil. The great mystics, who have sought to strip off all image andreach--as they say--the Bare Pure Truth, have merely become inarticulatein their effort to tell us what it was that they knew. "A light I cannotmeasure, goodness without form!" exclaims Jacopone da Todi. [83] "TheLight of the _World_--the Good _Shepherd_, " says St. John, bringing arichly furnished poetic consciousness to the vision of God; and at oncegives us something on which to lay hold. 

Generally speaking, it is only in so far as we bring with us a plan ofthe universe that we can make anything of it; and only in so far as webring with us some idea of God, some feeling of desire for Him, can weapprehend Him--so true is it that we do, indeed, behold that which weare, find that which we seek, receive that for which we ask. Feeling, thought, and tradition must all contribute to the full working out ofreligious experience. The empty soul facing an unconditioned Reality mayachieve freedom but assuredly achieves nothing else: for though theself-giving of Spirit is abundant, we control our own powers ofreception. This lays on each self the duty of filling the mind with thenoblest possible thoughts about God, refusing unworthy and narrowconceptions, and keeping alight the fire of His love. We shall find thatwhich we seek: hence a richly stored religious consciousness, the loftyconceptions of the truth seeker, the vision of the artist, the boundlesscharity and joy in life of the lover of his kind, really contribute tothe fulness of the spiritual life; both on its active and on itscontemplative side. As the self reaches the first degrees of theprayerful or recollected state, memory-elements, released from thecompetition of realistic experience, enter the foreconscious field. Among these will be the stored remembrances of past meditations, reading, and experiences, all giving an affective tone conducive to newand deeper apprehensions. The pure in heart see God, because they bringwith them that radiant and undemanding purity: because the storehouse ofancient memories, which each of us inevitably brings to that encounter, is free from conflicting desires and images, perfectly controlled bythis feeling-tone. 

It is now clear that all which we have so far considered supports, fromthe side of psychology, the demand of every religion for a drasticoverhaul of the elements of character, a real repentance and moralpurgation, as the beginning of all personal spiritual life. Man doesnot, as a rule, reach without much effort and suffering the higherlevels of his psychic being. His old attachments are hard; complexes ofwhich he is hardly aware must be broken up before he can use the forceswhich they enchain. He must, then, examine without flinching hisimpulsive life, and know what is in his heart, before he is in aposition to change it. "The light which shows us our sins, " says GeorgeFox, "is the light that heals us. " All those repressed cravings, thosequietly unworthy motives, those mean acts which we instinctively thrustinto the hiddenness and disguise or forget, must be brought to thesurface and, in the language of psychology, "abreacted"; in the languageof religion, confessed. The whole doctrine of repentance really hingeson this question of abreacting painful or wrongful experience instead ofrepressing it. The broken and contrite heart is the heart of which thehard complexes have been shattered by sorrow and love, and theirelements brought up into consciousness and faced: and only the selfwhich has endured this, can hope to be established in the free Spirit. It is a process of spiritual hygiene. 

Psycho-analysis has taught us the danger of keeping skeletons in thecupboards of the soul, the importance of tracking down our real motives, of facing reality, of being candid and fearless in self-knowledge. Butthe emotional colour of this process when it is undertaken in the fullconviction of the power and holiness of that life-force which we havenot used as well as we might, and with a humble and loving consciousnessof our deficiency, our falling short, will be totally different from thefeeling state of those who conceive themselves to be searching for themerely animal sources of their mental and spiritual life. "Meekness initself, " says "The Cloud of Unknowing, " "is naught else but a trueknowing and feeling of a man's self as he is. For surely whoso mightverily see and feel himself as he is, he should verily be meek. Therefore swink and sweat all that thou canst and mayst for to get theea true knowing and feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow thatsoon after that thou shalt have a true knowing and feeling of God as heis. "[84]

The essence, then, of repentance and purification of character consistsfirst in the identification, and next in the sublimation of ourinstinctive powers and tendencies; their detachment from egoisticdesires and dedication to new purposes. We should not starve or repressthe abounding life within us; but, relieving it of its concentration onthe here-and-now, give its attention and its passion a wider circle ofinterest over which to range, a greater love to which it can consecrateits growing powers. We do not yet know what the limit of suchsublimation may be. But we do know that it is the true path of life'sadvancement, that already we owe to it our purest loves, our loveliestvisions, and our noblest deeds. When such feeling, such vision and suchact are united and transfigured in God, and find in contact with Hisliving Spirit the veritable sources of their power; then, man will haveresolved his inner conflict, developed his true potentialities, and livea harmonious because a spiritual life. 

We end, therefore, upon this conception of the psyche as the livingforce within us; a storehouse of ancient memories and animal tendencies, yet plastic, adaptable, ever pressing on and ever craving for more lifeand more love. Only the life of reality, the life rooted in communionwith God, will ever satisfy that hungry spirit, or provide an adequateobjective for its persistent onward push. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 62: Ennead IV. 8. 5. ]

[Footnote 63: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. 53. ]

[Footnote 64: Boehme, "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 65: Unamuno has not hesitated to base the whole of religion onthe instinct of self-preservation: but this must I think be regarded asan exaggerated view. See "The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and inPeoples, " Caps. 3 and 4. ]

[Footnote 66: Boehme: "Six Theosophic Points, " p. 98. ]

[Footnote 67: "The Cloud of Unknowing, " Cap. 36. ]

[Footnote 68: E. Gardner: "St. Catherine of Siena, " p. 20. ]

[Footnote 69: "Life of St. Teresa, " by Herself, Cap. 30. ]

[Footnote 70: "Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law" p. 59. ]

[Footnote 71: Jacopone da Todi, Lauda 90. ]

[Footnote 72: "Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law, " p. 123. ]

[Footnote 73:

 "Amor tu se'quel ama donde lo cor te ama. "

--Jacopone da Todi: Lauda 81. ]

[Footnote 74: Cf. Watts: "Echo Personalities, " for several illustrationsof this law. ]

[Footnote 75: Livingstone: "Mary Slessor of Calabar, " p. 131. ]

[Footnote 76: "The Cloud of Unknowing, " Cap, 40. ]

[Footnote 77: "And very often did He say unto me, 'Bride and daughter, sweet art thou unto Me, I love thee better than any other who is in thevalley of Spoleto. '" ("The Divine Consolations of Blessed Angela ofFoligno, " p. 160. )]

[Footnote 78: "The Spirit, " edited by B. H. Streeter, p. 93. ]

[Footnote 79: Cf. B. Russell: "The Analysis of Mind, " Cap. 2. ]

[Footnote 80: Op. Cit. , Cap. 6. ]

[Footnote 81: "Cloud of Unknowing, " Cap. 37. ]

[Footnote 82: Ruysbroeck: "The Sparkling Stone, " Cap. 9. ]

[Footnote 83: Lauda 91. ]

[Footnote 84: Op. Cit. , Cap. 13. ]

CHAPTER IV

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

(II) CONTEMPLATION AND SUGGESTION

In the last chapter we considered what the modern analysis of mind hadto tell us about the nature of the spiritual life, the meaning of sinand of salvation. We now go on to another aspect of this subject:namely, the current conception of the unconscious mind as a dominantfactor of our psychic life, and of the extent and the conditions inwhich its resources can be tapped, and its powers made amenable to thedirection of the conscious mind. Two principal points must here bestudied. The first is the mechanism of that which is called autisticthinking and its relation to religious experience: the second, the lawsof suggestion and their bearing upon the spiritual life. Especially mustwe consider from this point of view the problems which are resumed underthe headings of prayer, contemplation, and grace. We shall findourselves compelled to examine the nature of meditation andrecollection, as spiritual persons have always practised them; and, togive, if we can, a psychological account of many of their classicconceptions and activities. We shall therefore be much concerned withthose experiences which are often called mystical, but which I prefer tocall in general contemplative and intuitive; because they extend, as weshall find, without a break from the simplest type of mental prayer, themost general apprehensions of the Spirit, to the most fully developedexamples of religious mono-ideism. To place all those intuitions andperceptions of which God or His Kingdom are the objects in a class apartfrom all other intuitions and perceptions, and call them "mystical, " isreally to beg the question from the start. The psychic mechanismsinvolved in them are seen in action in many other types of mentalactivity; and will not, in my opinion, be understood until they areremoved from the category of the supernatural, and studied as themovements of the one spirit of life--here directed towards atranscendent objective. And further we must ever keep in mind, since weare now dealing with specific spiritual experiences, deeply exploringthe contemplative soul, that though psychology can criticize theseexperiences, and help us to separate the wheat from the chaff--can tellus, too, a good deal about the machinery by which we lay hold of them, and the best way to use it--it cannot explain the experiences, pronounceupon their Object, or reduce that Object to its own terms. 

We may some day have a valid psychology of religion, though we are farfrom it yet: but when we do, it will only be true within its own systemof reference. It will deal with the fact of the spiritual life from oneside only. And as a discussion of the senses and their experienceexplains nothing about the universe by which these senses are impressed, so all discussion of spiritual faculty and experience remains within thehuman radius and neither invalidates nor accounts for the spiritualworld. When the psychologist has finished telling us all that he knowsabout the rules which govern our mental life, and how to run it best, heis still left face to face with the mystery of that life, and of thathuman power of surrender to Spiritual Reality which is the very essenceof religion. Humility remains, therefore, not only the most becoming butalso the most scientific attitude for investigators in this field. Wemust, then, remember the inevitably symbolic nature of the languagewhich we are compelled to use in our attempt to describe theseexperiences; and resist all temptation to confuse the handy series oflabels with which psychology has furnished us, with the psychic unity towhich they will be attached. 

Perhaps the most fruitful of all our recent discoveries in the mentalregion will turn out to be that which is gradually revealing to us theextent and character of the unconscious mind; and the possibility oftapping its resources, bending its plastic shape to our own mould. Itseems as though the laws of its being are at last beginning to beunderstood; giving a new content to the ancient command "Know thyself. "We are learning that psycho-therapy, which made such immense stridesduring the war, is merely one of the directions in which this knowledgemay be used, and this control exercised by us. That regnancy of spiritover matter towards which all idealists must look, is by way of comingat least to a partial fulfilment in this control of the conscious overthe unconscious, and thus over the bodily life. Such control is indeedan aspect of our human freedom, of the creative power which has been putinto our hands. In all this religion must be interested: because, oncemore, it is the business of religion to regenerate the whole man and winhim for Reality. 

If we could get rid of the idea that the unconscious is a separate, andin some sort hostile or animal entity set over against the consciousmind; and realize that it is, simply, our whole personality, with theexception of the scrap that happens at any moment to be inconsciousness--then, perhaps, we should more easily grasp the importanceof exploring and mobilizing its powers. As it is, most of us behave likethe owners of a well-furnished room, who ignore every aspect of itexcept the window looking out upon the street. This we keep polished, and drape with the best curtains that we can afford. But the room uponwhich we sedulously turn our backs contains all that we have inherited, all that we have accumulated, many tools which are rusting for want ofuse; machinery too which, left to itself, may function satisfactorily, or may get out of order and work to results that we neither desire nordream. The room is twilit. Only by the window is a little patch oflight. Beyond this there is a fringe of vague, fluctuating, sometimesprismatic radiance: an intermediate region, where the images and thingswhich most interest us have their place, just within range, or thefringe of the field of consciousness. In the darkest corners themachinery that we do not understand, those possessions of which we areleast proud, and those pictures we hate to look at, are hidden away. 

This little parable represents, more or less, that which psychologymeans by the conscious, foreconscious, and unconscious regions of thepsyche. It must not be pressed, or too literally interpreted; but ithelps us to remember the graded character of our consciousness, itsfluctuating level, and the fact that, as well as the outward-lookingmind which alone we usually recognize, there is also the psychic matrixfrom which it has been developed, the inward-looking mind, caring for avariety of interests of which we hardly, as we say, think at all. Weknow as yet little about this mysterious psychic whole: the inner natureof which is only very incompletely given to us in the fluctuatingexperiences of consciousness. But we do know that it, too, receives atleast a measure of the light and the messages coming in by the window ofour wits: that it is the home of memory instinct and habit, the sourceof conduct, and that its control and modification form the major part ofthe training of character. Further, it is sensitive, plastic, accessibleto impressions, and unforgetting. 

Consider now that half-lit region which is called the foreconsciousmind; for this is of special interest to the spiritual life. It is, inpsychological language, the region of autistic as contrasted withrealistic thought. [85] That is to say, it is the agent of reverie andmeditation; it is at work in all our brooding states, from day-dream toartistic creation. Such autistic thought is dominated not by logic orwill, but by feeling. It achieves its results by intuition, and has itsreasons which the surface mind knows not of. Here, in thisfringe-region--which alone seems fully able to experience adoration andwonder, or apprehend the values we call holiness, beauty or love--is thesource of that intuition of the heart to which the mystic owes the lovewhich is knowledge, and the knowledge which is love. Here is the truehome of inspiration and invention. Here, by a process which is seldomfully conscious save in its final stages, the poet's creations areprepared, and thence presented in the form of inspiration to the reason;which--if he be a great artist--criticizes them, before they are givenas poems to the world. Indeed, in all man's apprehensions of thetranscendental these two states of the psyche must co-operate if he isto realize his full powers: and it is significant that to thisforeconscious region religion, in its own special language, has alwaysinvited him to retreat, if he would know his own soul and thus communewith his God. Over and over again it assures him under variousmetaphors, that he must turn within, withdraw from the window, meet theinner guest; and such a withdrawal is the condition of allcontemplation. 

Consider the opening of Jacob Boehme's great dialogue on theSupersensual Life. 

"The Scholar said to his Master: How may I come to the supersensuallife, that I may see God and hear Him speak?

"His Master said: When thou canst throw thyself for a moment into thatwhere no creature dwelleth, then thou hearest what God speaketh. 

"The Scholar said: Is that near at hand or far off?

"The Master said: It is in thee, if thou canst for a while cease fromall thinking and willing, thou shalt hear the unspeakable words of God. 

"The Scholar said: How can I hear when I stand still from thinking andwilling?

"The Master said: When thou standest still from the thinking and willingof self, then the eternal hearing, seeing and speaking will be revealedin thee. "[86]

In this passage we have a definite invitation to retreat fromvolitional to affective thought: from the window to the quiet placewhere "no creature dwelleth, " and in Patmore's phrase "the night ofthought becomes the light of perception. "[87] This fringe-region orforeconscious is in fact the organ of contemplation, as the realisticoutward looking mind is the organ of action. Most men go through lifewithout conceiving, far less employing, the rich possibilities which areimplicit in it. Yet here, among the many untapped resources of the self, lie our powers of response to our spiritual environment: powers whichare kept by the tyrannical interests of everyday life below thethreshold of full consciousness, and never given a chance to emerge. Here take place those searching experiences of the "inner life" whichseem moonshine or morbidity to those who have not known them. 

The many people who complain that they have no such personal religiousexperience, that the spiritual world is shut to them, are usually foundto have expected this experience to be given to them without anydeliberate and sustained effort on their own part. They have lived fromchildhood to maturity at the little window of consciousness and havenever given themselves the opportunity of setting up correspondenceswith any other world than that of sense. Yet all normal men and womenpossess, at least in a rudimentary form, some intuition of thetranscendental; shown in their power of experiencing beauty or love. Insome it is dominant, emerging easily and without help; in others it islatent and must be developed in the right way. In others again it mayexist in virtual conflict with a strongly realistic outlook; gatheringway until it claims its rights at last in a psychic storm. Itsemergence, however achieved, is a part--and for our true life, by farthe most important part--of that outcropping and overflowing intoconsciousness of the marginal faculties which is now being recognized asessential to all artistic and creative activities; and as playing, too, a large part in the regulation of mental and bodily health. 

All the great religions have implicitly understood--though withoutanalysis--the vast importance of these spiritual intuitions andfaculties lying below the surface of the everyday mind; and haveperfected machinery tending to secure their release and their training. This is of two kinds: first, religious ceremonial, addressing itself tocorporate feeling; next the discipline of meditation and prayer, whicheducates the individual to the same ends, gradually developing thepowers of the foreconscious region, steadying them, and bringing themunder the control of the purified will. Without some such education, widely as its details may vary, there can be no real living of thespiritual life. 

 "A going out into the life of sense Prevented the exercise of earnest realization. "[88]

Psychologists sometimes divide men into the two extreme classes ofextroverts and introverts. The extrovert is the typical active; alwaysleaning out of the window and setting up contacts with the outsideworld. His thinking is mainly realistic. That is to say, it deals withthe data of sense. The introvert is the typical contemplative, predominantly interested in the inner world. His thinking is mainlyautistic, dealing with the results of intuition and feeling, workingthese up into new structures and extorting from them new experiences. Heis at home in the foreconscious, has its peculiar powers under control;and instinctively obedient to the mystic command to sink into the groundof the soul, he leans towards those deep wells of his own being whichplunge into the unconscious foundations of life. By this avoidance oftotal concentration on the sense world--though material obtained from itmust as a matter of fact enter into all, even his most "spiritual"creations--he seems able to attend to the messages which intuition picksup from other levels of being. It is significant that nearly allspiritual writers use this very term of introversion, which psychologyhas now adopted as the most accurate that it can find, in a favourable, indeed laudatory, sense. By it they intend to describe the healthyexpansion of the inner life, the development of the soul's power ofattention to the spiritual, which is characteristic of those real menand women of prayer whom Ruysbroeck describes as:--

 "Gazing inward with an eye uplifted and open to the Eternal Truth Inwardly abiding in simplicity and stillness and in utter peace. "[89]

It is certain that no one who wholly lacks this power of retreat fromthe surface, and has failed thus to mobilize his foreconscious energies, can live a spiritual life. This is why silence and meditation play solarge a part in all sane religious discipline. But the ideal state, astate answering to that rhythm of work and prayer which should be thenorm of a mature spirituality, is one in which we have achieved thatmental flexibility and control which puts us in full possession of ourautistic _and_ our realistic powers; balancing and unifying the innerand the outer world. 

This being so, it is worth while to consider in more detail thecharacter of foreconscious thought. 

Foreconscious thinking, as it commonly occurs in us, with its uncheckedillogical stream of images and ideas, moving towards no assigned end, combined in no ordered chain, is merely what we usually call day-dream. But where a definite wish or purpose, an _end_, dominates this reverieand links up its images and ideas into a cycle, we get in combinationall the valuable properties both of affective and of directed thinking;although the reverie or contemplation place in the fringe-region of ourmental life, and in apparent freedom from the control of the consciousreason. The object of recollection and meditation, which are the firststages of mental prayer, is to set going such a series and to direct ittowards an assigned end: and this first inward-turning act andself-orientation are voluntary, though the activities which they set upare not. "You must know, my daughters, " says St. Teresa, "that this isno supernatural act but depends on our will; and that therefore we cando it, with that ordinary assistance of God which we need for all ouracts and even for our good thoughts. "[90]

Consider for a moment what happens in prayer. I pass over the simplerecitation of verbal prayers, which will better be dealt with when wecome to consider the institutional framework of the spiritual life. Weare now concerned with mental prayer or orison; the simplest of thosedegrees of contemplation which may pass gradually into mysticalexperience, and are at least in some form a necessity of any real andactualized spiritual life. Such prayer is well defined by the mystics, as "a devout intent directed to God. "[91] What happens in it? Allwriters on the science of prayer observe, that the first necessity isRecollection; which, in a rough and ready way, we may render asconcentration, or perhaps in the special language of psychology as"contention. " The mind is called in from external interests anddistractions, one by one the avenues of sense are closed, till the huntof the world is hardly perceived by it. I need not labour thisdescription, for it is a state of which we must all have experience: butthose who wish to see it described with the precision of genius, needonly turn to St. Teresa's "Way of Perfection. " Having achieved this, wepass gradually into the condition of deep withdrawal variously calledSimplicity or Quiet; a state in which the attention is quietly andwithout effort directed to God, and the whole self as it were held inHis presence. This presence is given, dimly or clearly, in intuition. The actual prayer used will probably consist--again to use technicallanguage--of "affective acts and aspirations"; short phrases repeatedand held, perhaps expressing penitence, humility, adoration or love, andfor the praying self charged with profound significance. 

"If we would intentively pray for getting of good, " says "The Cloud ofUnknowing, " "let us cry either with word or with thought or with desire, nought else nor on more words but this word God.... Study thou not forno words, for so shouldst thou never come to thy purpose nor to thiswork, for it is never got by study, but all only by grace. "[92]

Now the question naturally arises, how does this recollected state, thisalogical brooding on a spiritual theme, exceed in religions value theorderly saying of one's prayers? And the answer psychology suggests is, that more of us, not less, is engaged in such a spiritual act: that notonly the conscious attention, but the foreconscious region too is thenthrown open to the highest sources of life. We are at last learning torecognize the existence of delicate mental processes which entirelyescape the crude methods of speech. Reverie as a genuine thought processis beginning to be studied with the attention it deserves, and newunderstanding of prayer must result. By its means powers of perceptionand response ordinarily latent are roused to action; and thus the wholelife is enriched. That faculty in us which corresponds, not with thebusy life of succession but with the eternal sources of power, gets itschance. "Though the soul, " says Von Hügel, "cannot abidingly abstractitself from its fellows, it can and ought frequently to recollect itselfin a simple sense of God's presence. Such moments of directpreoccupation with God alone bring a deep refreshment and simplificationto the soul. "[93]

True silence, says William Penn, of this quiet surrender to reality, "isrest to the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body;nourishment and refreshment. "[94] Psychology endorses the constantstatements of all religions of the Spirit, that no one need hope to livea spiritual life who cannot find a little time each day for this retreatfrom the window, this quiet and loving waiting upon the unseen "withthe forces of the soul, " as Ruysbroeck puts it, "gathered into unity ofthe Spirit. "[95] Under these conditions, and these only, the intuitive, creative, artistic powers are captured and dedicated to the highestends: and in these powers rather than the rational our best chance ofapprehending eternal values abides, "Taste and _see_ that the Lord issweet. " "Be still! be still! and _know_ that I am God!"

Since, then, the foreconscious mind and its activities are of suchparamount interest to the spiritual life, we may before we go on glanceat one or two of its characteristics. And first we notice that the factthat the foreconscious is, so to speak, in charge in the mental andcontemplative type of prayer explains why it is that even the mostdevout persons are so constantly tormented by distractions whilstengaged in it. Very often, they are utterly unable to keep theirattention fixed; and the reason of this is, that conscious attention andthought are not the faculties primarily involved. What is involved, isreverie coloured by feeling; and this tends to depart from its assignedend and drift into mere day-dream, if the emotional tension slackens orsome intruding image starts a new train of associations. The religiousmind is distressed by this constant failure to look steadily at thatwhich alone it wants to see; but the failure abides in the fact thatthe machinery used is affective, and obedient to the rise and fall offeeling rather than the control of the will. "By love shall He be gottenand holden, by thought never. "

Next, consider for a moment the way in which the foreconscious does andmust present its apprehensions to consciousness. Its cognitions of thespiritual are in the nature of pure immediacy, of uncriticized contacts:and the best and greatest of them seem to elude altogether thatmachinery of speech and image which has been developed through the lifeof sense. The well-known language of spiritual writers about the divinedarkness or ignorance is an acknowledgment of this. God is "knowndarkly. " Our experience of Eternity is "that of which nothing can besaid. " It is "beyond feeling" and "beyond knowledge, " a certitude knownin the ground of the soul, and so forth. It is indeed true that thespiritual world is for the human mind a transcendent world, does differutterly in kind from the best that the world of succession is able togive us; as we know once for all when we establish a contact with it, however fleeting. But constantly the foreconscious--which, as we shalldo well to remember, is the artistic region of the mind, the home of thepoem, and the creative phantasy--works up its transcendent intuitions insymbolic form. For this purpose it sometimes uses the machinery ofspeech, sometimes that of image. As our ordinary reveries constantlyproceed by way of an interior conversation or narrative, so the contentof spiritual contemplation is often expressed in dialogue, in whichmemory and belief are fused with the fruit of perception. The "Dialogueof St. Catherine of Siena, " the "Life of Suso, " and the "Imitation ofChrist, " all provide beautiful examples of this; but indeedillustrations of it might be found in every school and period ofreligious literature. 

Such inward dialogue, one of the commonest spontaneous forms of autisticthought, is perpetually resorted to by devout minds to actualize theirconsciousness of direct communion with God. I need not point out howeasily and naturally it expresses for them that sense of a Friend andCompanion, an indwelling power and support, which is perhaps theircharacteristic experience. "Blessed is that soul, " says à Kempis, "thatheareth the Lord speaking in him and taketh from His mouth the word ofconsolation. Blessed be those ears that receive of God's whisper andtake no heed of the whisper of this world. "[96] Though St. John of theCross has reminded us with blunt candour that such persons are for themost part only talking to themselves, we need not deny the value of sucha talking as a means of expressing the deeply known and intimatepresence of Spirit. Moreover, the thoughts and words in which thecontemplative expresses his sense of love and dedication reverberate asit were in the depths of the instinctive mind, now in this quietudethrown open to these influences: and the instinctive mind, as we havealready seen, is the home of character and of habit formation. 

Where there is a tendency to think in images rather than in words, theexperiences of the Spirit may be actualized in the form of vision ratherthan of dialogue: and here again, memory and feeling will provide thematerial. Here we stand at the sources of religious art: which, when itis genuine, is a symbolic picture of the experiences of faith, and inthose minds attuned to it may evoke again the memory or very presence ofthose experiences. But many minds are, as it were, their own religiousartists; and build up for themselves psychic structures answering totheir intuitive apprehensions. So vivid may these structures sometimesbe for them that--to revert again to our original simile--the self turnsfrom the window and the realistic world without, and becomes for thetime wholly concentrated on the symbolic drama or picture within theroom; which abolishes all awareness of the everyday world. When thishappens in a small way, we have what might be called a religiousday-dream of more or less beauty and intensity; such as most devoutpeople who tend to visualization have probably known. When the breakwith the external world is complete, we get those ecstatic visions inwhich mystics of a certain type actualize their spiritual intuitions. The Bible is full of examples of this. Good historic instances are thevisions of Mechthild of Magdeburg or Angela of Foligno. The firstcontain all the elements of drama, the last cover a wide symbolic andemotional field. Those who have read Canon Streeter's account of thevisions of the Sadhu Sundar Singh will recognize them as being of thistype. [97]

I do not wish to go further than this into the abnormal and extremetypes of religious autism; trance, ecstasy and so forth. Our concern iswith the norm of the spiritual life, as it exists to-day and as all maylive it. But it is necessary to realize that image and vision do withinlimits represent a perfectly genuine way of doing things, which isinevitable for deeply spiritual selves of a certain type; and that it isneither good psychology nor good Christianity, lightly to dismiss assuperstition or hysteria the pictured world of symbol in which ourneighbour may live and save his soul. The symbolic world of traditionalpiety, with its angels and demons, its friendly saints, its spatialheaven, may conserve and communicate spiritual values far better thanthe more sophisticated universe of religious philosophy. We may be surethat both are more characteristic of the image-making andstructure-building tendencies of the mind, than they are of the ultimateand for us unknowable reality of things. Their value--or the value ofany work of art which the foreconscious has contrived--abides wholly inthe content: the quality of the material thus worked up. The richnature, the purified love, capable of the highest correspondences, willexpress even in the most primitive duologue or vision the results of averitable touching and tasting of Eternal Life. Its psychicstructures--however logic may seek to discredit them--will conveyspiritual fact, have the quality which the mystics mean when they speakof illumination. The emotional pietist will merely ramble among thereligious symbols and phrases with which the devout memory is stored. Itis true that the voice or the picture, surging up as it does into thefield of consciousness, seems to both classes to have the character of arevelation. The pictures unroll themselves automatically and withamazing authority and clearness, the conversation is with Another thanourselves; or in more generalized experiences, such as the sense of theDivine Presence, the contact is with another order of life. But thecrucial question which religion asks must be, does fresh life flow infrom those visions and contacts, that intercourse? Is transcendentalfeeling involved in them? "What fruits dost thou bring back from thisthy vision?" says Jacopone da Todi;[98] and this remains the only realtest by which to separate day-dreams from the vitalizing act ofcontemplation. In the first we are abandoned to a delightful, andperhaps as it seems holy or edifying vagrancy of thought. In thesecond, by a deliberate choice and act of will, foreconscious thinkingis set going and directed towards an assigned end: the apprehending andactualizing of our deepest intuition of God. In it, a great region ofthe mind usually ignored by us and left to chance, yet source of manychoices and deeds, and capable of much purifying pain, is put to itstrue work: and it is work which must be humbly, regularly and faithfullyperformed. It is to this region that poetry, art and music--and even, ifI dare say so, philosophy--make their fundamental appeal. No life iswhole and harmonized in which it has not taken its right place. 

We must now go on--and indeed, any psychological study of prayerfulexperience must lead us on--to the subject of suggestion, and itsrelation to the inner life. By suggestion of course is here meant, inconformity with current psychological doctrine, the process by which anidea enters the deeper and unconscious psychic levels and there becomesfruitful. Its real nature, and in consequence something of itsfar-reaching importance, is now beginning to be understood by us: a factof great moment for both the study and the practice of the spirituallife. Since the transforming work of the Spirit must be done throughman's ordinary psychic machinery and in conformity with the laws whichgovern it, every such increase in our knowledge of that machinery mustserve the interests of religion, and show its teachers the way tosuccess. Suggestion is usually said to be of two kinds. The first ishetero-suggestion, in which the self-realizing idea is received eitherwittingly or unwittingly from the outer world. During the whole of ourconscious lives for good or evil we are at the mercy of suchhetero-suggestions, which are being made to us at every moment by ourenvironment; and they form, as we shall afterwards see, a dominantfactor in corporate religious exercises. The second type isauto-suggestion. In this, by means of the conscious mind, an idea isimplanted in the unconscious and there left to mature. Thus do willinglyaccepted beliefs, religious, social, or scientific, gradually andsilently permeate the whole being and show their results in character. 

A little reflection shows, however, that these two forms of suggestionshade into one another; and that no hetero-suggestion, howeverimpressively given, becomes active in us until we have in some sortaccepted it and transformed it into an auto-suggestion. Theologyexpresses this fact in its own special language, when it says that thewill must co-operate with grace if it is to be efficacious. Thus theprimacy of the will is safe-guarded. It stands, or should stand, at thedoor; selecting from among the countless dynamic suggestions, good andbad, which life pours in on us, those which serve the best interests ofthe self. 

As a rule, men take little trouble to sort out the incoming suggestions. They allow uncriticized beliefs and prejudices, the ideas of hatred, anxiety or ill-health, free entrance. They fail to seize and affirm theideas of power, renovation, joy. They would be more careful, did theygrasp more fully the immense and often enduring effect of these acceptedsuggestions; the extent in which the fundamental, unreasoning psychicdeeps are plastic to ideas. Yet this plasticity is exhibited in dailylife first under the emotional form of sympathy, response to thesuggestion of other peoples' feeling-states; and next under the conativeform of imitation, active acceptance of the suggestion made by theirappearance, habits, deeds. All political creeds, panics, fashion andgood form witness to the overwhelming power of suggestion. We are soaccustomed to this psychic contagion that we fail to realize thestrangeness of the process: but it is now known to reach a degreepreviously unsuspected, and of which we have not yet found the limits. 

In the religious sphere, the more sensational demonstrations of thispsychic suggestibility have long been notorious. Obvious instances arethose ecstatics--some of them true saints, some only religiousinvalids--whose continuous and ardent meditation on the Cross producedin them the actual bodily marks of the Passion of Christ. In lessextreme types, perpetual dwelling on this subject, together with thateager emotional desire to be united with the sufferings of the Redeemerwhich mediæval religion encouraged, frequently modified the whole lifeof the contemplative; shaping the plastic mind, and often the body too, to its own mould. A good historic example of this law of religioussuggestibility is the case of Julian of Norwich. As a young girl, Julianprayed that she might have an illness at thirty years of age, and also acloser knowledge of Christ's pains. She forgot the prayer: but it workedbelow the threshold as forgotten suggestions often do, and when she wasthirty the illness came. Its psychic origin can still be recognized inher own candid account of it; and with the illness the other half ofthat dynamic prayer received fulfilment, in those well-known visions ofthe Passion to which we owe the "Revelations of Divine Love. "[99]

This is simply a striking instance of a process which is always takingplace in every one of us, for good or evil. The deeper mind opens to allwho knock; provided only that the new-comers be not the enemies of somestronger habit or impression already within. To suggestions whichcoincide with the self's desires or established beliefs it gives an easywelcome; and these, once within, always tend to self-realization. Thusthe French Carmelite Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus, once convinced that shewas destined to be a "victim of love, " began that career of sufferingwhich ended in her death at the age of twenty-four. [100] The lives ofthe Saints are full of incidents explicable on the same lines:exhibiting again and again the dramatic realization of traditional ideasor passionate desires. We see therefore that St. Paul's admonition"Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoeverthings be of good report, think on these things" is a piece of practicaladvice of which the importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it dealswith the conditions under which man makes his own mentality. 

Suggestion, in fact, is one of the most powerful agents either ofself-destruction or of self-advancement which are within our grasp: andthose who speak of the results of psycho-therapy, or the certitudes ofreligious experience, as "mere suggestion" are unfortunate in theirchoice of an adjective. If then we wish to explore all those mentalresources which can be turned to the purposes of the spiritual life, this is one which we must not neglect. The religious idea, rightlyreceived into the mind and reinforced by the suggestion of regulardevotional exercises, always tends to realize itself. "Receive Hisleaven, " says William Penn, "and it will change thee, His medicine andit will cure thee. He is as infallible as free; without money and withcertainty. Yield up the body, soul and spirit to Him that maketh allthings new: new heaven and new earth, new love, new joy, new peace, newworks, a new life and conversation. "[101] This is fine literature, butit is more important to us to realize that it is also good psychology:and that here we are given the key to those amazing regenerations ofcharacter which are the romance and glory of the religious life. Pascal's too celebrated saying, that if you will take holy waterregularly you will presently believe, witnesses on another level to thesame truth. 

Fears have been expressed that, by such an application of the laws ofsuggestion to religious experience, we shall reduce religion itself to amere favourable subjectivism, and identify faith with suggestibility. But here the bearing of this series of facts on bodily health providesus with a useful analogy. Bodily health is no illusion. It does notconsist in merely thinking that we are well, but is a real condition ofwell-being and of power; depending on the state of our tissues andcorrect balance and working of our physical and psychical life. And thiscorrect and wholesome working will be furthered and steadied--or ifbroken may often be restored--by good suggestions; it may be disturbedby bad suggestions; because the controlling factor of life is mind, notchemistry, and mind is plastic to ideas. So too the life of the Spiritis a concrete fact; a real response to a real universe. But thisconcrete life of faith, with its growth and its experiences, its richlyvarious working of one principle in every aspect of existence, itscorrespondences with the Eternal World, its definitely ontologicalreferences, is lived here and now; in and through the self's psychiclife, and indeed his bodily life too--a truth which is embodied insacramentalism. Therefore, sharing as it does life's plastic character, it too is amenable to suggestion and can be helped or hindered by it. Itis indeed characteristic of those in whom this life is dominant, thatthey are capable of receiving and responding to the highest and mostvivifying suggestions which the universe in its totality pours in on us. This movement of response, often quietly overlooked, is that which makesthem not spiritual hedonists but men and women of prayer. Grace--to givethese suggestions of Spirit their conventional name--is perpetuallybeating in on us. But if it is to be inwardly realized, the Divinesuggestion must be transformed by man's will and love into anauto-suggestion; and this is what seems to happen in meditation andprayer. 

Everything indeed points to a very close connection between what mightbe called the mechanism of prayer and of suggestion. To say this, is inno way to minimize the transcendental character of prayer. In bothstates there is a spontaneous or deliberate throwing open of the deepermind to influences which, fully accepted, tend to realize themselves. Look at the directions given by all great teachers of prayer andcontemplation; and these two acts, rightly performed, fuse one with theother, they are two aspects of the single act of communion with God. Look at their insistence on a stilling and recollecting of the mind, onsurrender, a held passivity not merely limp but purposeful: on the needof meek yielding to a greater inflowing power, and its regeneratingsuggestions. Then compare this with the method by which health-givingsuggestions are made to the bodily life. "In the deeps of the soul Hisword is spoken. " Is not this an exact description of the inward work ofthe self-realizing idea of holiness, received in the prayer of quietinto the unconscious mind, and there experienced as a transformingpower? I think that we may go even further than this, and say thatgrace, is, in effect, the direct suggestion of the spiritual affectingour soul's life. As we are commonly docile to the countlesshetero-suggestions, some of them helpful, some weakening, some actuallyperverting, which our environment is always making to us; so we can andshould be so spiritually suggestible that we can receive those given tous by all-penetrating Divine life. What is generally called sin, especially in the forms of self-sufficiency, lack of charity and theindulgence of the senses, renders us recalcitrant to these livingsuggestions of the Spirit. The opposing qualities, humility, love andpurity, make us as we say accessible to grace. 

"Son, " says the inward voice to Thomas à Kempis, "My grace is precious, and suffereth not itself to be mingled with strange things nor earthlyconsolations. Wherefore it behoveth thee to cast away impediments tograce, if thou willest to receive the inpouring thereof. Ask for thyselfa secret place, love to dwell alone with thyself, seek confabulation ofnone other ... Put the readiness for God before all other things, forthou canst not both take heed to Me and delight in things transitory.... This grace is a light supernatural and a special gift of God, and aproper sign of the chosen children of God, and the earnest ofeverlasting health; for God lifteth up man from earthly things to loveheavenly things, and of him that is fleshly maketh a spiritualman. "[102] Could we have a more vivid picture than this of theconditions of withdrawal and attention under which the psyche is mostamenable to suggestion, or of the inward transfiguration worked by agreat self-realizing idea? Such transfiguration has literally on thephysical plane caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb tospeak: and it seems to me that it is to be observed operating on highestlevels in the work of salvation. When further à Kempis prays "Increasein me more grace, that I may fulfil Thy word and make perfect mine ownhealth" is he not describing the right balance to be sought between oursurrender to the vivifying suggestions of grace and our appropriationand manly use of them? This is no limp acquiescence and merely infantiledependence, but another aspect of the vital balance between theindrawing and outgiving of power; and one of the main functions ofprayer is to promote in us that spiritually suggestible state in which, as Dionysius the Areopagite says, we are "receptive of God. "

It is, then, worth our while from the point of view of the spirituallife to inquire into the conditions in which a suggestion is most likelyto be received and realized by us. These conditions, as psychologistshave so far defined them, can be resumed under the three heads ofquiescence, attention and feeling: outstanding characteristics, as Ineed not point out, of the state of prayer, all of which can beillustrated from the teaching and experience of the mystics. 

First, let us take _Quiescence_. In order fully to lay open theunconscious to the influence of suggested ideas, the surface mind mustbe called in from its responses to the outer world, or in religiouslanguage recollected, till the hum of that world is hardly perceived byit. The body must be relaxed, making no demands on the machinerycontrolling the motor system; and the conditions in general must bethose of complete mental and bodily rest. Here is the psychologicalequivalent of that which spiritual writers call the Quiet: a statedefined by one of them as "a rest most busy. " "Those who are in thisprayer, " says St. Teresa, "wish their bodies to remain motionless, forit seems to them that at the least movement they will lose their sweetpeace. "[103] Others say that in this state we "stop the wheel ofimagination, " leave all that we can think, sink into our nothingness orour ground. In Ruysbroeck's phrase, we are "inwardly abiding insimplicity and stillness and utter peace";[104] and this is man's stateof maximum receptivity. "The best and noblest way in which thou maystcome into this work and life, " says Meister Eckhart, "is by keepingsilence and letting God work and speak ... When we simply keep ourselvesreceptive we are more perfect than when at work. "[105]

But this preparatory state of surrendered quiet must at once bequalified by the second point: _Attention_. It is based upon the rightuse of the will, and is not a limp yielding to anything or nothing. Ithas an ordained deliberate aim, is a behaviour-cycle directed to an end;and this it is that marks out the real and fruitful quiet of thecontemplative from the non-directed surrender of mere quietism. "Nothing, " says St. Teresa, "is learnt without a little pains. For thelove of God, sisters, account that care well employed that ye shallbestow on this thing. "[106]

The quieted mind must receive and hold, yet without discursive thought, the idea which it desires to realize; and this idea must interest and bereal for it, so that attention is concentrated on it spontaneously. Themore completely the idea absorbs us, the greater its transforming power:when interest wavers, the suggestion begins to lose ground. In spite ofher subsequent relapse into quietism Madame Guyon accurately describedtrue quiet when she said, "Our activity should consist in endeavouringto acquire and maintain such a state as may be most susceptible ofdivine impressions, most flexible to all the operations of the EternalWord. "[107] Such concentration can be improved by practice; hence thevalue of regular meditation and contemplation to those who are inearnest about the spiritual life, the quiet and steady holding in themind of the thought which it is desired to realize. 

Psycho-therapists tell us that, having achieved quiescence, we shouldrapidly and rythmically, but with intention, repeat the suggestion thatwe wish to realize; and that the shorter, simpler and more general thisverbal formula, the more effective it will be. [108] The spiritual aspectof this law was well understood by the mediæval mystics. Thus the authorof "The Cloud of Unknowing" says to his disciple, "Fill thy spirit withghostly meaning of this word Sin, and without any special beholding untoany kind of sin, whether it be venial or deadly. And cry thus ghostlyever upon one: Sin! Sin! Sin! out! out! out! This ghostly cry is betterlearned of God by the proof than of any man by word. For it is best whenit is in pure spirit, without special thought or any pronouncing ofword. On the same manner shalt thou do with this little word God: andmean God all, and all God, so that nought work in thy wit and in thywill but only God. "[109] Here the directions are exact, and such as anypsychologist of the present day might give. So too, religious teachersinformed by experience have always ascribed a special efficacy to "shortacts" of prayer and aspiration: phrases repeated or held in the mind, which sum up and express the self's penitence, love, faith or adoration, and are really brief, articulate suggestions parallel in type to thosewhich Baudouin recommends to us as conducive to bodily well-being. [110]The repeated affirmation of Julian of Norwich "All shall be well! allshall be well! all shall be well!"[111] fills all her revelations withits suggestion of joyous faith; and countless generations of Christianshave thus applied to their soul's health those very methods by which weare now enthusiastically curing indigestion and cold in the head. Thearticulate repetition of such phrases increases their suggestive power;for the unconscious is most easily reached by way of the ear. This factthrows light on the immemorial insistence of all great religions on thepeculiar value of vocal prayer, whether this be the _mantra_ of theHindu or the _dikr_ of the Moslem; and explains the instinct whichcauses the Catholic Church to require from her priests the verbalrepetition, not merely the silent reading of their daily office. Hence, too, there is real educative value, in such devotions as the rosary; andthe Protestant Churches showed little psychological insight when theyabandoned it. Such "vain" repetitions, however much the rational mindmay dislike, discredit or denounce them, have power to penetrate andmodify the deeper psychic levels; always provided that they conflictwith no accepted belief, are weighted with meaning and desire, with theintent stretched towards God, and are not allowed to become merelymechanical--the standing danger alike of all verbal suggestion and allvocal prayer. 

Here we touch the third character of effective suggestion: _Feeling_. When the idea is charged with emotion, it is far more likely to berealized. War neuroses have taught us the dreadful potency of theemotional stimulus of fear; but this power of feeling over theunconscious has its good side too. Here we find psychology justifyingthe often criticized emotional element of religion. Its function is toincrease the energy of the idea. The cool, judicious type of belief willnever possess the life-changing power of a more fervid, though perhapsless rational faith. Thus the state of corporate suggestibilitygenerated in a revival and on which the success of that revival depends, is closely related to the emotional character of the appeal which ismade. And, on higher levels, we see that the transfigured lives andheroic energies of the great figures of Christian history all representthe realization of an idea of which the heart was an impassioned love ofGod, subduing to its purposes all the impulses and powers of the innerman, "If you would truly know how these things come to pass, " said St. Bonaventura, "ask it of desire not of intellect; of the ardours ofprayer, not of the teaching of the schools. "[112] More and morepsychology tends to endorse the truth of these words. 

Quiescence, attention, and emotional interest are then the conditions ofsuccessful suggestion. We have further to notice two characteristicswhich have been described by the Nancy school of psychologists; andwhich are of some importance for those who wish to understand themechanism of religious experience. These have been called the law ofUnconscious Teleology, and the law of Reversed Effort. 

The law of unconscious teleology means that when an end has beeneffectively suggested to it, the unconscious mind will always tend towork towards its realization. Thus in psycho-therapeutics it is foundthat a general suggestion of good health made to the sick person isoften enough. The doctor may not himself know enough about the malady tosuggest stage by stage the process of cure. But he suggests that cure;and the necessary changes and adjustments required for its realizationare made unconsciously, under the influence of the dynamic idea. Herethe direction of "The Cloud of Unknowing, " "Look that nothing live inthy working mind but a naked intent directed to God"[113]--suggestingas it does to the psyche the ontological Object of faith--strikinglyanticipates the last conclusions of science. Further, a fervent beliefin the end proposed, a conviction of success, is by no means essential. Far more important is a humble willingness to try the method, give it achance. That which reason may not grasp, the deeper mind may seize uponand realize; always provided that the intellect does not set upresistances. This is found to be true in medical practice, and religiousteachers have always declared it to be true in the spiritual sphere;holding obedience, humility, and a measure of resignation, not spiritualvision, to be the true requisites for the reception of grace, thehealing and renovation of the soul. Thus acquiescence in belief, andloyal and steady co-operation in the corporate religious life are oftenseen to work for good in those who submit to them; though these maylack, as they frequently say, the "spiritual sense. " And this happens, not by magic, but in conformity with psychological law. 

This tendency of the unconscious self to realize without criticism asuggested end lays on religious teachers the obligation of forming aclear and vital conception of the spiritual ideals which they wish tosuggest, whether to themselves in their meditations or to others bytheir teaching: to be sure that they are wholesome, and really tend tofullness of life. It should also compel each of us to scrutinize thosereligious thoughts and images which we receive and on which we allowour minds to dwell: excluding those that are merely sentimental, weak orotherwise unworthy, and holding fast the noblest and most beautiful thatwe can find. For these ideas, however generalized, will set up profoundchanges in the mind that receives them. Thus the wrong conception ofself-immolation will be faithfully worked out by the unconscious--andhas been too often in the past--in terms of misery, weakness, ordisease. We remember how the idea of herself as a victim of love workedphysical destruction in Thérèse de L'Enfant Jésus: and we shall neverperhaps know all the havoc wrought by the once fashionable doctrines ofpredestination and of the total depravity of human nature. All thisshows how necessary it is to put hopeful, manly, constructiveconceptions before those whom we try to help or instruct; constantlysuggesting to them not the weak and sinful things that they are, but theliving and radiant things which they can become. 

Further, this tendency of the received suggestion to work out its wholecontent for good or evil within the unconscious mind, shows theimportance which we ought to attach to the tone of a religions service, and how close too many of our popular hymns are to what one might callpsychological sin; stressing as they do a childish weakness love ofshelter and petting, a neurotic shrinking from full human life, a morbidpreoccupation with failure and guilt. Such hymns make devitalizingsuggestions, adverse to the health and energy of the spiritual life;and are all the more powerful because they are sung collectively and inrhythm, and are cast in an emotional mould. [114] There was some truth inthe accusation of the Indian teacher Ramakrishna, that the books of theChristians insisted too exclusively on sin. He said, "He who repeatsagain and again 'I am bound! I am bound!' remains in bondage. He whorepeats day and night 'I am a sinner! I am a sinner!' becomes a sinnerindeed. "[115]

I go on to the law of Reversed Effort; a psychological discovery whichseems to be of extreme importance for the spiritual life. Briefly thismeans, that when any suggestion has entered the unconscious mind andthere become active, all our conscious and anxious resistances to it arenot merely useless but actually tend to intensify it. If it is to bedislodged, this will not be accomplished by mere struggle but by thepersuasive power of another and superior auto-suggestion. Further, inrespect of any habit that we seek to establish, the more desperate ourstruggle and sense of effort, the smaller will be our success. In smallmatters we have all experienced the working of this law: in frustratedstruggles to attend to that which does not interest us, to check atiresome cough, to keep our balance when learning to ride a bicycle. Butit has also more important applications. Thus it indicates that adeliberate struggle to believe, to overcome some moral weakness, to keepattention fixed in prayer, will tend to frustration: for this anxiouseffort gives body to our imaginative difficulties and sense ofhelplessness, fixing attention on the conflict, not on the desired end. True, if this end is to be achieved the will must be directed to it, butonly in the sense of giving steadfast direction to the desires and actsof the self, keeping attention orientated towards the goal. The pull ofimaginative desire, not the push of desperate effort, serves us best. St. Teresa well appreciated this law and applied it to her doctrine ofprayer. "If your thought, " she says to her daughters, "runs after allthe fooleries of the world, laugh at it and leave it for a fool andcontinue in your quiet ... If you seek by force of arms to bring it toyou, you lose the strength which you have against it. "[116]

This same principle is implicitly recognized by those theologians whodeclare that man can "do nothing of himself, " that mere voluntarystruggle is useless, and regeneration comes by surrender to grace: byyielding, that is, to the inner urge, to those sources of power whichflow in, but are not dragged in. Indications of its truth meet useverywhere in spiritual literature. Thus Jacob Boehme says, "Becausethou strivest against that out of which thou art come, thou breakestthyself off with thy own willing from God's willing. "[117] So too theconstant invitations to let God work and speak, to surrender, are allinvitations to cease anxious strife and effort and give the Divinesuggestions their chance. The law of reversed effort, in fact, is validon every level of life; and warns us against the error of makingreligion too grim and strenuous an affair. Certainly in all life of theSpirit the will is active, and must retain its conscious and steadfastorientation to God. Heroic activity and moral effort must form anintegral part of full human experience. Yet it is clearly possible tomake too much of the process of wrestling evil. An attention chiefly andanxiously concentrated on the struggle with sins and weaknesses, insteadof on the eternal sources of happiness and power, will offer theunconscious harmful suggestions of impotence and hence tend tofrustration. The early ascetics, who made elaborate preparations fordealing with temptations, got as an inevitable result plenty oftemptations with which to deal. A sounder method is taught by themystics. "When thoughts of sin press on thee, " says "The Cloud ofUnknowing, " "look over their shoulders seeking another thing, the whichthing is God. "[118]

These laws of suggestion, taken together, all seem to point, one way. They exhibit the human self as living, plastic, changeful; perpetuallymodified by the suggestions pouring in on it, the experiences andintuitions to which it reacts. Every thought, prayer, enthusiasm, fear, is of importance to it. Nothing leaves it as it was before. The soul, said Boehme, stands both in heaven and in hell. Keep it perpetually busyat the window of the senses, feed it with unlovely and materialisticideas, and those ideas will realize themselves. Give the contemplativefaculty its chance, let it breathe at least for a few moments of eachday the spiritual atmosphere of faith, hope and love, and the spirituallife will at least in some measure be realized by it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 85: On all this, cf. J. Varendonck, "The Psychology ofDay-dreams. "]

[Footnote 86: Jacob Boehme: "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 87: Patmore: "The Rod, the Root and the Flower: Aurea Dicta, "13. ]

[Footnote 88: Ruysbroeck: "The Book of the XII Béguines, " Cap. 6. ]

[Footnote 89: "The Book of the XII Béguines, " Cap. 7. ]

[Footnote 90: "The Way of Perfection, " Cap. 29. ]

[Footnote 91: "The Cloud of Unknowing, " Cap. 39. ]

[Footnote 92: _Ibid_. ]

[Footnote 93: "Eternal Life, " p. 396. ]

[Footnote 94: Penn: "No Cross, No Crown. "]

[Footnote 95: "The Book of the XII Béguines, " Cap, 7. ]

[Footnote 96: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. I]

[Footnote 97: Streeter and Appasamy: "The Sadhu, a Study in Mysticismand Practical Religion, " Pt. V. ]

[Footnote 98:

 Que frutti reducene de esta tua visione? Vita ordinata en onne nazione. 

--Jacopone da Todi: Lauda 79. ]

[Footnote 99: Julian of Norwich: "Revelations of Divine Love, " Caps. 2, 3, 4. ]

[Footnote 100: "Soeur Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus, " Cap. 8. ]

[Footnote 101: William Penn: "No Cross, No Crown. "]

[Footnote 102: De Imit. Christi, Bk. III, Cap. 58. ]

[Footnote 103: "Way of Perfection, " Cap. 33. ]

[Footnote 104: "The Book of the XII Béguines, " Cap. 7. ]

[Footnote 105: Meister Eckhart, Pred. I. ]

[Footnote 106: "The Way of Perfection, " Cap. 29. ]

[Footnote 107: "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, " Cap. 21. ]

[Footnote 108: Baudouin: "Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, " Pt. II, Cap6. ]

[Footnote 109: Op. Cit. Cap. 40. ]

[Footnote 110: Baudouin: "Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, " loc. Cit. ]

[Footnote 111: "Revelations of Divine Love, " Cap. 27. ]

[Footnote 112: "De Itinerario Mentis in Deo, " Cap. 7. ]

[Footnote 113: Op. Cit. , Cap. 43. ]

[Footnote 114: Hymns of the Weary Willie type: e. G. 

 "O Paradise, O Paradise Who does not sigh for rest?"

should never be sung in congregations where the average age is less thansixty. Equally unsuited to general use are those expressingdisillusionment, anxiety, or impotence. Any popular hymnal will providean abundance of examples. ]

[Footnote 115: Quoted by Pratt: "The Religious Consciousness, " Cap. 7. ]

[Footnote 116: "The Way of Perfection, " Cap. 31. ]

[Footnote 117: "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 118: Op. Cit. , Cap. 32. ]

CHAPTER V

INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

So far, in considering what psychology had to tell us about theconditions in which our spiritual life can develop, and the mentalmachinery it can use, we have been, deliberately, looking at men one byone. We have left on one side all those questions which relate to thecorporate aspect of the spiritual life, and its expression in religiousinstitutions; that is to say, in churches and cults. We have looked uponit as a personal growth and response; a personal reception of, andself-orientation to, Reality. But we cannot get away from the fact thatthis regenerate life does most frequently appear in history associatedwith, or creating for itself, a special kind of institution. Although itis impossible to look upon it as the appearance of a favourablevariation within the species, it is also just as possible to look uponit as the formation of a new herd or tribe. Where the variation appears, and in its sense of newness, youth and vigour breaks away from theinstitution within which it has arisen, it generally becomes the nucleusabout which a new group is formed. So that individualism andgregariousness are both represented in the full life of the Spirit; andhowever personal its achievement may seem to us, it has also adefinitely corporate and institutional aspect. 

I now propose to take up this side of the subject, and try to suggestone or two lines of thought which may help us to discover the meaningand worth of such societies and institutions. For after all, someexplanation is needed of these often strange symbolic systems, and oftenrigid mechanizations, imposed on the free responses to Eternal Realitywhich we found to constitute the essence of religious experience. Anyone who has known even such direct communion with the Spirit as ispossible to normal human nature must, if he thinks out the implicationsof his own experience, feel it to be inconsistent that this mostuniversal of all acts should be associated by men with the mostexclusive of all types of institution. It is only because we are soaccustomed to this--taking churches for granted, even when we rejectthem--that we do not see how odd they really are: how curious it is thatmen do not set up exclusive and mutually hostile clubs full of rules andregulations to enjoy the light of the sun in particular times andfashions, but do persistently set up such exclusives clubs full of rulesand regulations, so to enjoy the free Spirit of God. 

When we look into history we see the life of the Spirit, even from itscrudest beginnings, closely associated with two movements. First withthe tendency to organize it in communities or churches, living underspecial sanctions and rules. Next, with the tendency of its greatest, most arresting personalities either to revolt from these organisms or toreform, rekindle them from within. So that the institutional life ofreligion persists through or in spite of its own constant tendency tostiffen and lose fervour, and the secessions, protests, or renewalswhich are occasioned by its greatest sons. Thus our Lord protestedagainst Jewish formalism; many Catholic mystics, and afterwards the bestof the Protestant reformers, against Roman formalism; George Fox againstone type of Protestant formalism; the Oxford movement against another. This constant antagonism of church and prophet, of institutionalauthority and individual vision, is not only true of Christianity but ofall great historical faiths. In the middle ages Kabir and Nanak, and inour own times the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj, break away from anddenounce ceremonial Hinduism: again and again the great Sufis have ledreforms within Islam. That which we are now concerned to discover is thenecessity underlying this conflict: the extent in which the institutionon one hand serves the spiritual life, and on the other cramps oropposes its free development. It is a truism that all such institutionstend to degenerate, to become mechanical, and to tyrannize. Are theythen, in spite of these adverse characters, to be looked on asessential, inevitable, or merely desirable expressions of the spirituallife in man; or can this spiritual life flourish in pure freedom?

This question, often put in the crucial form, "Did Jesus Christ intendto form a Church?" is well worth asking. Indeed, it is of great pressingimportance to those who now have the spiritual reconstruction of societyat heart. It means, in practice: can men best be saved, regenerated, oneby one, by their direct responses to the action of the Spirit; or, isthe life of the Spirit best found and actualized through submission totradition and contacts with other men--that is, in a group or church?And if in a group or church, what should the character of this societybe? But we shall make no real movement towards solving this problem, unless we abandon both the standpoint of authority, and that of naïvereligious individualism; and consent to look at it as a part of thegeneral problem of human society, in the light of history, ofpsychology, and of ethics. 

I think we may say without exaggeration that the general modernjudgment--not, of course, the clerical or orthodox judgment--is adverseto institutionalism; at least as it now exists. In spite of the enormousimprovement which would certainly be visible, were we to compare theaverage ecclesiastical attitude and average Church service in thiscountry with those of a hundred years ago, the sense that religioninvolves submission to the rules and discipline of a closedsociety--that definite spiritual gains are attached to spiritualincorporation--that church-going, formal and corporate worship, is anormal and necessary part of the routine of a good life: all this hascertainly ceased to be general amongst us. If we include the wholepopulation, and not the pious fraction in our view, this is true both ofso-called Catholic and so-called Protestant countries. Professor Pratthas lately described 80 per cent. Of the population of the United Statesas being "unchurched"; and all who worked among our soldiers at thefront were struck by the paradox of the immense amount of naturalreligion existing among them, combined with almost total alienation fromreligious institutions. Those, too, who study and care for the spirituallife seem most often to conceive it in the terms of William James'swell-known definition of religion as "the feelings, acts and experiencesof individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselvesto stand in relation to whatever they may consider the Divine. "[119]

Such a life of the Spirit--and the majority of educated men wouldprobably accept this description of it--seems little if at allconditioned by Church membership. It speaks in secret to its Father insecret; and private devotion and self-discipline seem to be all itneeds. Yet looking at history, we see that this conception, thiscompleteness of emphasis on first-hand solitary seeking, this one-by-oneachievement of Eternity, has not in fact proved truly fruitful in thepast. Where it seems so to be fruitful, the solitude is illusory. Eachgreat regenerator and revealer of Reality, each God-intoxicated soulachieving transcendence, owes something to its predecessors andcontemporaries. [120] All great spiritual achievement, like all greatartistic achievement, however spontaneous it may seem to be, howevermuch the fruit of a personal love and vision, is firmly rooted in theracial past. If fulfills rather than destroys; and unless its freemovement towards novelty, fresh levels of pure experience, be thusbalanced by the stability which is given us by our hoarded traditionsand formed habits, it will degenerate into eccentricity and fail of itsfull effect. Although nothing but first-hand discovery of and responseto spiritual values is in the end of any use to us, that discovery andthat response are never quite such a single-handed affair as we like tosuppose. Memory and environment, natural and cultural, play their part. And the next most natural and fruitful movement after such a personaldiscovery of abiding Reality, such a transfiguration of life, is alwaysback towards our fellow-men; to learn more from them, to unite withthem, to help them, --anyhow to reaffirm our solidarity with them. Thegreat men and women of the Spirit, then, either use their new power andjoy to restore existing institutions to fuller vitality, as did thesuccessive regenerators of the monastic life, such as St. Bernard andSt. Teresa and many Sufi saints; or they form new groups, new organismswhich they can animate, as did St. Paul, St. Francis, Kabir, Fox, Wesley, Booth. One and all, they feel that the full robust life of theSpirit demands some incarnation, some place in history and socialoutlet, and also some fixed discipline and tradition. 

In fact, not only the history of the soul, but that of all full humanachievement, as studied in great creative personalities, shows us thatsuch achievement has always two sides. (1) There is the solitary visionor revelation, and personal work in accordance with that vision. Thereligious man's direct experience of God and his effort to correspondwith it; the artist's lonely and intense apprehension of beauty, andhard translation of it; the poet's dream and its difficult expression inspeech; the philosopher's intuition of reality, hammered into thought. These are personal immediate experiences, and no human soul will reachits full stature unless it can have the measure of freedom andwithdrawal which they demand. But (2) there are the social andhistorical contacts which are made by all these creative types with thepast and with the present; all the big rich thick stream of humanhistory and effort, giving them, however little they may recognize it, the very initial concepts with which they go to their special contactwith reality, and which colour it; supporting them and demanding fromthem again their contribution to the racial treasury, and to thepresent too. Thus the artist, as, well as his solitary hours ofcontemplation and effort, ought to have his times alike of humble studyof the past and of intercourse with other living artists; and great andenduring art forms more often arise within a school, than in completeindependence of tradition. It seems, then, that the advocates ofcorporate and personal religion are both, in a measure, right: and thatonce again a middle path, avoiding both extremes of simplification, keeps nearest to the facts of life. We have no reason for supposing thatthese principles, which history shows us, have ceased to be operative:or that we can secure the best kind of spiritual progress for the raceby breaking with the past and the institutions in which it is conserved. Institutions are in some sort needful if life's balance betweenstability and novelty, and our links with history and our fellow-men, are to be preserved; and if we are to achieve such a fullness both ofindividual and of corporate life on highest levels as history andpsychology recommend to us. 

The question of this institutional side of religion and what we shoulddemand from it falls into two parts, which will best be treatedseparately. First, that which concerns the character and usefulness ofthe group-organization or society: the Church. Secondly, that whichrelates to its peculiar practices: the Cult. We must enquire under eachhead what are their necessary characters, their essential gifts to thesoul, and what their dangers and limitations. 

First, then, the Church. What does a Church really do for theGod-desiring individual; the soul that wants to live a full, completeand real life, which has "felt in its solitude" the presence andcompulsion of Eternal Reality under one or other of the forms ofreligious experience?

I think we can say that the Church or institution gives to its loyalmembers:--

 (1) Group-consciousness. 

 (2) Religious union, not only with its contemporaries but with the race, that is with history. This we may regard as an extension into the past--and so an enrichment--of that group-consciousness. 

 (3) Discipline; and with discipline a sort of spiritual grit, which carries our fluctuating souls past and over the inevitably recurring periods of slackness, and corrects subjectivism. 

 (4) It gives Culture, handing on the discoveries of the saints. 

In so far as the free-lance gets any of these four things, he gets themultimately, though indirectly, from some institutional source. 

On the other hand the institution, since it represents the element ofstability in life, does not give, and must not be expected to give, direct spiritual experience; or any onward push towards novelty, freshness of discovery and interpretation in the spiritual sphere. Itsdangers and limitations will abide in a certain dislike of suchfreshness of discovery; the tendency to exalt the corporate and stableand discount the mobile and individual. Its natural instinct will be forexclusivism, the club-idea, conservatism and cosiness; it will, if leftto itself, revel in the middle-aged atmosphere and exhibit themiddle-aged point of view. 

We can now consider these points in greater detail: and first that ofthe religious group-consciousness which a church should give itsmembers. This is of a special kind. It is axiomatic thatgroup-organization of some sort is a necessity of human life. Historyshowed us the tendency of all spiritual movements to embody themselves, if not in churches at least in some group-form; the paradox of eachsuccessive revolt from a narrow or decadent institutionalism forming agroup in its turn, or perishing when its first fervour died. But thissocial impulse, these spontaneous group-formations of master anddisciples, valuable though they may be, do not fully exhibit all that ismeant or done by a church. True, the Church is or should be at eachmoment of its career such a living spiritual society or household offaith. It is, essentially, a community of persons, who have or shouldhave a common sentiment--belief in, and reverence for, their God--and acommon defined aim, the furtherance of the spiritual life under thespecial religious sanctions which they accept. But every sect, everyreligious order or guild, every class-meeting, might claim this much;yet none of these can claim to be a church. 

A church is far more than this. In so far as it is truly alive, it is areal organism, as distinguished from a crowd or collection of personswith a common purpose. It exhibits on the religious plane the rulingcharacters of such organized life: that is to say, the development oftradition and complex habits, the differentiation of function, thedocility to leadership, the conservation of values, or carrying forwardof the past into the present. It is, like the State, embodied history;and as such lives with its own life, a life transcending and embracingthat of the individual souls of which it is built. And here, in itscombined social and historic character, lie the sources alike of itsenormous importance for human life and of its inevitable defects. 

Professor McDougall, in his discussion of national groups, [121] has laiddown the conditions which are necessary to the development of such atrue organic group life as is seen in a living church. These are: first, continuity of existence, involving the development of a body oftraditions, customs and practices--that is, for religion, a Cultus. Next, an authoritative organization through which custom and belief canbe transmitted--that is, a Hierarchy, order of ministers, or itsequivalent. Third, a conscious common interest, belief, or idea--Creed. Last, the existence of antagonistic groups or conditions, developingloyalty or keenness. These characters--continuity, authority, commonbelief and loyalty--which are shown, as he says, in their completenessin a patriot army, are I think no less marked features of a livingspiritual society. Plain examples are the primitive Christiancommunities, the great religious orders in their flourishing time, theSociety of Friends. They are on the whole more fully evident in theCatholic than in the Protestant type of church. But I think that we maylook upon them, in some form or another, as essential to anyinstitutional framework which shall really help the spiritual life inman. 

We find ourselves, then, committed to the picture of a church orspiritual institution which is in essence Liturgic, Ecclesiastical, Dogmatic, and Militant, as best fulfilling the requirements of grouppsychology. Four decidedly indigestible morsels for the modern mind. Yet, group-feeling demands common expression if it is to be lifted fromnotion to fact. Discipline requires some authority, and some devotion toit. Culture involves a tradition handed on. And these, we said, were thechief gifts which the institution had to give to its members. We maytherefore keep them in mind, as representing actual values, and warningus that neither history nor psychology encourages the belief that anamiable fluidity serves the highest purposes of life. Some commonpractice and custom, keeping the individual in line with the maintendencies of the group, providing rails on which the instinctive lifecan run and machinery by which fruitful suggestions can be spread. Somereal discipline and humbling submission to rule. Some traditional andtheological standard. Some missionary effort and enthusiasm. For thesefour things we must find place in any incorporation of the spirituallife which is to have its full effect upon the souls of men. And as amatter of fact, the periodical revolts against churches andecclesiasticism, are never against societies in which all thesecharacteristics are still alive; but against those which retain andexaggerate formal tradition and authority, whilst they have lost zestand identity of aim. 

A real Church has therefore something to give to, and something todemand from each of its members, and there is a genuine loss for man inbeing unchurched. Because it endures through a perpetual process ofdiscarding and renewal, those members will share the richness andexperience of a spiritual life far exceeding their own time-span; atruth which is enshrined in the beautiful conception of the Communion ofSaints. They enter a group consciousness which reinforces their own inthe extent to which they surrender to it; which surrounds them withfavourable suggestions and gives the precision of habit to theirinstinct for Eternity. The special atmosphere, the hoarded beauty, theevocative yet often archaic symbolism, of a Gothic Cathedral, with itsconstant reminiscences of past civilizations and old levels of culture, its broken fragments and abandoned altars, its conservation of eternaltruths--the intimate union in it of the sublime and homely, thesuccessive and abiding aspects of reality--make it the most fitting ofall images of the Church, regarded as the spiritual institution ofhumanity. And the perhaps undue conservatism commonly associated withCathedral circles represents too the chief reproach which can be broughtagainst churches--their tendency to preserve stability at the expense ofnovelty, to crystallize, to cling to habits and customs which no longerserve a useful end. In this a church is like a home; where old bits offurniture have a way of hanging on, and old habits, sometimes absurd, endure. Yet both the home and the church can give something which isnowhere else obtainable by us, and represent values which it is perilousto ignore. When once the historical character of reality is fullygrasped by us, we see that some such organization through which achievedvalues are conserved and carried forward, useful habits are learned andpractised, the direct intuitions of genius, the prophet's revelation ofreality are interpreted and handed on, is essential to the spiritualcontinuity of the race; and that definite churchmanship of some sort, orits equivalent, must be a factor in the spiritual reconstruction ofsociety. As, other things being equal, a baby benefits enormously bybeing born within the social framework rather than in the illusoryfreedom of "pure" nature; so the growth of the soul is, or should be, helped and not hindered by the nurture it receives from the religioussociety in which it is born. Only indeed by attachment, open or virtual, through life or through literature, to some such group can the new soullink itself with history, and so participate in the hoarded spiritualvalues of humanity. Thus even a general survey of life inclines us atleast to some appreciation of the principle laid down by Baron von Hügelin "Eternal Life"--namely, that "souls who live an heroic spiritual life_within_ great religious traditions and institutions, attain to a rarevolume and vividness of religious insight, conviction andreality"[122]--seldom within reach of the contemplative, however ardent, who walks by himself. 

History has given one reason for this; psychology gives another. Thesesouls, living it is true with intensity their own life towards God, share and are bathed in the group consciousness of their church; asmembers of a family, distinct in temperament, share and are modified bythe group consciousness of the home. The mental process of theindividual is profoundly affected when he thus thinks and acts as amember of a group. Suggestibility is then enormously increased; and weknow how much suggestion means to us. Moreover, suggestions emanatingfrom the group always take priority of those of the outside world: forman is a gregarious animal, intensely sensitive to the mentality of theherd. [123] The Mind of the Church is therefore a real thing. Theindividual easily takes colour from it and the tradition it embodies, tends to imitate his fellow-members: and each such deed and thought is astep taken in the formation of habit, and leaves him other than he wasbefore. 

To say this is not to discredit church-membership as placing us at themercy of emotional suggestion, reducing spontaneity to custom, andlessening the energy and responsibility of the individual soul towardsGod. On the contrary, right group suggestion reinforces, stimulates, does not stultify such individual action. If the prayerful attitude ofmy fellow worshippers helps me to pray better, surely it is a very meankind of conceit on my part which would prompt me to despise their help, and refuse to acknowledge Creative Spirit acting on me through othermen? It is one of the most beautiful features of a real and livingcorporate religion, that within it ordinary people at all levels helpeach other to be a little more supernatural than would have been alone. I do not now speak of individuals possessing special zeal and specialaptitude; though, as the lives of the Saints assure us, even the best ofthese fluctuate, and need social support at times. Anyhow such personsof special spiritual aptitude, as life is now, are as rare as persons ofspecial aptitude in other walks of life. But that which we seek for thelife of to-day and of the future, is such a planning of it as shall giveall men their spiritual chance. And it is abundantly clear upon alllevels of life, that men are chiefly formed and changed by the power ofsuggestion, sympathy and imitation; and only reach full development whenassembled in groups, giving full opportunity for the benevolent actionof these forces. So too in the life of the Spirit, incorporation plays apart which nothing can replace. Goodness and devotion are more easilycaught than taught; by association in groups, holy and strongsouls--both living and dead--make their full gift to society, weak, undeveloped, and arrogant souls receive that of which they are in need. On this point we may agree with a great ecclesiastical scholar of ourown day that "the more the educated and intellectual partake withsympathy of heart in the ordinary devotions and pious practices of thepoor, the higher will they rise in the religion of the Spirit. "[124]

Yet this family life of the ideal religious institution, with itsreasonable and bracing discipline, its gift of shelter, its care fortradition, its habit-formation and group consciousness--all this isgiven, as we may as well acknowledge, at the price which is exacted byall family life; namely, mutual accommodation and sacrifice, place madefor the childish, the dull, the slow, and the aged, a toning-down of thesomewhat imperious demands of the entirely efficient and clear-minded, atolerance of imperfection. Thus for these efficient and clear-mindedmembers there is always, in the church as in the family, a perpetualopportunity of humility, self-effacement, gentle acceptance; of exertingthat love which must be joined to power and a sound mind if the fulllife of the Spirit is to be lived. In the realm of the supernatural thisis a solid gain; though not a gain which we are very quick to appreciatein our vigorous youth. Did we look upon the religious institution not asan end in itself, but simply as fulfilling the function of ahome--giving shelter and nurture, opportunity of loyalty and mutualservice on one hand, conserving stability and good custom on theother--then, we should better appreciate its gifts to us, and be moremerciful to its necessary defects. We should be tolerant to itsinevitable conservatism, its tendency to encourage dependence andobedience to distrust individual initiative. We should no longer expectit to provide or specially to approve novelty and freedom, to be in thevan of life's forward thrust. For this we must go not to theinstitution, which is the vehicle of history; but to the adventurous, forward moving soul, which is the vehicle of progress--to the prophet, not to the priest. These two great figures, the Keeper and the Revealer, which are prominent in every historical religion, represent the twohalves of the fully-lived spiritual life. The progress of man dependsboth on conserving and on exploring: and any full incorporation of thatlife which will serve man's spiritual interests now, must find place forboth. 

Such an application of the institutional idea to present needs isrequired, in fact, to fulfil at least four primary conditions:--

(1) It must give a social life that shall develop group consciousness inrespect of our eternal interests and responsibilities: using for thisreal discipline, and the influences of liturgy and creed. 

(2) Yet it must not so standardize and socialize this life as to leaveno room for personal freedom in the realm of Spirit: for those"experiences of men in their solitude" which form the very heart ofreligion. 

(3) It must not be so ring-fenced, so exclusive, so wholly conditionedby the past, that the voice of the future, that is of the prophet givingfresh expression to eternal truths, cannot clearly be heard in it; notonly from within its own borders but also from outside. But

(4) On the other hand, it must not be so contemptuous of the past andits priceless symbols that it breaks with tradition, and so loses thatvery element of stability which it is its special province to preserve. 

I go on now to the second aspect of institutional religion: Cultus. 

We at once make the transition from Church to Cultus, when we askourselves: how does, how can, the Church as an organized and enduringsociety do its special work of creating an atmosphere and imparting asecret? How is the traditional deposit of spiritual experience handedon, the individual drawn into the stream of spiritual history and heldthere? Remember, the Church exists to foster and hand on, not merely themoral life, the life of this-world perfection; but the spiritual life inall its mystery and splendour--the life of more than this-worldperfection, the poetry of goodness, the life that aims at God. And this, not only in elect souls, which might conceivably make and keep directcontacts without her help, but in greater or less degree in the mass ofmen, who _do_ need help. How is this done? The answer can only be, thatit is mostly done through symbolic acts, and by means of suggestion andimitation. 

All organized churches find themselves committed sooner or later to anorganized cultus. It may be rudimentary. It may reach a high pitch ofæsthetic and symbolic perfection. But even the successive rebels againstdead ceremony are found as a rule to invent some ceremony in their turn. They learn by experience the truth that men most easily form religioushabits and tend, to have religious experiences when they are assembledin groups, and caused to perform the same acts. This is so because as wehave already seen, the human psyche is plastic to the suggestions madeto it; and this suggestibility is greatly increased when it is living agregarious life as a member of a united congregation or flock, and isengaged in performing corporate acts. The soldiers' drill is essentialto the solidarity of the army, and the religious service in some formis--apart from all other considerations--essential to the solidarity ofthe Church. 

We need not be afraid to acknowledge that from the point of view of thepsychologist one prime reason of the value and need of religiousceremonies abides in this corporate suggestibility of man: or that oneof their chief works is the production in him of mobility of thethreshold, and hence of spiritual awareness of a generalized kind. Asthe modern mother whispers beneficent suggestions into the ear of hersleeping child[125] so the Church takes her children at their moment ofleast resistance, and suggests to them all that she desires them to be. It is interesting to note how perfectly adapted the rituals of historicChristianity are to this end, of provoking the emergence of theintuitive mind and securing a state of maximum suggestibility. The morecomplex and solemn the ritual, the more archaic and universal thesymbols it employs, so much the more powerful--for those natures able toyield to it--the suggestion becomes. Music, rhythmic chanting, symbolicgesture, the solemn periods of recited prayer, are all contributory tothis, effect In churches of the Catholic type every object that meetsthe eye, every scent, every attitude that we are encouraged to assume, gives us a push in the same direction if we let it do its rightful work. For other temperaments the collective, deliberate, and really ceremonialsilence of the Quakers--the hush of the waiting mind, the unforcedattitude of expectation, the abstraction from visual image--works to thesame end. In either case, the aim is the production of a specialgroup-consciousness; the reinforcing of languid or undevelopedindividual feeling and aptitude by the suggestion of the crowd. This, and its result, is seen of course in its crudest form in revivalism: andon higher levels, in such elaborate dramatic ceremonies as those whichare a feature of the Catholic celebrations of Holy Week. But the nicewarm devotional feeling with which what is called a good congregationfinishes the singing of a favourite hymn belongs to the same order ofphenomena. The rhythmic phrases--not as a rule very full of meaning orintellectual appeal--exercise a slightly hypnotic effect on theanalyzing surface-mind; and induce a condition of suggestibility open toall the influences of the place and of our fellow worshippers. Theauthorized translation of Ephesians v. 19: "_speaking to yourselves_ inpsalms and hymns and spiritual songs, " whatever we may think of itsaccuracy does as it stands describe one of the chief functions ofreligious services of the "hearty congregational" sort. We do speak toourselves--our deeper, and more plastic selves--in our psalms and hymns;so too in the common recitation, especially the chanting, of a creed. Weadminister through these rhythmic affirmations, so long as we sing themwith intention, a powerful suggestion to ourselves and every one elsewithin reach. We gather up in them--or should do--the whole tendency ofour worship and aspiration, and in the very form in which it can mosteasily sink in. This lays a considerable responsibility on those whochoose psalms and hymns for congregational singing; for these can aseasily be the instruments of fanatical melancholy and devitalizing, asof charitable life-giving and constructive ideas. 

In saying all this I do not seek to discredit religious ceremony; eitherof the naïve or of the sophisticated type. On the contrary, I think thatin effecting this change in our mental tone and colour, in promptingthis emergence of a mood which, in the mass of men, is commonlysuppressed, these ceremonies do their true work. They should stimulateand give social expression to that mood of adoration which is the veryheart of religion; helping those who cannot be devotional alone toparticipate in the common devotional feeling. If, then, we desire toreceive the gifts which corporate worship can most certainly make to us, we ought to yield ourselves without resistance or criticism to itsinfluence; as we yield ourselves to the influence of a great work ofart. That influence is able to tune us up, at least to a fleetingawareness of spiritual reality; and each such emergence oftranscendental feeling is to the good. It is true that the objects whichimmediately evoke this feeling will only be symbolic; but after all, ourvery best conceptions of God are bound to be that. We do not, or shouldnot, demand scientific truth of them. Their business is rather to giveus poetry, a concrete artistic intuition of reality, and to place us inthe mood of poetry. The great thing is, that by these corporate liturgicpractices and surrenders, we can prevent that terrible freezing up ofthe deep wells of our being which so easily comes to those who must leadan exacting material or intellectual life. We keep ourselves supple; thespiritual faculties are within reach, and susceptible to education. 

Organized ceremonial religion insists upon it, that at least for acertain time each day or week we shall attend to the things of theSpirit. It offers us its suggestions, and shuts off as well as it canconflicting suggestions: though, human as we are, the mere appearance ofour neighbours is often enough to bring these in. Nothing is morecertain than this: first that we shall never know the spiritual worldunless we give ourselves the chance of attending to it, clear a spacefor it in our busy lives; and next, that it will not produce its realeffect in us, unless it penetrates below the conscious surface into thedeeps of the instinctive mind, and moulds this in accordance with theregnant idea. If we are to receive the gifts of the cultus, we on ourpart must bring to it at the very least what we bring to all great worksof art that speak to us: that is to say, attention, surrender, sympathetic emotion. Otherwise, like all other works of art, it willremain external to us. Much of the perfectly sincere denunciation anddislike of religious ceremony which now finds frequent utterance comesfrom those who have failed thus to do their share. They are like thehasty critics who dismiss some great work of art because it is notrepresentative, or historically accurate; and so entirely miss theæsthetic values which it was created to impart. 

Consider a picture of the Madonna. Minds at different levels may find inthis pure representation, Bible history, theology, æstheticsatisfaction, spiritual truth. The peasant may see in it the portrait ofthe Mother of God, the critic a phase in artistic evolution; whilst themystic may pass through it to new contacts with the Spirit of life. Weshall receive according to the measure of what we bring. Now considerthe parallel case of some great dramatic liturgy, rich with the meaningswhich history has poured into it. Take, as an example which every onecan examine for themselves, the Roman Mass. Different levels of mindwill find here magic, theology, deep mystery, the commemoration underarchaic symbols of an event. But above and beyond all these, they canfind the solemn incorporated emotion, of the Christian Church, and aliturgic recapitulation of the movement of the human soul towardsfullness of life: through confession and reconciliation to adoration andintercession--that is, to charity--and thence to direct communion withand feeding on the Divine World. 

To the mind which refuses to yield to it, to move with its movement, butremains in critical isolation, the Mass like all other ceremonies willseem external, dead, unreal; lacking in religious content. But if we dogive ourselves completely and unselfconsciously to the movement of sucha ceremony, at the end of it we may not have learnt anything, but wehave lived something. And when we remember that no experience of ourdevotional life is lost, surely we may regard it as worth while tosubmit ourselves to an experience by which, if only for a few minutes, we are thus lifted to richer levels of life and brought into touch withhigher values? We have indeed only to observe the enrichment of life sooften produced in those who thus dwell meekly and without inner conflictin the symbolic world of ceremonial religion, and accept its disciplineand its gifts, to be led at least to a humble suspension of judgment asto its value. A whole world of spiritual experience separates the humblelittle church mouse rising at six every morning to attend a servicewhich she believes to be pleasing to a personal God, from thephilosopher who meditates on the Absolute in a comfortable armchair;and no one will feel much doubt as to which side the advantage lies. 

Here we approach the next point. The cultus, with its liturgy and itsdiscipline, exists for and promotes the repetition of acts which areprimarily the expression of man's instinct for God; and by these--or anyother repeated acts--our ductile instinctive life is given a definitetrend. We know from Semon's researches[126] that the performance of anygiven act by a living creature influences all future performances ofsimilar acts. That is to say, memory combines with each fresh stimulusto control our reaction to it. "In the case of living organisms, " saysBertrand Russell, "practically everything that is distinctive both oftheir physical and mental behaviour is bound up with this persistentinfluence of the past": and most actions and responses "can only bebrought under causal laws by including past occurrences in the historyof the organism as part of the causes of the present response. "[127] Thephenomena of apperception, in fact, form only one aspect of a generallaw. As that which we have perceived conditions what we can nowperceive, so that which we have done conditions what we shall do. Ittherefore appears that in spite of angry youthful revolts or maturesophistications, early religious training, and especially repeatedreligious _acts_, are likely to influence the whole of our futurelives. Though all they meant to us seems dead or unreal, they haveretreated to the dark background of consciousness and there live on. Thetendency which they have given persists; we never get away from them. Achurch may often seem to lose her children, as human parents do; but inspite of themselves they retain her invisible seal, and are her childrenstill. In nearly all conversions in middle life, or dramatic returnsfrom scepticism to traditional belief, a large, part is undoubtedlyplayed by forgotten childish memories and early religious discipline, surging up and contributing their part to the self's new apprehensionsof Reality. 

If, then, the cultus did nothing else, it would do these two highlyimportant things. It would influence our whole present attitude by itssuggestions, and our whole future attitude through unconscious memory ofthe acts which it demands. But it does more than this. It has as perhapsits greatest function the providing of a concrete artistic expressionfor our spiritual perceptions, adorations and desires. It links thevisible with the invisible, by translating transcendent fact intosymbolic and even sensuous terms. And for this reason men, having bodiesno less surely than spirits, can never afford wholly to dispense withit. Hasty transcendentalists often forget this; and set us spiritualstandards to which the race, so long as it is anchored to this planetand to the physical order, cannot conform. 

A convert from agnosticism with whom I was acquainted, was oncereceiving religious instruction from a devout and simple-minded nun. They were discussing the story of the Annunciation, which presented somedifficulties to her. At last she said to the nun, "Well, anyhow, Isuppose that one is not obliged to believe that the Blessed Virgin wasvisited by a solid angel, dressed in a white robe?" To this the nunreplied doubtfully, "No, dear, perhaps not. But still, you know, hewould have to wear _something_. "

Now here, as it seems to me, we have a great theological truth in a fewwords. The elusive contacts and subtle realities of the world of spirithave got to wear something, if we are to grasp them at all. Moreover, ifthe mass of men are to grasp them ever so little, they must wearsomething which is easily recognized by the human eye and human heart;more, by the primitive, half-conscious folk-soul existing in each one ofus, stirring in the depths and reaching out in its own way towards God. It is a delicate matter to discuss religious symbols. They are like ourintimate friends: though at the bottom of our hearts we may know thatthey are only human, we hate other people to tell us so. And, even asthe love of human beings in its most perfect state passes beyond itsimmediate object, is transfigured, and merged in the nature of alllove; so too, the devotion which a purely symbolic figure calls forthfrom the ardently religious nature--whether this figure be the divineKrishna of Hinduism, the Buddhist's Mother of Mercy, the S[=u]fi'sBeloved, or those objects of traditional Christian piety which arefamiliar to all of us--this devotion too passes beyond its immediategoal and the relative truth there embodied, and is eternalized. It ischaracteristic of the primitive mind that it finds a difficulty aboutuniversals, and is most at home with particulars. The success ofChristianity as a world-religion largely abides in the way in which itmeets this need. It is notorious that the person of Jesus, rather thanthe Absolute God, is the object of average Protestant devotion. So toothe Catholic peasant may find it easier to approach God through and inhis special saint, or even a special local form of the Madonna. This isthe inevitable corollary of the psychic level at which he lives; and tospeak contemptuously of his "superstition" is wholly beside the point. Other great faiths have been compelled by experience to meet need of aparticular object on which the primitive religious consciousness canfasten itself: conspicuous examples being the development withinBuddhism of the cult of the Great Mother, and within pore Brahminism ofKrishna worship. Wherever it may be destined to end, here it is that thelife of the Spirit begins; emerging very gently from our simplest humanimpulses and needs. Yet, since the Universal, the Idea, is manifested ineach such particular, we need not refuse to allow that the mass of mendo thus enjoy--in a way that their psychic level makes natural tothem--their own measure of communion with the Creative Spirit of God;and already live according to their measure a spiritual life. 

These objects of religious cultus, then, and the whole symbolicfaith-world which is built up of them, with its angels and demons, itssharply defined heaven and hell, the Divine personifications whichembody certain attributes of God for us, the purity and gentleness ofthe Mother, the simplicity and infinite possibility of the Child, thedivine self-giving of the Cross;--more, the Lamb, the Blood and the Fireof the revivalists, the oil and water, bread and wine, of a finishedSacramentalism--all these may be regarded as the vestures placed by man, at one stage or another of his progress, on the freely-given butineffable spiritual fact. Like other clothes, they have now becomeclosely identified with that which wears them. And we strip them off atour own peril: for this proceeding, grateful as it may be to ourintellects, may leave us face to face with a mystery which we dare notlook at, and cannot grasp. 

So, cultus has done a mighty thing for humanity, in evolving andconserving the system of symbols through which the Infinite and Eternalcan be in some measure expressed. The history of these symbols goesback, as we now know, to the infancy of the race, and forward to thelast productions of the religious imagination; all of which bear theimage of our past They are like coins, varying in beauty, and often ofslight intrinsic value; but of enormous importance for our spiritualcurrency, because accepted as the representatives of a real wealth. Inits symbols, the cultus preserves all the past levels of religiousresponse achieved by the race; weaving them into the fabric of religion, and carrying them forward into the present. All the instinctivemovements of the primitive mind; its fear of the invisible, itsself-subjection, its trust in ritual acts, amulets, spells, sacrifices, its tendency to localize Deity in certain places or shrines, to buy offthe unknown, to set up magicians and mediators, are represented in it. Its function is racial more than individual. It is the art-work of thefolk-soul in the religious sphere. Here man's inveterate creativefaculty seizes on the raw material given him by religious-intuition, andconstructs from it significant shapes. We misunderstand, then, the wholecharacter of religious symbolism if we either demand rationality fromit, or try to adapt its imagery to the lucid and probably mistakenconclusions of the sophisticated, modern mind. 

We are learning to recognize these primitive and racial elements inpopular religion, and to endure their presence with tolerance; becausethey are necessary, and match a level of mental life which is stillactive in the race. This more primitive life emerges to dominate allcrowds--where the collective mental level is inevitably lower than thatof the best individuals immersed in it--and still conditions many of ourbeliefs and deeds. There is the propitiatory attitude to unseen Divinepowers; which the primitive mind, in defiance of theology, insists onregarding as somehow hostile to us and wanting to be bought off. Thereis the whole idea and apparatus of sacrifice; even though no more thanthe big apples and vegetable marrows of the harvest festival be involvedin it. There is the continued belief in a Deity who can and should bepersuaded to change the weather, or who punishes those who offend Him byfamine, earthquake and pestilence. Vestigial relics of all these phasescan still be discovered in the Book of Common Prayer. There is furtherthe undying vogue of the religious amulet. There is the purely magicalefficacy which some churches attribute to their sacraments, rites, shrines, liturgic formulæ and religious objects; others, to the texts oftheir scriptures. [128] These things, and others like them, are not onlysignificant survivals from the past. They also represent the religiousside of something that continues active in us at present. Since, then, it should clearly be the object of all spiritual endeavor to win thewhole man and not only his reason for God, speaking to his instincts inlanguage that they understand, we should not too hurriedly despise ordenounce these things. Far better that our primitive emotions, withtheir vast store of potential energy, should be won for spiritualinterests on the only terms which they can grasp, than that they shouldbe left to spend themselves on lower objects. 

If therefore the spiritual or the regenerate life is not likely toprosper without some incorporation in institutions, some definite linkwith the past, it seems also likely to need for its full working-out andpropaganda the symbols and liturgy of a cultus. Here again, the rightpath will be that of fulfilment, not of destruction; a deeperinvestigation of the full meaning of cultus, the values it conserves andthe needs it must meet, a clearer and humbler understanding of our humanlimitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, thatas the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness, intolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to encloseitself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, ofwhich the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth. Receiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits ofracial experience, it is the very home of magic: of the archaic tendencyto attribute words and deeds, special power to a priestly caste, and tomake of itself the essential mediator between Creative Spirit and thesoul. Further, using perpetually as it does and must symbols of the mostarchaic sort, directly appealing to the latent primitive in each of us, it offers us a perpetual temptation to fall back into something belowour best possible. The impulsive mind is inevitably conservative; alwaysat the mercy of memorized images. Hence its delighted self-yielding totraditional symbols, its uncritical emotionalism, its easy slip-backinto traditional and even archaic and self-contradictory beliefs: theway in which it pops out and enjoys itself at a service of the heartycongregational sort, or may even lead its unresisting owner to therevivalists' penitent-bench. 

But on the other hand, Creative Spirit is not merely conservative. TheLord and Giver of Life presses forward, and perpetually brings noveltyto birth; and in so far as we are dedicated to Him, we must not make anunconditional surrender to psychic indolence, or to the pull-back of thereligious past. We may not, as Christians, accept easy emotions in theplace of heroic and difficult actualizations: make external religion anexcuse for dodging reality, immerse ourselves in an exquisite dream, ortolerate any real conflict between old cultus and actual living faith. Amost delicate discrimination is therefore demanded from us; the strikingof a balance between the rightful conservatism of the cultus and therightful independence of the soul. Yet, this is not to justify even inthe most advanced a wholesale iconoclasm. Time after time, experiencehas proved that the attempt to approach God "without means, " though itmay seem to describe the rare and sacred moments of the personal life ofthe Spirit, is beyond the power of the mass of men; and even those whodo achieve it are, as it were, most often supported from behind byreligious history and the religious culture of their day. I do not thinkit can be doubted that the right use of cultus does-increase religioussensitiveness. Therefore here the difficult task of the future must beto preserve and carry forward its essential elements, all the symbolicsignificance, all the incorporated emotion, which make it one of man'sgreatest works of art; whilst eliminating those features which are, inthe bad sense, conventional and no longer answer to experience orcommunicate life. 

Were we truly reasonable human beings, we should perhaps provide openlyand as a matter of course within the Christian frame widely differenttypes of ceremonial religion, suited to different levels of mind anddifferent developments of the religious consciousness. To some extentthis is already done: traditionalism and liberalism, sacramentalism, revivalism, quietism, have each their existing cults. But these varyingtypes of church now appear as competitors, too often hostile; not as thecomplementary and graded expressions of one life, each having truth inthe relative though none in the absolute sense. Did we more openlyacknowledge the character of that life, the historic Churches would nolonger invite the sophisticated to play down to their own primitivefantasies; to sing meaningless hymns and recite vindictive psalms, orlull themselves by the recitation of litany or rosary which, admirableas the instruments of suggestion, are inadequate expressions of theawakened spiritual life. On the one hand, they would not require thesimple to express their corporate religious feeling in ElizabethanEnglish or Patristic Latin; on the other, expect the educated to acceptat face-value symbols of which the unreal character is patent to them. Nor would they represent these activities as possessing absolute valuein themselves. 

To join in simplicity and without criticism in the common worship, humbly receiving its good influences, is one thing. This is like thedrill of the loyal soldier; welding him to his neighbours, giving himthe corporate spirit and forming in him the habits he needs. But to stopshort at that drill, and tell the individual that drill is the essenceof his life and all his duty, is another thing altogether. It confusesmeans and end; destroys the balance between liberty and law. If thereligious institution is to do its real work in furthering the life ofthe Spirit, it must introduce a more rich variety into its methods; andthus educate souls of every type not only to be members of the group butalso to grow up to the full richness of the personal life. It mustoffer them--as indeed Catholicism does to some extent already--both easyemotion and difficult mystery; both dramatic ceremony and ceremonialsilence. It must also give to them all its hoarded knowledge of theinner life of prayer and contemplation, of the remaking of the moralnature on supernatural levels: all the gold that there is in the depositof faith. And it must not be afraid to impart that knowledge in modernterms which all can understand. All this it can and will do if itsmembers sufficiently desire it: which means, if those who care intenselyfor the life of the Spirit accept their corporate responsibilities. Inthe last resort, criticism of the Church, of Christian institutionalism, is really criticism of ourselves. Were we more spiritually alive, ourspiritual homes would be the real nesting places of new life. That whichthe Church is to us is the result of all that we bring to, and ask from, history: the impact of our present and its past. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 119: William James: "The Varieties of Religious Experience, "p. 31. ]

[Footnote 120: On this point compare Von Hügel: "Essays and Addresses onthe Philosophy of Religion, " pp. 230 et seq. ]

[Footnote 121: W. McDougall: "The Group Mind, " Cap. 3. ]

[Footnote 122: Von Hügel "Eternal Life, " p. 377. ]

[Footnote 123: Cf. Trotter: "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. "]

[Footnote 124: Dom Cuthbert Butler in the "Hibbert Journal, " 1906, p. 502. ]

[Footnote 125: Baudouin: "Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion, " Cap. VII. ]

[Footnote 126: Cf. R. Semon: "Die Mneme. "]

[Footnote 127: Bertrand Russell: "The Analysis of Mind, " p. 78. ]

[Footnote 128: A quaint example of this occurred in a recent revival, where the exclamation "We believe in the Word of God from cover tocover, Alleluia!" received the fervent reply, "And the covers too!"]

CHAPTER VI

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE INDIVIDUAL

In the last three chapters we have been concerned, almost exclusively, with those facts of psychic life and growth, those instruments andmechanizations, which bear upon or condition our spiritual life. Butthese wanderings in the soul's workshops, and these analyses of theforces that play on it, give us far too cold or too technical a view ofthat richly various and dynamic thing, the real regenerated life. I wishnow to come out of the workshop, and try to see this spiritual life asthe individual man may and should achieve it, from another angle ofapproach. 

What are we to regard as the heart of spirituality? When we haveeliminated the accidental characters with which varying traditions haveendowed it, what is it that still so definitely distinguishes itspossessor from the best, most moral citizen or devoted altruist? Why dothe Christian saint, Indian _rishi, _ Buddhist _arhat, _ Moslem _S[=u]fi, _all seem to us at bottom men of one race, living under differentsanctions one life, witnessing to one fact? This life, which they showin its various perfections, includes it is true the ethical life, butcannot be equated with it. Wherein do its differentia consist? We aredealing with the most subtle of realities and have only the help ofcrude words, developed for other purposes than this. But surely we comenear to the truth, as history and experience show it to us, when we sayagain that the spiritual life in all its manifestations from smallestbeginnings to unearthly triumph is simply the life that means God in allHis richness, immanent and transcendent: the whole response to theEternal and Abiding of which any one man is capable, expressed in andthrough his this-world life. It requires then an objective vision orcertitude, something to aim at; and also a total integration of theself, its dedication to that aim. Both terms, vision and response, areessential to it. 

This definition may seem at first sight rather dull. It suggests littleof that poignant and unearthly beauty, that heroism, that immenseattraction, which really belong to the spiritual life. Here indeed weare dealing with poetry in action: and we need not words but music todescribe it as it really is. Yet all the forms, all the various beautiesand achievements of this life of the Spirit, can be resumed as thereactions of different temperaments to the one abiding and inexhaustiblysatisfying Object of their love. It is the answer made by the wholesupple, plastic self, rational and instinctive, active andcontemplative, to any or all of those objective experiences of religionwhich we considered in the first chapter; whether of an encompassingand transcendent Reality, of a Divine Companionship or of ImmanentSpirit. Such a response we must believe to be itself divinely actuated. Fully made, it is found on the one hand to call forth the most heroic, most beautiful, most tender qualities in human nature; all that we callholiness, the transfiguration of mere ethics by a supernaturalloveliness, breathing another air, satisfying another standard, thanthose of the temporal world. And on the other hand, this response of theself is repaid by a new sensitiveness and receptivity, a new influx ofpower. To use theological language, will is answered by grace: and asthe will's dedication rises towards completeness the more fully does newlife flow in. Therefore it is plain that the smallest and humblestbeginning of such a life in ourselves--and this inquiry is uselessunless it be made to speak to our own condition--will entail not merelyan addition to life, but for us too a change in our whole scale ofvalues, a self-dedication. For that which we are here shown as apossible human achievement is not a life of comfortable piety, or theenjoyment of the delicious sensations of the armchair mystic. We areoffered, it is true, a new dower of life; access to the fullpossibilities of human nature. But only upon terms, and these termsinclude new obligations in respect of that life; compelling us, as itappears, to perpetual hard and difficult choices, a perpetual refusal tosink back into the next-best, to slide along a gentle incline. Thespiritual life is not lived upon the heavenly hearth-rug, within safedistance from the Fire of Love. It demands, indeed, very often things sohard that seen from the hearth-rug they seem to us superhuman: immenselygenerous compassion, forbearance, forgiveness, gentleness, radiantpurity, self-forgetting zeal. It means a complete conquest of life'sperennial tendency to lag behind the best possible; willing acceptanceof hardship and pain. And if we ask how this can be, what it is thatmakes possible such enhancement of human will and of human courage, theonly answer seems to be that of the Johannine Christ: that it doesconsist in a more abundant life. 

In the second chapter of this book, we looked at the gradual unfoldingof that life in its great historical representatives; and we found itsgeneral line of development to lead through disillusion with the merelyphysical to conversion to the spiritual, and thence by way of hard moralconflicts and their resolution to a unification of character, a fullintegration of the active and contemplative sides of life; resulting infresh power, and a complete dedication, to work within the new order andfor the new ideals. There was something of the penitent, something ofthe contemplative, and something of the apostle in every man or womanwho thus grew to their full stature and realized all their latentpossibilities. But above all there was a fortitude, an all-round powerof tackling existence, which comes from complete indifference topersonal suffering or personal success. And further, psychology showedus, that those workings and readjustments which we saw preparing thislife of the Spirit, were in line with those which prepare us forfullness of life on other levels: that is to say the harnessing of theimpulsive nature to the purposes chosen by consciousness, the resolvingof conflicts, the unification of the whole personality about one'sdominant interest. These readjustments were helped by the deliberateacceptance of the useful suggestions of religion, the education of theforeconscious, the formation of habits of charity and prayer. 

The greatest and most real of living writers on this subject, Baron vonHügel, has given us another definition of the personal spiritual lifewhich may fruitfully be compared with this. It must and shall, he says, exhibit rightful contact with and renunciation of the Particular andFleeting; and with this ever seeks and finds the Eternal--deepening andincarnating within its own experience this "transcendentOtherness. "[129] Nothing which we are likely to achieve can go beyondthis profound saying. We see how many rich elements are contained in it:effort and growth, a temper both social and ascetic, a demand for and areceiving of power. True, to some extent it restates the position atwhich we arrived in the first chapter: but we now wish to examine morethoroughly into that position and discover its practical applications. Let us then begin by unpacking it, and examining its chief charactersone by one. 

If we do this, we find that it demands of us:--(1) Rightful contact withthe Particular and Fleeting. That is, a willing acceptance of allthis-world tasks, obligations, relations, and joys; in fact, the ActiveLife of Becoming in its completeness. 

(2) But also, a certain renunciation of that Particular and Fleeting. Arefusal to get everything out of it that we can for ourselves, to bepossessive, or attribute to it absolute worth. This involves a sense ofdetachment or asceticism; of further destiny and obligation for the soulthan complete earthly happiness or here-and-now success. 

(3) And with this ever--not merely in hours of devotion--to seek andfind the Eternal; penetrating our wholesome this-world action throughand through with the very spirit of contemplation. 

(4) Thus deepening and incarnating--bringing in, giving body to, and insome sense exhibiting by means of our own growing and changingexperience--that transcendent Otherness, the fact of the Life of theSpirit in the here-and-now. 

The full life of the Spirit, then, is once more declared to be active, contemplative, ascetic and apostolic; though nowadays we express theseabiding human dispositions in other and less formidable terms. If wetranslate them as work, prayer, self-discipline and social service theydo not look quite so bad. But even so, what a tremendous programme toput before the ordinary human creature, and how difficult it looks whenthus arranged! That balance to be discovered and held between duecontact with this present living world of time, and due renunciation ofit. That continual penetration of the time-world with the spirit ofEternity. 

But now, in accordance with the ruling idea which has occupied us inthis book, let us arrange these four demands in different order. Let usput number three first: "ever seeking and finding the Eternal. "Conceive, at least, that we do this really, and in a practical way. Thenwe discover that, placed as we certainly are in a world of succession, most of the seeking and finding has got to be done there; that the timesof pure abstraction in which we touch the non-successive andsupersensual must be few. Hence it follows that the first and seconddemands are at once fully met; for, if we are indeed faithfully seekingand finding the Eternal whilst living--as all sane men and women mustdo--in closest contact with the Particular and Fleeting, our acceptancesand our renunciations will be governed by this higher term ofexperience. And further, the transcendent Otherness, perpetuallyenvisaged by us as alone giving the world of sense its beauty, realityand value, will be incarnated and expressed by us in this sense-life, and thus ever more completely tasted and known. It will be drawn by us, as best we can, and often at the cost of bitter struggle, into thelimitations of humanity; entincturing our attitude and our actions. Andin the degree in which we thus appropriate it, it will be given out byus again to other men. 

All this, of course, says again that which men have been constantly toldby those who sought to redeem them from their confusions, and show themthe way to fullness of life. "Seek first the Kingdom of God, " saidJesus, "and all the rest shall be added to you. " "Love, " said St. Augustine, "and _do_ what you like"; "Let nothing, " says Thomas àKempis, "be great or high or acceptable to thee but purely God";[130]and Kabir, "Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world!consider it well, and know that this is your own country. "[131] "Ourwhole teaching, " says Boehme, "is nothing else than how man shouldkindle in himself God's light-world. "[132] I do not say that such apresentation of it makes the personal spiritual life any easier: nothingdoes that. But it does make its central implicit rather clearer, showsus at once its difficulty and its simplicity; since it depends on theconsistent subordination of every impulse and every action to oneregnant aim and interest--in other words, the unification of the wholeself round one centre, the highest conceivable by man. Each of man'sbehaviour-cycles is always directed towards some end, of which he mayor may not be vividly conscious. But in that perfect unification of theself which is characteristic of the life of Spirit, all his behaviour isbrought into one stream of purpose, and directed towards onetranscendent end. And this simplification alone means for him a releasefrom conflicting wishes, and so a tremendous increase of power. 

If then we admit this formula, "ever seeking and finding theEternal"--which is of course another rendering of Ruysbroeck's "aimingat God"--as the prime character of a spiritual life, the secret of humantranscendence; what are the agents by which it is done?

Here, men and women of all times and all religions, who have achievedthis fullness of life, agree in their answer: and by this answer we areat once taken away from dry philosophic conceptions and introduced intothe very heart of human experience. It is done, they say, on man's partby Love and Prayer: and these, properly understood in theirinexhaustible richness, joy, pain, dedication and noble simplicity, cover the whole field of the spiritual life. Without them, that life isimpossible; with them, if the self be true to their implications, somemeasure of it cannot be escaped. I said, Love and Prayer properlyunderstood: not as two movements of emotional piety, but as fundamentalhuman dispositions, as the typical attitude and action which controlman's growth into greater reality. Since then they are of such primaryimportance to us, it will be worth while at this stage to look into thema little more closely. 

First, Love: that over-worked and ill-used word, often confused on theone hand with passion and on the other with amiability. If we ask themost fashionable sort of psychologist what love is, he says that it isthe impulse urging us towards that end which is the fulfilment of anyseries of deeds or "behaviour-cycle"; the psychic thread, on which allthe apparently separate actions making up that cycle are strung andunited. In this sense love need not be fully conscious, reach the levelof feeling; but it _must_ be an imperative, inward urge. And if we askthose who have known and taught the life of the Spirit, they too saythat love is a passionate tendency, an inward vital urge of the soultowards its Source;[133] which impels every living thing to pursue themost profound trend of its being, reaches consciousness in the form ofself-giving and of desire, and its only satisfying goal in God. Love isfor them much more than its emotional manifestations. It is "theultimate cause of the true activities of all active things"--no less. This definition, which I take as a matter of fact from St. ThomasAquinas, [134] would be agreeable to the most modern psychologist; hemight give the hidden steersman of the psyche in its perpetual movementtowards novelty a less beautiful and significant name. "This indwellingLove, " says Plotinus, "is no other than the Spirit which, as we aretold, walks with every being, the affection dominant in each severalnature. It implants the characteristic desire; the particular soul, strained towards its own natural objects, brings forth its own Love, theguiding spirit realizing its worth and the quality of its being. "[135]

Does not all this suggest to us once more, that at whatever level it beexperienced, the psychic craving, the urgent spirit within us pressingout to life, is always _one;_ and that the sublimation of this vitalcraving, its direction to God, is the essence of regeneration? There, inour instinctive nature--which, as we know, makes us the kind of animalwe are--abides that power of loving which is, really, the power ofliving; the cause of our actions, the controlling factor in ourperceptions, the force pressing us into any given type of experience, turning aside for no obstacles but stimulated by them to a greatervigour. Each level of the universe makes solicitations to this power:the worlds of sense, of thought, of beauty, and of action. According tothe degree of our development, the trend of the conscious will, is ourresponse; and according to that response will be our life. "The world towhich a man turns himself, " says Boehme, "and in which he producesfruit, the same is lord in him, and this world becomes manifest inhim. "[136]

From all this it becomes clear what the love of God is; and what St. Augustine meant when he said that all virtue--and virtue after all meanspower not goodness--lay in the right ordering of love, the consciousorientation of desire. Christians, on the authority of their Master, declare that such love of God requires all that they have, not only offeeling, but also of intellect and of power; since He is to be lovedwith heart and mind and strength. Thought and action on highest levelsare involved in it, for it means, not religious emotionalism, but theunflickering orientation of the whole self towards Him, ever seeking andfinding the Eternal; the linking up of all behaviour on that string, sothat the apparently hard and always heroic choices which are demanded, are made at last because they are inevitable. It is true that thisdominant interest will give to our lives a special emotional colour anda special kind of happiness; but in this, as in the best, deepest, richest human love, such feeling-tone and such happiness--though in somenatures of great beauty and intensity--are only to be looked upon assecondary characters, and never to be aimed at. 

When St. Teresa said that the real object of the spiritual marriage was"the incessant production of work, work, "[137] I have no doubt that manyof her nuns were disconcerted; especially the type of ease-lovingconservatives whom she and her intimates were accustomed to refer to asthe pussy-cats. But in this direct application to religious experienceof St. Thomas' doctrine of love, she set up an ideal of the spirituallife which is as valid at the present day in the entanglements of oursocial order, as it was in the enclosed convents of sixteenth-centurySpain. Love, we said, is the cause of action. It urges and directs ourbehaviour, conscious and involuntary, towards an end. The mother isirresistibly impelled to act towards her child's welfare, the ambitiousman towards success, the artist towards expression of his vision. Allthese are examples of behaviour, love-driven towards ends. And religiousexperience discloses to us a greater more inclusive end, and this vitalpower of love as capable of being used on the highest levels, regenerated, directed to eternal interests; subordinating behaviour, inspiring suffering, unifying the whole self and its activities, mobilizing them for this transcendental achievement. This generous love, to go back to the quotation from Baron von Hügel which opened ourinquiry, will indeed cause the behaviour it controls to exhibit bothrightful contact with and renunciation of the particular and fleeting;because in and through this series of linked deeds it is uniting withitself all human activities, and in and through them is seeking andfinding its eternal end. So, in that rightful bringing-in of noveltywhich is the business of the fully living soul, the most powerful agentis love, understood as the controlling factor of behaviour, thesublimation and union of will and desire. "Let love, " says Boehme, "bethe life of thy nature. It killeth thee not, but quickeneth theeaccording to its life, and then thou livest, yet not to thy own will butto its will: for thy will becometh its will, and then thou art dead tothyself but alive to God. "[138] There is the true, solid and for us mostfruitful doctrine of divine union, unconnected with any rapture, trance, ecstasy or abnormal state of mind: a union organic, conscious, anddynamic with the Creative Spirit of Life. 

If we now go on to ask how, specially, we shall achieve this union insuch degree as is possible to each one of us; the answer must be, thatit will be done by Prayer. If the seeking of the Eternal is actuated bylove, the finding of it is achieved through prayer. Prayer, infact--understood as a life or state, not an act or an asking--is thebeginning, middle and end of all that we are now considering. As thesocial self can only be developed by contact with society, so thespiritual self can only be developed by contact with the spiritualworld. And such humble yet ardent contact with the spiritualworld--opening up to its suggestions our impulses, our reveries, ourfeelings, our most secret dispositions as well as our mere thoughts-isthe essence of prayer, understood in its widest sense. No more thansurrender or love can prayer be reduced to "one act. " Those who seek tosublimate it into "pure" contemplation are as limited at one end of thescale, as those who reduce it to articulate petition are at the other. It contains in itself a rich variety of human reactions and experiences. It opens the door upon an unwalled world, in which the self truly livesand therefore makes widely various responses to its infinitely varyingstimuli. Into that world the self takes, or should take, its specialneeds, aptitudes and longings, and matches them against its apprehensionof Eternal Truth. In this meeting of the human heart with all that itcan apprehend of Reality, not adoration alone but unbounded contrition, not humble dependence alone but joy, peace and power, not rapture alonebut mysterious darkness, must be woven into the fabric of love. In thisworld the soul may sometimes wander as if in pastures, sometimes ispoised breathless and intent. Sometimes it is fed by beauty, sometimesby most difficult truth, and experiences the extremes of riches anddestitution, darkness and light. "It is not, " says Plotinus, "bycrushing the Divine into a unity but by displaying its exuberance, asthe Supreme Himself has displayed it, that we show knowledge of themight of God. "[139]

Thus, by that instinctive and warmly devoted direction of its behaviourwhich is love, and that willed attention to and communion with thespiritual world which is prayer, all the powers of the self are unitedand turned towards the seeking and finding of the Eternal. It is bycomplete obedience to this exacting love, doing difficult and unselfishthings, giving up easy and comfortable things--in fact by living, livinghard on the highest levels--that men more and more deeply feel, experience, and enter into their spiritual life. This is a fact whichmust seem rather awkward to those who put forward pathologicalexplanations of it. And on the other hand it is only by constantcontacts with and recourse to the energizing life of Spirit, that thishard vocation can be fulfilled. Such a power of reference to Reality, oftranscending the world of succession and its values, can be cultivatedby us; and this education of our inborn aptitude is a chief function ofthe discipline of prayer. True, it is only in times of recollection orof great emotion that this profound contact is fully present toconsciousness. Yet, once fully achieved and its obligations accepted byus, it continues as a grave melody within our busy outward acts: and wemust by right direction of our deepest instincts so find and feel theEternal all the time, if indeed we are to actualize and incarnate it allthe time. From this truth of experience, religion has deduced thedoctrine of grace, and the general conception of man as able to donothing of himself. This need hardly surprise us. For equally on thephysical plane man can do nothing of himself, if he be cut off from hisphysical sources of power: from food to eat, and air to breathe. Therefore the fact that his spiritual life too is dependent upon thelife-giving atmosphere that penetrates him, and the heavenly food whichhe receives, makes no fracture in his experience. Thus we are broughtback by another path to the fundamental need for him, in some form, ofthe balanced active and contemplative life. 

In spite of this, many people seem to take it for granted that if a manbelieves in and desires to live a spiritual life, he can live it inutter independence of spiritual food. He believes in God, loves hisneighbour, wants to do good, and just goes ahead. The result of this isthat the life of the God-fearing citizen or the Social Christian, as nowconceived and practised, is generally the starved life. It leaves notime for the silence, the withdrawal, the quiet attention to thespiritual, which is essential if it is to develop all its powers. Yetthe literature of the Spirit is full of warnings on this subject. _Taste_ and see that the Lord is sweet. They that wait upon the Lordshall renew their _strength_. In quietness and confidence shall be your_strength_. These are practical statements; addressed, not tospecialists but to ordinary men and women, with a normal psycho-physicalmake-up. They are literally true now, or can be if we choose. They donot involve any peculiar training, or unnatural effort. A sliding scalegoes from the simplest prayer-experience of the ordinary man to thatcomplete self-loss and complete self-finding, which is called thetransforming union of the saint; and somewhere in this series, everyhuman soul can find a place. 

If this balanced life is to be ours, if we are to receive what St. Augustine called the food of the full-grown, to find and feel theEternal, we must give time and place to it in our lives. I emphasizethis, because its realization seems to me to be a desperate modern need;a need exhibited supremely in our languid and ineffectual spirituality, but also felt in the too busy, too entirely active and hurried lives ofthe artist, the reformer and the teacher. St. John of the Cross says inone of his letters: "What is wanting is not writing or talking--there ismore than enough of that--but, silence and action. For silence joined toaction produces recollection, and gives the spirit a marvellousstrength. " Such recollection, such a gathering up of our interior forcesand retreat of consciousness to its "ground, " is the preparation of allgreat endeavour, whatever its apparent object may be. Until we realizethat it is better, more useful, more productive of strength, to spend, let us say, the odd ten minutes in the morning in feeling and findingthe Eternal than in flicking the newspaper--that this will send us offto the day's work properly orientated, gathered together, recollected, and really endowed with new power of dealing with circumstance--we havenot begun to live the life of the Spirit, or grasped the practicalconnection between such a daily discipline and the power of doing ourbest work, whatever it may be. 

I will illustrate this from a living example: that of the Sadhu SundarSingh. No one, I suppose, who came into personal contact with the Sadhu, doubted that they were in the presence of a person who was living, inthe full sense, the spiritual life. Even those who could not accept thesymbols in which he described his experience and asked others to shareit, acknowledged that there had been worked in him a greattransformation; that the sense of the abiding and eternal went with himeverywhere, and flowed out from him, to calm and to correct our feverishlives. He fully satisfies in his own person the demands of Baron vonHügel's definition: both contact with and renunciation of the Particularand Fleeting, seeking and finding of the Eternal, incarnating within hisown experience that transcendent Otherness. Now the Sadhu has discoveredfor himself and practises as the condition of his extraordinaryactivity, power and endurance, just that balance of life which St. Benedict's rule ordained. He is a wandering missionary, constantlyundertaking great journeys, enduring hardship and danger, and practisingthe absolute poverty of St. Francis. He is perfectly healthy, strong, extraordinarily attractive, full of power. But this power he is carefulto nourish. His irreducible minimum is two hours spent in meditation andwordless communication with God at the beginning of each day. He prefersthree or four hours when work permits; and a long period of prayer andmeditation always precedes his public address. If forced to curtail orhurry these hours of prayer, he feels restless and unhappy, and hisefficiency is reduced. "Prayer, " he says, "is as important as breathing;and we never say we have no time to breathe. "[140]

All this has been explained away by critics of the muscular Christiansort, who say that the Sadhu's Christianity is of a typically Easternkind. But this is simply not true. It were much better to acknowledgethat we, more and more, are tending to develop a typically Western kindof Christianity, marked by the Western emphasis on doing and Westerncontempt for being; and that if we go sufficiently far on this path weshall find ourselves cut off from our source. The Sadhu's Christianityis fully Christian; that is to say, it is whole and complete. The powerin which he does his works is that in which St. Paul carried through hisheroic missionary career, St. Benedict formed a spiritual family thattransformed European culture, Wesley made the world his parish, Elizabeth Fry faced the Newgate criminals. It is idle to talk of therevival of a personal spiritual life among ourselves, or of a spiritualregeneration of society--for this can only come through the individualremaking of each of its members--unless we are willing, at the sacrificeof some personal convenience, to make a place and time for these acts ofrecollection; this willing and loving--and even more fruitful, the morewilling and loving--communion with, response to Reality, to God. It istrue that a fully lived spiritual life involves far more than this. Butthis is the only condition on which it will exist at all. 

Love then, which is a willed tendency to God; prayer, which is willedcommunion with and experience of Him; are the two prime essentials inthe personal life of the Spirit. They represent, of course, only ourside of it and our obligation. This love is the outflowing response toanother inflowing love, and this prayer the appropriation of atranscendental energy and grace. As the "German Theology" reminds us, "Icannot do the work without God, and God may not or will not withoutme. "[141] And by these acts alone, faithfully carried through, all theircostly demands fulfilled, all their gifts and applications acceptedwithout resistance and applied to each aspect of life, human nature cangrow up to its full stature, and obtain access to all its sources ofpower. 

Yet this personal inward life of love and prayer shall not be toosolitary. As it needs links with cultus and so with the lives of itsfellows, it also needs links with history and so with the living past. These links are chiefly made by the individual through his reading; andsuch reading--such access to humanity's hoarded culture andexperience--has always been declared alike by Christian andnon-Christian asceticism to be one of the proper helps of the spirituallife. Though Höffding perhaps exaggerates when he reminds us thatmediæval art always depicts the saints as deeply absorbed in theirbooks, and suggests that such brooding study directly inducescontemplative states, [142] yet it is true that the soul gains greatlyfrom such communion with, and meek learning from, its culturalbackground. Ever more and more as it advances, it will discover withinthat background the records of those very experiences which it must nowso poignantly relive; and which seem to it, as his own experience seemsto every lover, unique. There it can find, without any betrayal of itssecret, the wholesome assurance of its own normality; standards ofcomparison; companionship, alike in its hours of penitence, of light, and of deprivation. Yet such fruitful communion with the past is not theprivilege of an aristocratic culture. It is seen in its perfection inmany simple Christians who have found in the Bible all the spiritualfood they need. The great literature of the Spirit tells its secrets tothose alone who thus meet it on its own ground. Not only the works ofThomas à Kempis, of Ruysbroeck, or of St. Teresa, but also the Biblicalwriters--and especially, perhaps, the Psalms and the Gospels--are readwholly anew by us at each stage of our advance. Comparative study ofHindu and Moslem writers proves that this is equally true of the greatliteratures of other faiths. [143] Beginners may find in all theseinfinite stimulus, interest, and beauty. But to the mature soul theybecome road-books, of which experience proves the astonishingexactitude; giving it descriptions which it can recognize and directionsthat it needs, and constituting a steady check upon individualism. 

Now let us look at the emergence of this life which we have beenconsidering, and at the typical path which it will or may follow, in anordinary man or woman of our own day. Not a saint or genius, reachingheroic levels; but a member of that solid wholesome spiritual populationwhich ought to fill the streets of the City of God. We noticed when wewere studying its appearance in history, that often this life begins ina sort of restlessness, a feeling that there is something more inexistence, some absolute meaning, some more searching obligation, thatwe have not reached. This dissatisfaction, this uncertainty and hunger, may show itself in many different forms. It may speak first to theintellect, to the moral nature, to the social conscience, even to theartistic faculty; or, directly, to the heart. Anyhow, its abidingquality is a sense of contraction, of limitation; a feeling of somethingmore that we could stretch out to, and achieve, and be. Its impulsion isalways in one direction; to a finding of some wider and more enduringreality, some objective for the self's life and love. It is a seeking ofthe Eternal, in some form. I allow that thanks to the fog in which welive muffled, such a first seeking, and above all such a finding of theEternal is not for us a very easy thing. The sense of quest, ofdisillusion, of something lacking, is more common among modern men thanits resolution in discovery. Nevertheless the quest does mean that thereis a solution: and that those who are persevering must find it in theend. The world into which our desire is truly turned, is somehowrevealed to us. The revelation, always partial and relative, is ofcourse conditioned by our capacity, the character of our longing and theexperiences of our past. In spiritual matters we behold that which weare: here following, on higher levels, the laws which govern æstheticapprehension. 

So, dissatisfied with its world-view and realizing that it isincomplete, the self seeks at first hand, though not always with clearconsciousness of its nature, the Reality which is the object ofreligion. When it finds this Reality, the discovery, however partial, isfor it the overwhelming revelation of an objective Fact; and it is sweptby a love and awe which it did not know itself to possess. And now itsees; dimly, yet in a sufficiently disconcerting way, the Pattern in theMount; the rich complex of existence as it were transmuted, full ofcharity and beauty, governed by another series of adjustments. Lifelooks different to it. As Fox said, "Creation gives out another smellthan before. "[144] There is only one thing more disconcerting than this, and that is seeing the pattern actualized in a fellow human being:living face to face with human sanctity, in its great simplicity andsupernatural love, joy, peace. For, when we glimpse Eternal Beauty inthe universe, we can say with the hero of "Callista, " "It is beyond me!"But, when we see it transfiguring human character, we know that it isnot beyond the power of the race. It is here, to be had. Its existenceas a form of life creates a standard, and lays an obligation on us all. 

Suppose then that the self, urged by this new pressure, accepts theobligation and measures itself by the standard. It then becomes apparentthat this Fact which it sought for and has seen is not merely added toits old universe, as in mediæval pictures Paradise with its circlesover-arches the earth. This Reality is all-penetrating and hastransfigured each aspect of the self's old world. It now has a new andmost exacting scale of values, which demand from it a new series ofadjustments; ask it--and with authority--to change its life. 

What next? The next thing, probably, is that the self finds itself inrather a tight place. It is wedged into a physical order that makesinnumerable calls on it, and innumerable suggestions to it: which hasfor years monopolized its field of consciousness and set up habits ofresponse to its claims. It has to make some kind of a break with thisorder, or at least with its many attachments thereto; and stretch to thewider span demanded by the new and larger world. And further, it is inpossession of a complex psychic life, containing many insubordinateelements, many awkward bequests from a primitive past. That psychic lifehas just received the powerful and direct suggestion of the Spirit; andfor the moment, it is subdued to that suggestion. But soon it begins toexperience the inevitable conflict between old habits, and newdemands--between a life lived in the particular and in the universalspirit--and only through complete resolution of that conflict will itdevelop its full power. So the self quickly realizes that thetheologian's war between Nature and Grace is a picturesque way ofstating a real situation; and further that the demand of all religionsfor a change of heart--that is, of the deep instinctive nature--is thefirst condition of a spiritual life. And hence, that its hands arefairly full. It is true that an immense joy and hope come with it tothis business of tackling imperfection, of adjusting itself to the newlyfound centre of life. It knows that it is committed to the forwardmovement of a Power, which may be slow but which nothing can gainsay. Nevertheless the first thing that power demands from it is courage; andthe next an unremitting vigorous effort. It will never again be able tosink back cosily into its racial past. Consciousness of disharmony andincompleteness now brings the obligation to mend the disharmony andachieve a fresh synthesis. 

This is felt with a special sharpness in the moral life, where theirreconcilable demands of natural self-interest and of Spirit assumetheir most intractable shape. Old habits and paths of discharge whichhave almost become automatic must now, it seems, be abandoned. Newpaths, in spite of resistances, must be made. Thus it is thattemptation, hard conflict, and bewildering perplexities usher in thelife of the Spirit. These are largely the results of our biological pastcontinuing into our fluctuating half-made present; and they pointtowards a psychic stability, an inner unity we have not yet attained. 

This realization of ourselves as we truly are--emerging with difficultyfrom our animal origin, tinctured through and through with theself-regarding tendencies and habits it has imprinted on us--thisrealization or self-knowledge, is Humility; the only soil in which thespiritual life can germinate. And modern man with his great horizons, his ever clearer vision of his own close kinship with life's origin, hissmall place in the time-stream, in the universe, in God's hand, therelative character of his best knowledge and achievement, is surelyeverywhere being persuaded to this royal virtue. Recognition of this histrue creaturely status, with its obligations--the only process of painand struggle needed if the demands of generous love are ever to befulfilled in him and his many-levelled nature is to be purified andharmonized and develop all its powers--this is Repentance. He shows notonly his sincerity, but his manliness and courage by his acceptance ofall that such repentance entails on him; for the healthy soul, like thehealthy body, welcomes some trial and roughness and is well able to bearthe pains of education. Psychologists regard such an education, harmonizing the rational or ideal with the instinctive life--the changeof heart which leaves the whole self working together without innerconflict towards one objective--as the very condition of a full andhealthy life. But it can only be achieved in its perfection by thecomplete surrender of heart and mind to a third term, transcending alikethe impulsive and the rational. The life of the Spirit in its supremeauthority, and its identification with the highest interests of therace, does this: harnessing man's fiery energies to the service of theLight. 

Therefore, in the rich, new life on which the self enters, one strandmust be that of repentance, catharsis, self-conquest; a completecontrition which is the earnest of complete generosity, uncalculatedresponse. And, dealing as we are now with average human nature, we cansafely say that the need for such ever-renewed self-scrutiny andself-purgation will never in this life be left behind. For sin is afact, though a fact which we do not understand; and now it appears andmust evermore remain an offence against love, hostile to this intensenew attraction, and marring the self's willed tendency towards it. 

The next strand we may perhaps call that of Recollection: for therecognizing and the cure of imperfection depends on the compensatingsearch for the Perfect and its enthronement as the supreme object of ourthought and love. The self, then, soon begins to feel a strong impulsionto some type of inward withdrawal and concentration, some kind ofprayer; though it may not use this name or recognize the character ofits mood. As it yields to this strange new drawing, such recollectiongrows easier. It finds that there is a veritable inner world, not merelyof phantasy, but of profound heart-searching experience; where the soulis in touch with another order of realities and knows itself to be aninheritor of Eternal Life. Here unique things happen. A power is atwork, and new apprehensions are born. And now for the first time theself discovers itself to be striking a balance between this inner andthe outer life, and in its own small way--but still, mostfruitfully--enriching action with the fruits of contemplation. If itwill give to the learning of this new art--to the disciplining andrefining of this affective thought--even a fraction of the diligencewhich it gives to the learning of a new game, it will find itself repaidby a progressive purity of vision, a progressive sense of assurance, anever-increasing delicacy of moral discrimination and demand. Psychologists, as we have seen, divide men into introverts andextroverts; but as a matter of fact we must regard both these extremetypes as defective. A whole man should be supple in his reactions bothto the inner and to the outer world. 

The third strand in the life of the Spirit, for this normal self whichwe are considering; must be the disposition of complete Surrender. Moreand more advancing in this inner life, it will feel the imperativeattraction of Reality, of God; and it must respond to this attractionwith all the courage and generosity of which it is capable. I am tryingto use the simplest and the most general language, and to avoidemotional imagery: though it is here, in telling of this perpetuallyrenewed act of self-giving and dedication, that spiritual writers mostoften have recourse to the language of the heart. It is indeed in aspirit of intensest and humble adoration that generous souls yieldthemselves to the drawing of that mysterious Beauty and unchanging Love, with all that it entails. But the form which the impulse to surrendertakes will vary with the psychic make-up of the individual. To some itwill come as a sense of vocation, a making-over of the will to thepurposes of the Kingdom; a type of consecration which may not be overtlyreligious, but may be concerned with the self-forgetting quest ofsocial excellence, of beauty, or of truth. By some it will be felt as anillumination of the mind, which now discerns once for all true values, and accepting these, must uphold and strive for them in the teeth of allopportunism. By some--and these are the most blessed--as a breaking andre-making of the heart. Whatever the form it takes, the extent in whichthe self experiences the peace, joy and power of living at the level ofSpirit will depend on the completeness and singlemindedness of this, itssupreme act of self-simplification. Any reserves, anything in itsmake-up which sets up resistances--and this means generally any form ofegotism--will mar the harmony of the process. And on the other hand, such a real simplification of the self's life as is heredemanded--uniting on one object, the intellect, will and feeling toooften split among contradictory attractions--is itself productive ofinner harmony and increased power: productive too of that nobleendurance which counts no pain too much in the service of Reality. 

Here then we come to the fact, valid for every level of spiritual life, which lies behind all the declarations concerning surrender, self-loss, dying to live, dedication, made by writers on this theme. All involve arelaxing of tension, letting ourselves go without reluctance in thedirection in which we are most profoundly drawn; a cessation of ourstruggles with the tide, our kicks against the pricks that spur us on. The inward aim of the self is towards unification with a larger life; amergence with Reality which it may describe under various contradictorysymbols, or may not be able to describe at all, but which it feels to bethe fulfilment of existence. It has learnt--though this knowledge maynot have passed beyond the stage of feeling--that the universe is onesimple texture, in which all things have their explanation and theirplace. Combing out the confusions which enmesh it, losing its sham andseparate life and finding its true life there, it will know what to loveand how to act. The goal of this process, which has been called entranceinto the freedom of the Will of God, is the state described by thewriter of the "German Theology" when he said "I would fain be to theEternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man. "[145] For such adeclaration not only means a willed and skilful working for God, apractical siding with Perfection, becoming its living tool, but alsoclose union with, and sharing of, the vital energy of the spiritualorder: a feeding on and using of its power, its very life blood;complete docility to its inward direction, abolition of separate desire. The surrender is therefore made not in order that we may become limppietists, but in order that we may receive more energy and do betterwork: by a humble self-subjection more perfectly helping forward thethrust of the Spirit and the primal human business of incarnating theEternal here and now. Its justification is in the arduous but untiring, various but harmonious, activities that flow from it: the enhancement oflife which it entails. It gives us access to our real sources of power;that we may take from them and, spending generously, be energized anew. 

So the cord on which those events which make up the personal life of theSpirit are to be strung is completed, and we see that it consists offour strands. Two are dispositions of the self; Penitence and Surrender. Two are activities; inward Recollection and outward Work. All four makestern demands on its fortitude and goodwill. And each gives strength tothe rest: for they are not to be regarded as separate and successivestates, a discrete series through which we must pass one by one, leavingpenitence behind us when we reach surrendered love; but as the variableyet enduring and inseparable aspects of one rich life, phases in onecomplete and vital effort to respond more and more closely to Reality. 

Nothing, perhaps, is less monotonous than the personal life of theSpirit. In its humility and joyous love, its adoration and its industry, it may find self-expression in any one of the countless activities ofthe world of time. It is both romantic and austere, both adventurous andholy. Full of fluctuation and unearthly colour, it yet has its darkpatches as well as its light. Since perfect proof of the supersensual isbeyond the span of human consciousness, the element of risk can neverbe eliminated: we are obliged in the end to trust the universe and liveby faith. Therefore the awakened soul must often suffer perplexity, share to the utmost the stress and anguish of the physical order; and, chained as it is to a consciousness accustomed to respond to that order, must still be content with flashes of understanding and willing to bearlong periods of destitution when the light is veiled. 

The further it advances the more bitter will these periods ofdestitution seem to it. It is not from the real men and women of theSpirit that we hear soft things about the comfort of faith. For the truelife of faith gives everything worth having and takes everything worthoffering: with unrelenting blows it welds the self into the stuff of theuniverse, subduing it to the universal purpose, doing away with theflame of separation. Though joy and inward peace even in desolation aredominant marks of those who have grown up into it, still it offers tonone a succession of supersensual delights. The life of the Spiritinvolves the sublimation of that pleasure-pain rhythm which ischaracteristic of normal consciousness, and if for it pleasure becomesjoy, pain becomes the Cross. Toil, abnegation, sacrifice, are thereforeof its essence; but these are not felt as a heavy burden, because theyare the expression of love. It entails a willed tension and choice, anoble power of refusal, which are not entirely covered by being "in tunewith the Infinite. " As our life comes to maturity we discover to ourconfusion that human ears can pick up from the Infinite manyincompatible tunes, but cannot hear the whole symphony. And the melodyconfided to our care, the one which we alone perhaps can contribute andwhich taxes our powers to the full, has in it not only the notes oftriumph but the notes of pain. The distinctive mark therefore is nothappiness but vocation: work demanded and power given, but given only oncondition that we spend it and ourselves on others without stint. Thesepropositions, of course, are easily illustrated from history: but we canalso illustrate them in our own persons if we choose. 

Should we choose this, and should life of the Spirit be achieved byus--and it will only be done through daily discipline and attention tothe Spiritual, a sacrifice of comfort to its interests, following up theintuition which sets us on the path--what benefits may we as ordinarymen expect it to bring to us and to the community that we serve? It willcertainly bring into life new zest and new meaning; a widening of thehorizon and consciousness of security; a fresh sense of joys to be hadand of work to be done. The real spiritual consciousness is positive andconstructive in type: it does not look back on the past sins andmistakes of the individual or of the community, but in its other-worldfaith and this-world charity is inspired by a forward-moving spirit ofhope. Seeking alone the honour of Eternal Beauty, and because of itsinvulnerable sense of security, it is adventurous. The spiritual man andwoman can afford to take desperate chances, and live dangerously in theinterests of their ideals; being delivered from the many unreal fearsand anxieties which commonly torment us, and knowing the unimportance ofpossessions and of so-called success. The joy which waits ondisinterested love and the confidence which follows surrender, cannotfail them. Moreover, the inward harmony and assurance, the consciousnessof access to that Spirit who is in a literal sense "health's eternalspring" means a healing of nervous miseries, and invigoration of theusually ill-treated mind and body, and so an all-round increase inhappiness and power. 

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. " This, said St. Paul, who knew by experience the worlds of grace and of nature, is what acomplete man ought to be like. Compare this picture of an equable andfully harmonized personality with that of a characteristic neurasthenic, a bored sensualist, or an embittered worker, concentrated on thestruggle for a material advantage: and consider that the centraldifference between these types of human success and human failure abidesin the presence or absence of a spiritual conception of life. We do notyet know the limits of the upgrowth into power and happiness whichcomplete and practical surrender to this conception can work in us; orwhat its general triumph might do for the transformation of the world. And it may even be that beyond the joy and renewal which come fromself-conquest and unification, a level of spiritual life most certainlyopen to all who will really work for it; and beyond that deeper insight, more widespreading love, and perfection of adjustment to thehere-and-now which we recognize and reverence as the privilege of thepure in heart--beyond all these, it may be that life still reserves forman another secret and another level of consciousness; a closeridentification with Reality, such as eye hath not seen, or ear heard. 

And note, that this spiritual life which we have here considered is notan aristocratic life. It is a life of which the fundamentals are givenby the simplest kinds of traditional piety, and have been exhibited overand over again by the simplest souls. An unconditional self-surrender tothe Divine Will, under whatever symbols it may be thought of; for weknow that the very crudest of symbols is often strong enough to make abridge between the heart and the Eternal, and so be a vehicle of theSpirit of Life. A little silence and leisure. A great deal offaithfulness, kindness, and courage. All this is within the reach ofanyone who cares enough for it to pay the price. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 129: This doctrine is fully worked out in the last twosections of "Eternal Life. "]

[Footnote 130: De Imit. Christi, Bk. II, Cap. 6. ]

[Footnote 131: "Six Theosophic Points, " p. 75. ]

[Footnote 132: "One Hundred Poems of Kabir, " p. 78. ]

[Footnote 133: Cl. Ruysbroeck: "The Mirror of Eternal Salvation, " Cap. VIII]

[Footnote 134: "In Librum B. Dionysii de Divinis Nominibuscommentaria. "]

[Footnote 135: Ennead III. 5, 4. ]

[Footnote 136: Boehme: "Six Theosophic Points, " p. 75. ]

[Footnote 137: "The Interior Castle"; Seventh Habitation, Cap. IV. ]

[Footnote 138: Boehme; "The Way to Christ, " Pt. IV. ]

[Footnote 139: Ennead II. 9. 9. ]

[Footnote 140: "Streeter and Appasamy: The Sadhu, " pp. 98, 100 et seq. , 213. ]

[Footnote 141: "Theologia Germanica, " Cap. III. ]

[Footnote 142: Höffding, "The Philosophy of Religion, " III, B. ]

[Footnote 143: There are, for instance, several striking instances inthe Autobiography of the Maharishi Devendranath Tagore. ]

[Footnote 144: "Fox's Journal, " Vol. I, Cap. 2. ]

[Footnote 145: "Theologia Germanica, " Cap. 10. ]

CHAPTER VII

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND EDUCATION

In the past six chapters we have been considering in the main our ownposition, and how, here in the present, we as adults may actualize andhelp on the spiritual life in ourselves. But our best hope of givingSpirit its rightful, full expression within the time-world lies in thefuture. It is towards that, that those who really care must work. Anything which we can do towards persuading into better shape our owndeformed characters, compelling our recalcitrant energy into freshchannels, is little in comparison with what might be achieved in theplastic growing psychic life of children did we appreciate our fullopportunity and the importance of using it. This is why I propose now toconsider one or two points in the relation of education to the spirituallife. 

Since it is always well, in a discussion of this kind, to be quite clearabout the content of the words with which we deal, I will say at once, that by Education I mean that deliberate adjustment of the wholeenvironment of a growing creature, which surrounds it with the mostfavourable influences and educes all its powers; giving it the mosthelpful conditions for its full growth and development. Educationshould be the complete preparation of the young thing for fullness oflife; involving the evolution and the balanced training of all itsfaculties, bodily, mental and spiritual. It should train and refinesenses, instincts, intellect, will and feeling; giving a world-viewbased on real facts and real values and encouraging activecorrespondence therewith. Thus the educationist, if he be convinced, asI think most of us must be, that all isn't quite right with the world ofmankind, has the priceless opportunity of beginning the remaking ofhumanity from the right end. In the child he has a little, supple thing, which can be made into a vital, spiritual thing; and nothing again willcount so much for it as what happens in these its earliest years. Tostart life straight is the secret of inward happiness: and to a greatextent, the secret of health and power. 

That conception of man upon which we have been working, and whichregards his psychic life on all its levels as the manifold expressionsof one single energy or urge in the depths of his being, a life-forceseeking fulfilment, has obvious and important applications in theeducational sphere. It indicates that the fundamental business ofeducation is to deal with this urgent and untempered craving, disciplineit, and direct it towards interests of permanent value: helping it toestablish useful habits, removing obstacles in its path, blocking theside channels down which it might run. Especially is it the task of sucheducation, gradually to disclose to the growing psyche those spiritualcorrespondences for which the religious man and the idealist must holdthat man's spirit was made. Such an education as this has little incommon with the mere crude imparting of facts. It represents rather thecareful and loving induction of the growing human creature into the richworld of experience; the help we give it in the great business ofadjusting itself to reality. It operates by means of the mouldinginfluences of environment, the creation of habit. Suggestion, notstatement, is its most potent instrument; and such suggestion begins forgood or ill at the very dawn of consciousness. Therefore the child whoseinfancy is not surrounded by persons of true outlook is handicapped fromthe start; and the training in this respect of the parents of the futureis one of the greatest services we can render to the race. 

We are beginning to learn the overwhelming importance of infantileimpressions: how a forgotten babyish fear or grief may developunderground, and produce at last an unrecognizable growth poisoning thebody and the mind of the adult. But here good is at least as potent asill. What terror, a hideous sight, an unloving nurture may do for evil;a happy impression, a beautiful sight, a loving nurture will do forgood. Moreover, we can bury good seed in the unconscious minds ofchildren and reasonably look forward to the fruit. Babyish prayers, simple hymns, trace whilst the mind is ductile the paths in whichfeelings shall afterwards tend to flow; and it is only in maturity thatwe realize our psychological debt to these early and perhaps afterwardsabandoned beliefs and deeds. So the veritable education of the Spiritbegins at once, in the cradle, and its chief means will be thesurroundings within which that childish spirit first develops its littleawareness of the universe; the appeals which are made to its instincts, the stimulations of its life of sense. The first factor of thiseducation is the family: the second the society within which that familyis formed. 

Though we no longer suppose it to possess innate ideas, the baby hasmost surely innate powers, inclinations and curiosities, and is reachingout in every direction towards life. It is brimming with will power, ready to push hard into experience. The environment in which it isplaced and the responses which the outer world makes to it--and thesesurroundings and responses in the long run are largely of our choosingand making--represent either the helping or thwarting of its tendencies, and the sum total of the directions in which its powers can be exercisedand its demands satisfied: the possibilities, in fact, which life putsbefore it. We, as individuals and as a community, control and form partof this environment. Under the first head, we play by influence ordemeanour a certain part in the education of every child whom we meet. Under the second head, by acquiescence in the social order, we acceptresponsibility for the state of life in which it is born. The child'sfirst intimations of the spiritual must and can only come to it throughthe incarnation of Spirit in its home and the world that it knows. What, then, are we doing about this? It means that the influences which shapethe men and women of the future will be as wholesome and as spiritual aswe ourselves are: no more, no less. Tone, atmosphere are the thingswhich really matter; and these are provided by the group-mind, andreflect its spiritual state. 

The child's whole educational opportunity is contained in two factors;the personality it brings and the environment it gets. Generations ofeducationists have disputed their relative importance: but neither partycan deny that the most fortunate nature, given wrongful or insufficientnurture, will hardly emerge unharmed. Even great inborn powers atrophyif left unused, and exceptional ability in any direction may easilyremain undeveloped if the environment be sufficiently unfavourable: aresult too often achieved in the domain of the spiritual life. We musthave opportunity and encouragement to try our powers and inclinations, be helped to understand their nature and the way to use them, unless weare to begin again, each one of us, in the Stone Age of the soul. Sotoo, even small powers may be developed to an astonishing degree bysuitable surroundings and wise education--witness the results obtainedby the expert training of defective children--and all this is asapplicable to the spiritual as to the mental and bodily life. That lifeis quick to respond to the demands made on it: to take every opportunityof expression that comes its way. If you make the right appeal to anyhuman faculty, that faculty will respond, and begin to grow. Thus it isthat the slow quiet pressure of tradition, first in the home and then inthe school, shapes the child during his most malleable years. We, therefore, are surely bound to watch and criticize the environment, thetradition, the customs we are instrumental in providing for the infantfuture: to ask ourselves whether we are _sure_ the tradition is right, the conventions we hand on useful, the ideal we hold up complete. Thechild, whatever his powers, cannot react to something which is notthere; he can't digest food that is not given to him, use faculties forwhich no objective is provided. Hence the great responsibility of ourgeneration, as to providing a complete, balanced environment _now_, afully-rounded opportunity of response to life physical, mental andspiritual, for the generation preparing to succeed us. Such education asthis has been called a preparation for citizenship. But this conceptionis too narrow, unless the citizenship be that of the City of God; andthe adjustments involved be those of the spirit, as well as of the bodyand the mind. 

Herbert Spencer, whom one would hardly accuse of being a spiritualphilosopher, was accustomed to group the essentials of a righteducation under four heads:[146]

First, he said, we must teach self-preservation in all senses: how tokeep the body and the mind healthy and efficient, how to beself-supporting, how to protect oneself against external dangers andencroachments. 

Next, we must train the growing creature in its duties towards the lifeof the future: parenthood and its responsibilities, understood in thewidest sense. 

Thirdly; we must prepare it to take its place in the present as a memberof the social order into which it is born. 

Last: we must hand on to it all those refinements of life which the pasthas given to us--the hoarded culture of the race. 

Only if we do these four things thoroughly can we dare to call ourselveseducators in the full sense of the word. 

Now, turning to the spiritual interests of the child:--and unless we arecrass materialists we must believe these interests to exist, and to beparamount--what are we doing to further them in these four fundamentaldirections? First, does the average good education train our youngpeople in spiritual self-preservation? Does it send them out equippedwith the means of living a full and efficient spiritual life? Does itfurnish them with a health-giving type of religion; that is, a solidhold on eternal realities, a view of the universe capable ofwithstanding hostile criticism, of supporting them in times ofdifficulty and of stress? Secondly, does it give them a spiritualoutlook in respect of their racial duties, fit them in due time to beparents of other souls? Does it train them to regard humanity, and theirown place in the human life-stream, from this point of view? This pointis of special importance, in view of the fact that racial and biologicalknowledge on lower levels is now so generally in the possession of boysand girls; and is bound to produce a distorted conception of life, unless the spirit be studied by them with at least the same respectfulattention that is given to the flesh. Thirdly, what does our educationdo towards preparing them to solve the problems of social and economiclife in a spiritual sense--our only reasonable chance of extracting thenext generation from the social muddle in which we are plunged to-day?Last, to what extent do we try to introduce our pupils into a fullenjoyment of their spiritual inheritance, the culture and tradition ofthe past?

I do not deny that there are educators--chiefly perhaps educators ofgirls--who can give favourable answers to all these questions. But theyare exceptional, the proportion of the child population whom theyinfluence is small, and frequently their proceedings are lookedupon--not without some justice--as eccentric. If then in all thesedepartments our standard type of education stops short of the spirituallevel, are not we self-convicted as at best theoretical believers in theworth and destiny of the human soul?

Consider the facts. Outside the walls of definitely religiousinstitutions--where methods are not always adjusted to the common stuffand needs of contemporary human life--it does not seem to occur to manyeducationists to give the education of the child's soul the same expertdelicate attention so lavishly bestowed on the body and the intellect. By expert delicate attention I do not mean persistent religiousinstruction; but a skilled and loving care for the growing spirit, inspired by deep conviction and helped by all the psychologicalknowledge we possess. If we look at the efforts of organized religion weare bound to admit that in thousands of rural parishes, and in manytowns too, it is still possible to grow from infancy to old age as amember of church or chapel without once receiving any first-handteaching on the powers and needs of the soul or the technique of prayer;or obtaining any more help in the great religious difficulties ofadolescence than a general invitation to believe, and trust God. Morality--that is to say correctness of response to our neighbour andour temporal surroundings--is often well taught. Spirituality--correctness of response to God and our eternalsurroundings--is most often ignored. A peculiar British bashfulnessseems to stand in the way of it. It is felt that we show better tastein leaving the essentials of the soul's development to chance, even thatsuch development is not wholly desirable or manly: that the atrophy ofone aspect of "man's made-trinity" is best. I have heard one eminentecclesiastic maintain that regular and punctual attendance at morningservice in a mood of non-comprehending loyalty was the best sort ofspiritual experience for the average Englishman. Is not that a statementwhich should make the Christian teachers who are responsible for theaverage Englishman, feel a little bit uncomfortable about the type whichthey have produced? I do not suggest that education should encourage afeverish religiosity; but that it ought to produce balanced men andwomen, whose faculties are fully alert and responsive to all levels oflife. As it is, we train Boy Scouts and Girl Guides in the principles ofhonour and chivalry. Our Bible-classes minister to the hungry spiritmuch information about the journeys of St. Paul (with maps). But thepupils are seldom invited or assisted to _taste_, and see that the Lordis sweet. 

Now this indifference means, of course, that we do not as educators, ascontrollers of the racial future, really believe in the spiritualfoundations of our personality as thoroughly and practically we believein its mental and physical manifestations. Whatever the philosophy orreligion we profess may be, it remains for us in the realm of idea, notin the realm of fact. In practice, we do not aim at the achievement ofa spiritual type of consciousness as the crown of human culture. Thebest that most education does for our children is only what the devildid for Christ. It takes them up to the top of a high mountain and showsthem all the kingdoms of this world; the kingdom of history, the kingdomof letters, the kingdom of beauty, the kingdom of science. It is asplendid vision, but unfortunately fugitive: and since the spirit is notfugitive, it demands an objective that is permanent. If we do not giveit such an objective, one of two things must happen to it. Either itwill be restless and dissatisfied, and throw the whole life out of key;or it will become dormant for lack of use, and so the whole life will beimpoverished, its best promise unfulfilled. One line leads to theneurotic, the other to the average sensual man, and I think it will beagreed that modern life produces a good crop of both these kind ofdefectives. 

But if we believe that the permanent objective of the spirit is God--ifHe be indeed for us the Fountain of Life and the sum of Reality--can weacquiesce in these forms of loss? Surely it ought to be our first aim, to make the sense of His universal presence and transcendent worth, andof the self's responsibility to Him, dominant for the plastic youthfulconsciousness confided to our care: to introduce that consciousness intoa world which is really a theocracy and encourage its aptitude forgenerous love? If educationists do not view such a proposal withfavour, this shows how miserable and distorted our common conception ofGod has become; and how small a part it really plays in our practicallife. Most of us scramble through that practical life, and are preparedto let our children scramble too, without any clear notions of thathygiene of the soul which has been studied for centuries by experts; andfew look upon this branch of self-knowledge as something that all menmay possess who will submit to education and work for its achievement. Thus we have degenerated from the mediæval standpoint; for then at leastthe necessity of spiritual education was understood and accepted, andthe current psychology was in harmony with it. But now there is littleattempt to deepen and enlarge the spiritual faculties, none to encouragetheir free and natural development in the young, or their application toany richer world of experience than the circle of pious images withwhich "religious education" generally deals. The result of this is seenin the rawness, shallowness and ignorance which characterize theattitude of many young adults to religion. Their beliefs and theirscepticism alike are often the acceptance or rejection of the obsolete. If they be agnostics, the dogmas which they reject are frequentlytheological caricatures. If they be believers, both their religiousconceptions and their prayers are found on investigation still to be ofan infantile kind, totally unrelated to the interests and outlook ofmodern men. 

Two facts emerge from the experience of all educationists. The first is, that children are naturally receptive and responsive; the second, thatadolescents are naturally idealistic. In both stages, the young humancreature is full of interests and curiosities asking to be satisfied, ofenergies demanding expression; and here, in their budding, thrustinglife--for which we, by our choice of surroundings and influence, mayprovide the objective--is the raw material out of which the spiritualhumanity of the future might be made. The child has already within itthe living seed wherein all human possibilities are contained; our partis to give the right soil, the shelter, and the watering-can. Spiritualeducation therefore does not consist in putting into the child somethingwhich it has not; but in educing and sublimating that which it has--inestablishing habits, fostering a trend of growth which shall serve itwell in later years. Already, all the dynamic instincts are present, atleast in germ; asking for an outlet. The will and the emotions, ductileas they will never be again, are ready to make full and ungraduatedresponse to any genuine appeal to enthusiasm. The imagination willaccept the food we give, if we give it in the right way. What anopportunity! Nowhere else do we come into such direct contact with theplastic stuff of life; never again shall we have at our disposal such afund of emotional energy. 

In the child's dreams and fantasies, in its eager hero-worship--later, in the adolescent's fervid friendships or devoted loyalty to an adoredleader--we see the search of the living growing creature for more lifeand love, for an enduring object of devotion. Do we always manage oreven try to give it that enduring object, in a form it can accept? Yetthe responsibility of providing such a presentation of belief as shallevoke the spontaneous reactions of faith and love--for no compulsoryidealism ever succeeds--is definitely laid on the parent and theteacher. It is in the enthusiastic imitation of a beloved leader thatthe child or adolescent learns best. Were the spiritual life the mostreal of facts to us, did we believe in it as we variously believe inathletics, physical science or the arts, surely we should spare noeffort to turn to its purposes these priceless qualities of youth? Werethe mind's communion with the Spirit of God generally regarded as itsnatural privilege and therefore the first condition of its happiness andhealth, the general method and tone of modern education would inevitablydiffer considerably from that which we usually see: and if the life ofthe Spirit is to come to fruition, here is one of the points at whichreformation must begin. When we look at the ordinary practice of modern"civilized" Europe, we cannot claim that any noticeable proportion ofour young people are taught during their docile and impressionable yearsthe nature and discipline of their spiritual faculties, in the open andcommon-sense way in which they are taught languages, science, music orgymnastics. Yet it is surely a central duty of the educator to deepenand enrich to the fullest extent possible his pupil's apprehension ofthe universe; and must not all such apprehension move towards thediscovery of that universe as a spiritual fact?

Again, in how many schools is the period of religious and idealisticenthusiasm which so commonly occurs in adolescence wisely used, skilfully trained, and made the foundation of an enduring spirituallife? Here is the period in which the relation of master and pupil is ormay be most intimate and most fruitful; and can be made to serve thehighest interests of life. Yet, no great proportion of those set apartto teach young people seem to realize and use this privilege. 

I am aware that much which I am going to advocate will sound fantastic;and that the changes involved may seem at first sight impossible toaccomplish. It is true that if these changes are to be useful, they mustbe gradual. The policy of the "clean sweep" is one which both historyand psychology condemn. But it does seem to me a good thing to envisageclearly, if we can, the ideal towards which our changes should lead. Agarden city is not Utopia. Still, it is an advance upon the Victoriantype of suburb and slum; and we should not have got it if some men hadnot believed in Utopia, and tried to make a beginning here and now. Already in education some few have tried to make such a beginning andhave proved that it is possible if we believe in it enough: for faithcan move even that mountainous thing, the British parental mind. 

Our task--and I believe our most real hope for the future--is, as wehave already allowed, to make the idea of God dominant for the plasticyouthful consciousness: and not only this, but to harmonize thatconception, first with our teachings about the physical and mental sidesof life, and next with the child's own social activities, training body, mind and spirit together that they may take each their part in thedevelopment of a whole man, fully responsive to a universe which is atbottom a spiritual fact. Such training to be complete must, as we haveseen, begin in the nursery and be given by the atmosphere andopportunities of the home. It will include the instilling of childishhabits of prayer and the fostering of simple expressions of reverence, admiration and love. The subconscious knowledge implicit in suchpractice must form the foundation, and only where it is present willdoctrine and principle have any real meaning for the child. Prayer mustcome before theology, and kindness, tenderness and helpfulness beforeethics. 

But we have now to consider the child of school age, coming--too oftenwithout this, the only adequate preparation--into the teacher's hands. How is he to be dealt with, and the opportunities which he presents usedbest?

"When I see a right man, " said Jacob Boehme, "there I see three worldsstanding. " Since our aim should be to make "right men" and evoke in themnot merely a departmental piety but a robust and intelligentspirituality, we ought to explain in simple ways to these older childrensomething at least of that view of human nature on which our training isbased. The religious instruction given in most schools is divided, invarying proportions, between historical or doctrinal teaching andethical teaching. Now a solid hold both on history and on morals is agreat need; but these are only realized in their full importance andenter completely into life when they are seen within the spiritualatmosphere, and already even in childhood, and supremely in youth, thisatmosphere can be evoked. It does not seem to occur to most teachersthat religion contains anything beyond or within the two departments ofhistorical creed and of morals: that, for instance, the greatestutterances of St. John and St. Paul deal with neither, but withattainable levels of human life, in which a new and fuller kind ofexperience was offered to mankind. Yet surely they ought at least toattempt to tell their pupils about this. I do not see how Christians atany rate can escape the obligation, or shuffle out of it by saying thatthey do not know how it can be done. Indeed, all who are notthorough-going materialists must regard the study of the spiritual lifeas in the truest sense a department of biology; and any account of manwhich fails to describe it, as incomplete. Where the science of the bodyis studied, the science of the soul should be studied too. Therefore, inthe upper forms at least, the psychology of religious experience in itswidest sense, as a normal part of all full human existence, and theconnection of that experience with practical life, as it is seen inhistory, should be taught. If it is done properly it will hold thepupil's interest, for it can be made to appeal to those same mentalqualities of wonder, curiosity and exploration which draw so many boysand girls to physical science. But there should be no encouragement ofintrospection, none of the false mystery or so-called reverence withwhich these subjects are sometimes surrounded, and above all no spiritof exclusivism. 

The pupil should be led to see his own religion as a part of theuniversal tendency of life to God. This need not involve any reductionof the claims made on him by his own church or creed; but the emphasisshould always be on the likeness rather than the differences of thegreat religions of the world. Moreover, higher education cannot beregarded as complete unless the mind be furnished with some _rationale_of its own deepest experiences, and a harmony be established betweenimpulse and thought. Advanced pupils should, then, be given a simple andgeneral philosophy of religion, plainly stated in language whichrelates it with the current philosophy of life. This is no counsel ofperfection. It has been done, and can be done again. It is said ofEdward Caird, that he placed his pupils "from the beginning at a pointof view whence the life of mankind could be contemplated as onemovement, single though infinitely varied, unerring though wandering, significant yet mysterious, secure and self-enriching although tragical. There was a general sense of the spiritual nature of reality and of therule of mind, though what was meant by spirit or mind was hardly asked. There was a hope and faith that outstripped all save the vaguestunderstanding but which evoked a glad response that somehow God wasimmanent in the world and in the history of all mankind, making itsane. " And the effect of this teaching on the students was that "theyreceived the doctrine with enthusiasm, and forgot themselves in thesense of their partnership in a universal enterprise. "[1] Such teachingas this is a real preparation for citizenship, an introduction to theenduring values of the world. 

[1 Jones and Muirhead: "Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird, " pp. 64, 65. ]

Every human being, as we know, inevitably tends to emphasize someaspects of that world, and to ignore others: to build up for himself arelative universe. The choices which determine the universe of maturityare often made in youth; then the foundations are laid of thatapperceiving mass which is to condition all the man's contacts withreality. We ought, therefore, to show the universe to our young peoplefrom such an angle and in such a light, that they tend quite simply andwithout any objectionable intensity to select, emphasize and beinterested in its spiritual aspect. For this purpose we must never tryto force our own reading of that universe upon them; but respect on theone hand their often extreme sensitiveness and on the other theinfinitely various angles of approach proper to our infinitely varioussouls. We should place food before them and leave them to browse. Onlythose who have tried this experiment know what such an enlargement ofthe horizon and enrichment of knowledge means to the eager, adolescentmind: how prompt is the response to any appeal which we make to itsnascent sense of mystery. Yet whole schools of thought on these subjectsare cheerfully ignored by the majority of our educationists; hence theunintelligent and indeed babyish view of religion which is harboured bymany adults, even of the intellectual class. 

Though the spiritual life has its roots in the heart not in the head, and will never be brought about by merely academic knowledge; yet, itsbeginnings in adolescence are often lost, because young people arecompletely ignorant of the meaning of their own experiences, and theuniversal character of those needs and responses which they dimly feelstirring within them. They are too shy to ask, and no one ever tellsthem about it in a business-like and unembarrassing way. This infantmortality in the spiritual realm ought not to be possible. Experience ofGod is the greatest of the rights of man, and should not be left tobecome the casual discovery of the few. Therefore prayer ought to beregarded as a universal human activity, and its nature and difficultiesshould be taught, but always in the sense of intercourse rather than ofmere petition: keeping in mind the doctrine of the mystics that "prayerin itself properly is not else but a devout intent directed untoGod. "[147] We teach concentration for the purposes of study; but tooseldom think of applying it to the purposes of prayer. Yet real prayeris a difficult art; which, like other ways of approaching PerfectBeauty, only discloses its secrets to those who win them by humbletraining and hard work. Shall we not try to find some method of showingour adolescents their way into this world, lying at our doors andoffered to us without money and without price?

Again, many teachers and parents waste the religious instinct andemotional vigour which are often so marked in adolescence, by allowingthem to fritter themselves upon symbols which cannot stand againsthostile criticism: for instance, some of, the more sentimental andanthropomorphic aspects of Christian devotion. Did we educate thoseinstincts, show the growing creature their meaning, and give them anobjective which did not conflict with the objectives of the developingintellect and the will, we should turn their passion into power, and laythe foundations of a real spiritual life. We must remember that a gooddeal of adolescent emotion is diverted by the conditions of school-lifefrom its obvious and natural objective. This is so much energy set freefor other uses. We know how it emerges in hero-worship or in ardentfriendships; how it reinforces the social instinct and produces theteam-spirit, the intense devotion to the interests of his own gang orgroup which is rightly prominent in the life of many boys. The teacherhas to reckon with this funded energy and enthusiasm, and use it tofurther the highest interests of the growing child. By this I do notmean that he is to encourage an abnormal or emotional concentration onspiritual things. Most of the impulses of youth are wholesome, andsubserve direct ends. Therefore, it is not by taking away love, self-sacrifice, admiration, curiosity, from their natural objects thatwe shall serve the best interests of spirituality: but, by enlarging therange over which these impulses work--impulses, indeed, which no humanobject can wholly satisfy, save in a sacramental sense. Two such naturaltendencies, specially prominent in childhood, are peculiarly at thedisposal of the religious teacher: and should be used by him to thefull. It is in the sublimation of the instinct of comradeship that thesocial and corporate side of the spiritual life takes its rise, and inclosest connection with this impulse that all works of charity should besuggested and performed. And on the individual side, all that is best, safest and sweetest in the religious instinct of the child can berelated to a similar enlargement of the instinct of filial trust anddependence. The educator is therefore working within the two mostfundamental childish qualities, qualities provoked and fostered by allright family life, with its relation of love to parents, brothers, sisters and friends; and may gently lead out these two mighty impulsesto a fulfilment which, at maturity, embrace God and the whole world. Thewise teacher, then, must work with the instincts, not against them:encouraging all kindly social feelings, all vigorous self-expression, wonder, trustfulness, love. Recognizing the paramount importance ofemotion--for without emotional colour no idea can be actual to us, andno deed thoroughly and vigorously performed--yet he must always be onhis guard against blocking the natural channels of human feeling, andgiving them the opportunity of exploding under pious disguises in thereligious sphere. 

Here it is that the danger of too emotional a type of religious trainingcomes in. Sentimentalism of all kinds is dangerous and objectionable, especially in the education of girls, whom it excites and debilitates. Boys are more often merely alienated by it. In both cases, the methodof presentation which regards the spiritual life simply as a normalaspect of full human life is best. No artificial barrier should be setup between the sacred and the profane. The passion for truth and thepassion for God should be treated as one: and that pursuit of knowledgefor its own sake, those adventurous explorations of the mind, in whichthe more intelligent type of adolescent loves to try his growing powers, ought to be encouraged in the spiritual sphere as elsewhere. The resultsof research into religious origins should be explained withoutreservation, and no intellectual difficulty should be dodged. Theputting-off method of meeting awkward questions, now generallyrecognized as dangerous in matters of natural history, is just asdangerous in the religious sphere. No teacher who is afraid to state hisown position with perfect candour should ever be allowed to undertakethis side of education; nor any in whom there is a marked cleavagebetween the standard of conduct and the standard of thought. The healthyadolescent is prompt to perceive inconsistency and unsparing in itscondemnation. 

Moreover, a most careful discrimination is daily becoming morenecessary, in the teaching of traditional religion of a supernatural andnon-empirical type. Many of its elements must no doubt be retained byus, for the child-mind demands firm outlines and examples and imagerydrawn from the world of sense. Yet grave dangers are attached to it. On, the one hand an exclusive reliance on tradition paves the way forthe disillusion which is so often experienced towards the end ofadolescence, when it frequently causes a violent reaction tomaterialism. On the other hand it exposes us to a risk which weparticularly want to avoid: that of reducing the child's nascentspiritual life to the dream level, to a fantasy in which it satisfieswishes that outward life leaves unfulfilled. Many pious people, especially those who tell us that their religion is a "comfort" to them, go through life in a spiritual day-dream of this kind. Concrete life hasstarved them of love, of beauty, of interest--it has given them nosynthesis which satisfies the passionate human search for meaning--andthey have found all this in a dream-world, made from the materials ofconventional piety. If religion is thus allowed to become a ready-madeday-dream it will certainly interest adolescents of a certain sort. Thenaturally introverted type will become meditative; whilst theiropposites, the extroverted or active type, will probably tend to beritualistic. But here again we are missing the essence of spirituallife. 

Our aim should be to induce, in a wholesome way, that sense of thespiritual in daily experience which the old writers called theconsciousness of the of God. The monastic training in spirituality, slowly evolved under pressure of experience, nearly always did this. Ithas bequeathed to us a funded wisdom of which we make little use; andthis, reinterpreted in the light of psychological knowledge, might Ibelieve cast a great deal of light on the fundamental problems ofspiritual education. We could if we chose take many hints from it, asregards the disciplining of the attention, the correct use ofsuggestion, the teaching of meditation, the sublimation and direction toan assigned end of the natural impulse to reverie; above all, theeducation of the moral life. For character-building as understood bythese old specialists was the most practical of arts. 

Further, in all this teaching, those inward activities and responses towhich we can give generally the name of prayer, and those outwardactivities and deeds of service to which we can give the name of work, ought to be trained together and never dissociated. They are thecomplementary and balanced expressions of one spirit of life: and mustbe given together, under appropriately simple forms. Concreteapplication of the child's energies, aptitudes and ideals must from thefirst run side by side with the teaching of principle. Young peopletherefore should constantly be encouraged to face as practical andinteresting facts, not as formulæ, those reactions to eternal andthis-world reality which used to be called our duty to God and ourneighbour; and do concrete things proper to a real citizen of a reallytheocratic world. They must be made to realize that nothing is trulyours until we have expressed it in our deeds. Moreover, these deedsshould not be easy. They should involve effort and self-sacrifice; andalso some drudgery, which is worse. The spiritual life is only valued bythose on whom it makes genuine demands. Almost any kind of service willdo, which calls for attention, time and hard work. Though voluntary, itmust not be casual: but, once undertaken, should be regarded as anhonourable obligation. The Boy Scouts and Girl Guides have shown us howwide a choice of possible "good deeds" is offered by every community:and such a banding together of young people for corporate acts ofservice is strongly to be commended. It encourages unselfishcomradeship, satisfies that "gang-instinct" which is a well-knowncharacter of adolescence, and should leave no opening forself-consciousness, rivalry, and vanity in well-doing or in abnegation. 

Wise educators find that a combined system of organized games in whichthe social instinct can be expressed and developed, and of independentconstructive work, in which the creative impulse can find satisfaction, best meets the corporate and creative needs of adolescence, favours theright development of character, and produces a harmonized life. On thelevel of the spiritual life too this principle is valid; and, guided byit, we should seek to give young people both corporate and personal workand experience. On the one hand, gregariousness is at its strongest inthe healthy adolescent, the force of public opinion is more intenselyfelt than at any other time of life, that priceless quality the spiritof comradeship is most easily educed. We must therefore seek to give thespiritual life a vigorous corporate character; to make it "good form"for the school, and to use the team-spirit in the choir and the guild aswell as in the cricket field. By an extension of this principle andunder the influence of a suitable teacher, the school-mob may betransformed into a co-operative society animated by one joyous andunselfish spirit: all the great powers of social suggestion being freelyused for the highest ends. Thus we may introduce the pupil, at his mostplastic age, into a spiritual-social order and let him grow within it, developing those qualities and skills on which it makes demands. Thereligious exercises, whatever they are, should be in common, in order todevelop the mass consciousness of the school and weld it into a realgroup. Music, songs, processions, etc. , produce a feeling of unity, andencourage spiritual contagion. Services of an appropriate kind, if therebe a chapel, or the opening of school with prayer and a hymn (whichought always to be followed by a short silence) provide a naturalexpression for corporate religious feeling: and remember that to give afeeling opportunity of voluntary expression is commonly to educe andaffirm it. As regards active work, whilst school charities are anobvious field in which unselfish energies may be spent, many otheropenings will be found by enthusiastic teachers, and by the pupils whomtheir enthusiasm has inspired. 

On the other hand, the spare-time occupations of the adolescent; theindependent and self-chosen work, often most arduous and alwaysabsorbing, of making, planning, learning about things--and most of uscan still remember how desperately important these seemed to us, whetherour taste was for making engines, writing poetry, or collectingmoths--these are of the greatest importance for his development. Theygive him something really his own, exercise his powers, train hisattention, feed his creative instinct. They counteract those mechanicaland conventional reactions to the world, which are induced by the merelytraditional type of education, either of manners or of mind. And here, in the prudent encouragement of a personal interest in and dealing withthe actual problems of conduct and even of belief--the most difficult ofthe educator's tasks--we guard against the merely acquiescent attitudeof much adult piety, and foster from the beginning a vigorous personalinterest, a first-hand contact with higher realities. 

The heroic aspect of history may well form the second line in thisattempt to capture education and use it in the interests of thespiritual life. By it we can best link up the actual and the ideal, anddemonstrate the single character of human greatness; whether it beexhibited, in the physical or the supersensual sphere. Such ademonstration is most important; for so long as the spiritual life isregarded as merely a departmental thing, and its full development as amatter for specialists or saints, it will never produce its full effectin human affairs. We must exhibit it as the full flower of that Realitywhich inspires all human life. _"All_ kinds of skill, " said Tauler, "aregifts of the Holy Ghost, " and he might have said, all kinds of beautyand all kinds of courage too. 

The heroic makes a direct appeal to lads and girls, and is by far thesafest way of approach to their emotions. The chivalrous, the noble, thedesperately brave, attract the adolescent far more than passivegoodness. That strong instinct of subjection, of homage, which he showsin his hero-worship, is a most valuable tool in the hands of the teacherwho is seeking to lead him into greater fullness of life. Yet the rangeover which we seek material for his admiration is often deplorablynarrow. We have behind us a great spiritual history, which shows thehighest faculties of the soul in action: the power and the happinessthey bring. Do we take enough notice of it? What about our Englishsaints? I mean the real saints, not the official ones. Not St. Georgeand St. Alban, about whom we know practically nothing: but, forinstance, Lancelot Andrewes, John Wesley, Elizabeth Fry, about whom weknow a great deal. Children, who find difficulty in general ideas, learnbest from particular instances. Yet boys and girls who can give acoherent account of such stimulating personalities as Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, Henry VIII. And his wives, or Napoleon--none ofwhom have so very much to tell us that bears on the permanent interestsof the soul--do not as a rule possess any vivid idea, say, of Gautama, St. Benedict, Gregory the Great, St. Catherine of Siena, St. FrancisXavier, George Fox, St. Vincent de Paul and his friends: persons atleast as significant, and far better worth meeting, than the militarycommanders and political adventurers of their time. The stories of theearly Buddhists, the Sufi saints, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius, the early Quakers, the African missionaries, are full of things whichcan be made to interest even a young child. The legends which have grownup round some of them satisfy the instinct that draws it to fairy tales. They help it to dream well; and give to the developing mind food whichit could assimilate in no other way. Older boys and girls, could they begiven some idea of the spiritual heroes of Christendom as real men andwomen, without the nauseous note of piety which generally infects theirbiographies, would find much to delight them: romance of the best sort, because concerned with the highest values, and stories of endurance andcourage such as always appeal to them. These people were notobjectionable pietists. They were persons of fullest vitality andimmense natural attraction; the pick of the race. We know that, by thenumbers who left all to follow them. Ought we not to introduce ourpupils to them; not as stuffed specimens, but as vivid human beings?Something might be done to create the right atmosphere for this, on thelines suggested by Dr. Hayward in that splendid little book "The Lessonin Appreciation. " All that he says there about æsthetics, is applicableto any lesson dealing with the higher values of life. In this way, youngpeople would be made to realize the spiritual life; not as somethingabnormal and more or less conventionalized, but as a golden threadrunning right through human history, and making demands on just thosedynamic qualities which they feel themselves to possess. The adolescentis naturally vigorous and combative, and wants, above all else, something worth fighting for. This, too often, his teachers forget toprovide. 

The study of nature, and of æsthetics--including poetry--gives us yetanother way of approach. The child should be introduced to these greatworlds of life and of beauty, and encouraged but never forced to feed onthe best they contain. By implication, but never by any method savouringof "uplift, " these subjects should be related with that sense of thespiritual and of its immanence in creation, which ought to inspire theteacher; and with which it is his duty to infect his pupils if he can. Children may, very early, be taught or rather induced to look at naturalthings with that quietness, attention, and delight which are thebeginnings of contemplation, and the conditions, under which naturereveals her real secrets to us. The child is a natural pagan, and oftenthe first appeal to its nascent spiritual faculty is best made throughits instinctive joy in the life of animals and flowers, the clouds andthe winds. Here it may learn very easily that wonder and adoration, which are the gateways to the presence of God. In simple forms of verse, music, and rhythmical movement it can be encouraged--as the SalvationArmy has discovered--to give this happy adoration a natural, dramatic, and rhythmic expression: for the young child, as we know, reproduces themental condition of the primitive, and primitive forms of worship willsuit it best. 

It need hardly be said that education of the type we have beenconsidering demands great gifts in the teacher: simplicity, enthusiasm, sympathy, and also a vigorous sense of humour, keeping him sharply awareof the narrow line that divides the priggish from the ideal. Thiseducation ought to inspire, but it ought not to replace, the fullest andmost expert training of the body and mind; for the spirit needs aperfectly balanced machine, through which to express its life in thephysical world. The actual additions to curriculum which it demands maybe few: it is the attitude, the spirit, which must be changed. Specifically moral education, the building of character, will of courseform an essential part of it: in fact must be present within it fromthe first. But this comes best without observation, and will be found todepend chiefly on the character of the teacher, the love, admiration andimitation he evokes, the ethical tone he gives. Childhood is of all agesthe one most open to suggestion, and in this fact the educator finds atonce his best opportunity and greatest responsibility. 

Ruysbroeck has described to us the three outstanding moral dispositionsin respect of God, of man, and of the conduct of life, which mark thetrue man or woman of the Spirit; and it is in the childhood that thetendency to these qualities must be acquired. First, he says, --Iparaphrase, since the old terms of moral theology are no longer vivid tous--there comes an attitude of reverent love, of adoration, towards allthat is holy, beautiful, or true. And next, from this, there grows up anattitude towards other men, governed by those qualities which are theessence of courtesy: patience, gentleness, kindness, and sympathy. Thesekeep us both supple and generous in our responses to our socialenvironment. Last, our creative energies are transfigured by anenergetic love, an inward eagerness for every kind of work, which makesimpossible all slackness and dullness of heart, and will impel us tolive to the utmost the active life of service for which we areborn. [148]

But these moral qualities cannot be taught; they are learned byimitation and infection, and developed by opportunity of action. Thebest agent of their propagation is an attractive personality in whichthey are dominant; for we know the universal tendency of young people toimitate those whom they admire. The relation between parent and child ormaster and pupil is therefore the central factor in any scheme ofeducation which seeks to further the spiritual life. Only those who havealready become real can communicate the knowledge of Reality. It is fromthe sportsman that we catch the spirit of fair-play, from the humblethat we learn humility. The artist shows us beauty, the saint shows usGod. It should therefore be the business of those in authority to searchout and give scope to those who possess and are able to impart thistriumphing spiritual life. A head-master who makes his boys live attheir highest level and act on their noblest impulses, because he doesit himself, is a person of supreme value to the State. It would be wellif we cleared our minds of cant, and acknowledged that such a man aloneis truly able to educate; since the spiritual life is infectious, butcannot be propagated by artificial means. 

Finally, we have to remember that any attempt towards the education ofthe spirit--and such an attempt must surely be made by all who acceptspiritual values as central for life--can only safely be undertaken withfull knowledge of its special dangers and difficulties. These dangersand difficulties are connected with the instinctive and intellectuallife of the child and the adolescent, who are growing, and growingunevenly, during the whole period of training. They are supple asregards other forces than those which we bring to bear on them; open tosuggestion from many different levels of life. 

Our greatest difficulty abides in the fact that, as we have seen, avigorous spiritual life must give scope to the emotions. It is above allthe heart rather than the mind which must be won for God. Yet, thegreatest care must be exercised to ensure that the appeal to theemotions is free from all possibility of appeal to latent anduncomprehended natural instincts. This peril, to which currentpsychology gives perhaps too much attention, is nevertheless real. Candid students of religious history are bound to acknowledge theunfortunate part which it has often played in the past. These naturalinstincts fall into two great classes: those relating toself-preservation and those relating to the preservation of the race. The note of fear, the exaggerated longing for shelter and protection, the childish attitude of mere clinging dependence, fostered by religionof a certain type, are all oblique expressions of the instinct ofself-preservation: and the rather feverish devotional moods andexuberant emotional expressions with which we are all familiar have, equally, a natural origin. Our task in the training of young people isto evoke enthusiasm, courage and love, without appealing to either ofthese sources of excitement. Generally speaking, it is safe to say thatfor this reason all sentimental and many anthropomorphic religious ideasare bad for lads and girls. These have, indeed, no part in that austereyet ardent love of God which inspires the real spiritual life. 

Our aim ought to be, to teach and impress the reality of Spirit, itsregnancy in human life, whilst the mind is alert and supple: and so toteach and impress it, that it is woven into the stuff of the mental andmoral life and cannot seriously be injured by the hostile criticisms ofthe rationalist. Remember, that the prime object of education is themoulding of the unconscious and instinctive nature, the home of habit. If we can give this the desired tendency and tone of feeling, we cantrust the rational mind to find good reasons with which to reinforce itsattitudes and preferences. So it is not so much the specific belief, asthe whole spiritual attitude to existence which we seek to affirm; andthis will be done on the whole more effectively by the generalizedsuggestions which come to the pupil from his own surroundings, and thelives of those whom he admires, than by the limited and specialsuggestions of a creed. It is found that the less any desired motive isbound up with particular acts, persons, or ideas, the greater is thechance of its being universalized and made good for life all round. I donot intend by this statement to criticize any particular presentationof religion. Nevertheless, educators ought to remember that a religionwhich is first entirely bound up with narrow and childish theologicalideas, and is then presented as true in the absolute sense, is bound tobreak down under greater knowledge or hostile criticism; and may theninvolve the disappearance of the religious impulse as a whole, at leastfor a long period. 

Did we know our business, we ought surely to be able to ensure in ouryoung people a steady and harmonious spiritual growth. The "conversion"or psychic convulsion which is sometimes regarded as an essentialpreliminary of any vivid awakening of the spiritual consciousness, isreally a tribute exacted by our wrong educational methods. It is a proofthat we have allowed the plastic creature confided to us to harden inthe wrong shape. But if, side by side and in simplest language, we teachthe conceptions: first, of God as the transcendent yet indwelling Spiritof love, of beauty and of power; next, of man's constant dependence onHim and possible contact with His nature in that arduous and loving actof attention which is the essence of prayer; last, of unselfish work andfellowship as the necessary expressions of all human ideals--then, Ithink, we may hope to lay the foundations of a balanced and a wholesomelife, in which man's various faculties work together for good, and hisvigorous instinctive life is directed to the highest ends. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 146: Spencer: "Education, " Cap. 1. ]

[Footnote 147: "The Cloud of Unknowing, " Cap. 39. ]

[Footnote 148: Ruysbroeck: "The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, "Bk. I, Caps. 12-24. ]

CHAPTER VIII

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT AND THE SOCIAL ORDER

We have come to the last chapter of this book; and I am conscious thatthose who have had the patience to follow its argument from thebeginning, may now feel a certain sense of incompleteness. They willobserve that, though many things have been said about the life of theSpirit, not a great deal seems to have been said, at any rate directly, about the second half of the title--the life of to-day--and especiallyabout those very important aspects of our modern active life which areresumed in the word Social. This avoidance has been, at least in part, intentional. We have witnessed in this century a violent revulsion fromthe individualistic type of religion; a revulsion which parallelsupon-its own levels, and indeed is a part of, the revolt from Victorianindividualism in political economic life. Those who come much intocontact with students, and with the younger and more vigorous clergy, are aware how far this revolt has proceeded: how completely, in theminds of those young people who are interested in religion, the SocialGospel now overpowers all other aspects of the spiritual life. Againand again we are assured by the most earnest among them that in theirview religion is a social activity, and service is its properexpression: that all valid knowledge of God is social, and He is chieflyknown in mankind: that the use of prayer is mainly social, in that itimproves us for service, otherwise it must be condemned as a merelyselfish activity: finally, that the true meaning and value of sufferingare social too. A visitor to a recent Swanwick Conference of the StudentChristian Movement has publicly expressed his regret that some studentsstill seemed to be concerned with the problems of their own spirituallife; and were not prepared to let that look after itself, whilst theystarted straight off to work for the social realization of the Kingdomof God. When a great truth becomes exaggerated to this extent, and isheld to the exclusion of its compensating opposite, it is in a fair wayto becoming a lie. And we have here, I think, a real confusion of ideaswhich will, if allowed to continue, react unfavourably upon the religionof the future; because it gives away the most sacred conviction of theidealist, the belief in the absolute character of spiritual values, andin the effort to win them as the great activity of man. Social service, since it is one form of such an effort, a bringing in of more order, beauty, joy, is a fundamental duty--the fundamental duty--of the activelife. Man does not truly love the Perfect until he is driven thus toseek its incarnation in the world of time. No one doubts this. Allspiritual teachers have said it, in one way or another, for centuries. The mere fact that they feel impelled to teach at all, instead of saying"My secret to myself"--which is so much easier and pleasanter to thenatural contemplative--is a guarantee of the claim to service which theyfeel that love lays upon them. But this does not make such service ofman, however devoted, either the same thing as the search for, responseto, intercourse with God; or, a sufficient substitute for thesespecifically spiritual acts. 

Plainly, we are called upon to strive with all our power to bring in theKingdom; that is, to incarnate in the time world the highest spiritualvalues which we have known. But our ability to do this is strictlydependent on those values being known, at least by some of us, atfirst-hand; and for this first-hand perception, as we have seen, thesoul must have a measure of solitude and silence. Therefore, if theswing-over to a purely social interpretation of religion be allowed tocontinue unchecked, the result can only be an impoverishment of ourspiritual life; quite as far-reaching and as regrettable as that whichfollows from an unbridled individualism. Without the inner life ofprayer and-meditation, lived for its own sake and for no utilitarianmotive, neither our judgments upon the social order nor our activesocial service will be perfectly performed; because they will not be thechannel of Creative Spirit expressing itself through us in the world ofto-day. 

Christ, it is true, gives nobody any encouragement for supposing that amerely self-cultivating sort of spirituality, keeping the home firesburning and so on, is anybody's main job. The main job confided to Hisfriends is the preaching of the Gospel. That is, spreading Reality, teaching it, inserting it into existence; by prayers, words, acts, andalso if need be by manual work, and always under the conditions andsymbolisms of our contemporary world. But since we can only give othersthat which we already possess, this presupposes that we have gotsomething of Reality as a living, burning fire in ourselves. The soul'stwo activities of reception and donation must be held in balance, orimpotence and unreality will result. It is only out of the heart of hisown experience that man really helps his neighbour: and thus there is anultimate social value in the most secret responses of the soul to grace. No one, for instance, can help others to repentance who has not known itat first-hand. Therefore we have to keep the home fires burning, becausethey are the fires which raise the steam that does the work: and we dothis mostly by the fuel with which we feed them, though partly too bygiving free access to currents of fresh air from the outer world. 

We cannot read St. Paul's letters with sympathy and escape theconviction that in the midst of his great missionary efforts he wasprofoundly concerned too with the problems of his own inner life. Thelittle bits of self-revelation that break into the epistles and, threaded together, show us the curve of his growth, also show us howmuch, lay behind them, how intense, and how exacting was the inwardtravail that accompanied his outward deeds. Here he is representative ofthe true apostolic type. It is because St. Augustine is the man of the"Confessions" that he is also the creator of "The City of God. " Theregenerative work of St. Francis was accompanied by an unremitting lifeof penitence and recollection. Fox and Wesley, abounding in labours, yetnever relaxed the tension of their soul's effort to correspond with atranscendent Reality. These and many other examples warn us that only bysuch a sustained and double movement can the man of the Spirit actualizeall his possibilities and do his real work. He must, says Ruysbroeck, "both ascend and descend with love. "[149] On any other basis he missesthe richness of that fully integrated human existence "swinging betweenthe unseen and the seen" in which the social and individual, incorporated and solitary responses to the demands of Spirit are fullycarried through. Instead, he exhibits restriction and lack balance. Thisin the end must react as unfavourably on the social as on the personalside of life: since the place and influence of the spiritual life in thesocial order will depend entirely on its place in the individualconsciousness of which that social order will be built, the extent inwhich loyalty to the one Spirit governs their reactions to common dailyexperience. 

Here then, as in so much else, the ideal is not an arbitrary choice buta struck balance. First, a personal contact with Eternal Reality, deepening, illuminating and enlarging all of our experience of fact, allour responses to it: that is, faith. Next, the fullest possible sense ofour membership of and duty towards the social organism, a completelyrich, various, heroic, self-giving, social life: that is, charity. Thedissociation of these two sides of human experience is fatal to thatdivine hope which should crown and unite them; and which represents thehuman instinct for novelty in a sublimated form. 

It is of course true that social groups may be regenerated. The successof such group-formations as the primitive Franciscans, the Friends ofGod, the Quakers, the Salvation Army, demonstrates this. But groups, inthe last resort, consist of individuals, who must each be regeneratedone by one; whose outlook, if they are to be whole men, must include inits span abiding values as well as the stream of time, and who, for thefull development of this their two-fold destiny, require each a measureboth of solitude and of association. Hence it follows, that the finalanswer to the repeated question: "Does God save men, does Spirit worktowards the regeneration of humanity (the same thing), one by one, or ingroups?" is this: that the proposed alternative is illusory. We cannotsay that the Divine action in the world as we know it, is either merelysocial or merely individual; but both. And the next question--a highlypractical question--is, "How _both_?" For the answer to this, if we canfind it, will give us at last a formula by which we can true up our owneffort toward completeness of self-expression in the here-and-now. 

How, then, are groups of men moved up to higher spiritual levels; helpedto such an actual possession of power and love and a sound mind as shalltransfigure and perfect their lives? For this, more than all else, iswhat we now want to achieve. I speak in generalities, and of averagehuman nature, not of these specially sensitive or gifted individuals whoare themselves the revealers of Reality to their fellow-men. 

History suggests, I think, that this group-regeneration is effected inthe last resort through a special sublimation of the herd-instinct; thatis, the full and willing use on spiritual levels of the characters whichare inherent in human gregariousness. [150] We have looked at some ofthese characters in past chapters. Our study of them suggests, that thefirst stage in any social regeneration is likely to be brought about bythe instinctive rallying of individuals about a natural leader, strongenough to compel and direct them; and whose appeal is to the impulsivelife, to an acknowledged of unacknowledged lack or craving, not to thefaculty of deliberate choice. This leader, then, must offer new life andlove, not intellectual solutions. He must be able to share with hisflock his own ardour and apprehension of Reality; and evoke from themthe profound human impulse to imitation. They will catch his enthusiasm, and thus receive the suggestions of his teaching and of his life. Thisfirst stage, supremely illustrated in the disciples of Christ, and againin the groups who gathered round such men as St. Francis, Fox, or Booth, is re-experienced in a lesser way in every successful revival: and eachgenuine restoration of the life of Spirit, whether its declared aim besocial or religious, has a certain revivalistic character. We musttherefore keep an eye on these principles of discipleship and contagion, as likely to govern any future spiritualization of our own social life;looking for the beginnings of true reconstruction, not to the generaldissemination of suitable doctrines, but to the living burning influenceof an ardent soul. And I may add here, as the corollary of thisconclusion, first that the evoking and fostering of such ardour is initself a piece of social service of the highest value, and next that itmakes every individual socially responsible for the due sharing of eventhe small measure of ardour, certitude or power he or she has received. We are to be conductors of the Divine energy; not to insulate it. Thereis of course nothing new in all this: but there is nothing newfundamentally in the spiritual life, save in St. Augustine's sense ofthe eternal youth and freshness of all beauty. [151] The only noveltywhich we can safely introduce will be in the terms in which we describeit; the perpetual new exhibition of it within the time-world, the freshand various applications which we can give to its abiding laws, in thespecial circumstances and opportunities of our own day. 

But the influence of the crowd-compeller, the leader, whether in thecrude form of the revivalist or in the more penetrating and enduringform of the creative mystic or religious founder, the loyalty andimitation of the disciple, the corporate and generalized enthusiasm ofthe group can only be the first educative phase in any veritableincarnation of Spirit upon earth. Each member of the herd is nowcommitted to the fullest personal living-out of the new life he hasreceived. Only in so far as the first stage of suggestion and imitationis carried over to the next stage of personal actualization, can we saythat there is any real promotion of spiritual _life_: any hope that thislife will work a true renovation of the group into which it has beeninserted and achieve the social phase. 

If, then, it does achieve the social phase what stages may we expect itto pass through, and by what special characters will it be graced?

Let us look back for a moment at some of our conclusions about theindividual life. We said that this life, if fully lived, exhibited thefour characters of work and contemplation, self-discipline and service:deepening and incarnating within its own various this-world experienceits other-world apprehensions of Eternity, of God. Its temper shouldthus be both social and ascetic. It should be doubly based, on humilityand on given power. Now the social order--more exactly, the socialorganism--in which Spirit is really to triumph, can only be built up ofindividuals who do with a greater or less perfection and intensityexhibit these characters, some upon independent levels of creativefreedom, some on those of discipleship: for here all men are not equal, and it is humbug to pretend that they are. This social order, being sobuilt of regenerate units, would be dominated by these same implicits ofthe regenerate consciousness; and would tend to solve in their light thespecial problems of community life. And this unity of aim would reallymake of it one body; the body of a fully socialized _and_ fullyspiritualized humanity, which perhaps we might without presumptiondescribe as indeed the son of God. 

The life of such a social organism, its growth, its cycle of corporatebehaviour, would be strung on that same fourfold cord which combined thedesires and deeds of the regenerate self into a series: namely, Penitence, Surrender, Recollection, and Work. It would be actuated firstby a real social repentance. That is, by a turning from that constantcapitulation to its past, to animal and savage impulse, the power ofwhich our generation at least knows only too well; and by thecomplementary effort to unify vigorous instinctive action and socialconscience. I think every one can find for themselves some sphere, national, racial, industrial, financial, in which social penitence couldwork; and the constant corporate fall-back into sin, which we nowdisguise as human nature, or sometimes--even more insincerely--aseconomic and political necessity, might be faced and called by its truename. Such a social penitence--such a corporate realization of the messthat we have made of things--is as much a direct movement of the Spirit, and as great an essential of regeneration, as any individual movement ofthe broken and contrite heart. 

Could a quick social conscience, aware of obligations to Reality whichdo not end with making this world a comfortable place--though we havenot even managed that for the majority of men--feel quite at ease, say, after an unflinching survey of our present system of State punishment?Or after reading the unvarnished record of our dealings with the problemof Indian immigration into Africa? Or after considering the inner natureof international diplomacy and finance? Or even, to come nearer home, after a stroll through Hoxton: the sort of place, it is true, which wehave not exactly made on purpose but which has made itself because wehave not, as a community, exercised our undoubted powers of choice andaction in an intelligent and loving way. Can we justify the peculiarcharacteristics of Hoxton: congratulate ourselves on the amount oflight, air and beauty which its inhabitants enjoy, the sort of childrenthat are reared in it, as the best we can do towards furthering theracial aim? It is a monument of stupidity no less than of meanness. Yetthe conception of God which the whole religious experience of growingman presses on us, suggests that both intelligence and love ought tocharacterize His ideal for human life. Look then at these, and all theother things of the same kind. Look at our attitude towardsprostitution, at the drink traffic, at the ugliness and injustice of themany institutions which we allow to endure. Look at them in theUniversal Spirit; and then consider, whether a searching corporaterepentance is not really the inevitable preliminary of a social andspiritual advance. All these things have happened because we have as abody consistently fallen below our best possible, lacked courage toincarnate our vision in the political sphere. Instead, we have, acted onthe crowd level, swayed by unsublimated instincts of acquisition, disguised lust, self-preservation, self-assertion, and ignoble fear: andsuch a fall-back is the very essence of social sin. 

We have made many plans and elevations; but we have not really tried tobuild Jerusalem either in our own hearts or in "England's pleasantland. " Blake thought that the preliminary of such a building up of theharmonious social order must be the building up or harmonizing of men, of each man; and when this essential work was really done, Heaven's"Countenance Divine" would suddenly declare itself "among the darkSatanic mills. "[152] What was wrong with man, and ultimately thereforewith society, was the cleavage between his "Spectre" or energeticintelligence, and "Emanation" or loving imagination. Divided, they onlytormented one another. United, they were the material of divinehumanity. Now the complementary affirmative movement which shall balanceand complete true social penitence will be just such a unification anddedication of society's best energies and noblest ideals, now commonlyseparated. The Spectre is attending to economics: the Emanation isdreaming of Utopia. We want to see them united, for from this unionalone will come the social aspect for surrender. That is to say, asingle-minded, unselfish yielding to those good social impulses which weall feel from time to time, and might take more seriously did, werealize them as the impulsions of holy and creative Spirit pressing ustowards novelty, giving us our chance; our small actualization of theuniversal tendency to the Divine. As it is, we do feel a littleuncomfortable when these stirrings reach us; but commonly consoleourselves with the thought that their realization is at present outsidethe sphere of practical politics. Yet the obligation of response tothose stirrings is laid on all who feel them; and unless some will firstmake this venture of faith, our possible future will never be achieved. Christ was born among those who _expected_ the Kingdom of God. Thefavouring atmosphere of His childhood is suggested by these words. It isour business to prepare, so far as we may, a favourable atmosphere andenvironment for the children who will make the future: and thisenvironment is not anything mysterious, it is simply ourselves. The menand women who are now coming to maturity, still supple to experience andcapable of enthusiastic and disinterested choice--that is, of surrenderin the noblest sense--will have great opportunities of influencing thosewho are younger than themselves. The torch is being offered to them; andit is of vital importance to the unborn future that they should graspand hand it on, without worrying about whether their fingers are goingto be burnt. If they do grasp it, they may prove to be the bringers inof a new world, a fresh and vigorous social order, which is based upontrue values, controlled by a spiritual conception of life; a world inwhich this factor is as freely acknowledged by all normal persons, as isthe movement of the earth round the sun. 

I do not speak here of fantastic dreams about Utopias, or of thecoloured pictures of the apocalyptic imagination; but of a concretegenuine possibility, at which clear-sighted persons have hinted againand again. Consider our racial past. Look at the Piltdown skull:reconstruct the person or creature whose brain that skull contained, andactualize the directions in which his imperious instincts, his vaguelyconscious will and desire, were pressing into life. They too wereexpressions of Creative Spirit; and there is perfect continuity betweenhis vital impulse and our own. Now, consider one of the betterachievements of civilization; say the life of a University, with itsdevotion to disinterested learning, its conservation of old beauty andquest of new truth. Even if we take its lowest common measure, thetransfiguration of desire is considerable. Yet in the things of theSpirit we must surely acknowledge ourselves still to be primitive men;and no one can say that it yet appears what we shall be. All reallydepends on the direction in which human society decides to push intoexperience, the surrender which it makes to the impulsion of the Spirit;how its tendency to novelty is employed, the sort of complex habitswhich are formed by it, as more and more crude social instinct is liftedup into conscious intention, and given the precision of thought. 

In our regenerate society, then, if we ever get it, the balanced moodsof Repentance of our racial past and Surrender to our spiritual calling, the pull-forward of the Spirit of Life even in its most austeredifficult demands, will control us; as being the socialized extensionsof these same attitudes of the individual soul. And they will press thecommunity to those same balanced expressions of its instinct forreality, which completed the individual life: that is to say, toRecollection and Work. In the furnishing of a frame for the regularsocial exercise of recollection--the gathering in of the corporate mindand its direction to eternal values, the abiding foundations ofexistence; the consideration of all its problems in silence and peace;the dramatic and sacramental expression of its unity and of itsdependence on the higher powers of life--in all this, the institutionalreligion of the future will perhaps find its true sphere of action, andtake its rightful place in the socialized life of the Spirit. 

Finally, the work which is done by a community of which the inner lifeis controlled by these three factors will be the concrete expression ofthese factors in the time-world; and will perpetuate and hand on allthat is noble, stable and reasonable in human discovery and tradition, whether in the sphere of conduct, of thought, of creation, of manuallabour, or the control of nature, whilst remaining supple towards thedemands and gifts of novelty. New value will be given to craftsmanshipand a sense of dedication--now almost unknown--to those who direct it. Consider the effect of this attitude on worker, trader, designer, employer: how many questions would then answer themselves, how many soreplaces would be healed. 

It is not necessary, in order to take sides with this possible neworder and work for it, that we should commit ourselves to any one partyor scheme of social reform. Still less is it necessary to suppose suchreform the only field in which the active and social side of thespiritual life is to be lived. Repentance, surrender, recollection andindustry can do their transfiguring work in art, science, craftsmanship, scholarship, and play: making all these things more representative ofreality, nearer our own best possible, and so more vivid and worthwhile. If Tauler was right, and all kinds of skill are gifts of the HolyGhost--a proposition which no thorough-going theist can refuse--thenwill not a reference back on the part of the worker to that fontalsource of power make for humility and perfection in all work? PersonallyI am not at all afraid to recognize a spiritual element in all goodcraftsmanship, in the delighted and diligent creation of the finepotter, smith or carpenter, in the well-tended garden and beehive, theperfectly adjusted home; for do not all these help the explication ofthe one Spirit of Life in the diversity of His gifts?

The full life of the Spirit must be more rich and various in itsexpression than any life that we have yet known, and find place forevery worthy and delightful activity. It does not in the least mean abloodless goodness; a refusal of fun and everlasting fuss about uplift. But it does mean looking at and judging each problem in a particularlight, and acting on that judgment without fear. Were this principleestablished, and society poised on this centre, reforms would follow itsapplication almost automatically; specific evils would retreat. Newknowledge of beauty would reveal the ugliness of many satisfactionswhich we now offer to ourselves, and new love the defective character ofmany of our social relations. Certain things would therefore leave offhappening, would go; because the direction of desire had changed. I donot wish to particularize, for this only means blurring the issue byputting forward one's own pet reforms. But I cannot help pointing outthat we shall never get spiritual values out of a society harried andtormented by economic pressure, or men and women whose whole attentionis given up to the daily task of keeping alive. This is not a politicalstatement: it is a plain fact that we must face. Though the courageouslives of the poor, their patient endurance of insecurity may reveal anobility that shames us, it still remains true that these lives do notrepresent the most favourable conditions of the soul. It is not povertythat matters; but strain and the presence of anxiety and fear, theimpossibility of detachment. Therefore this oppression at least wouldhave to be lightened, before the social conscience could be at ease. Moreover as society advances along this way, every--even the mostsubtle--kind of cruelty and exploitation of self-advantage obtained tothe detriment of other individuals, must tend to be eliminated; becausehere the drag-back of the past will be more and more completelyconquered, its instincts fully sublimated, and no one will care to dothose things any more. Bringing new feelings and more real concepts toour contact with our environment, we shall, in accordance with the lawof apperception, see this environment in a different way; and so obtainfrom it a fresh series of experiences. The scale of pain and pleasurewill be altered. We shall feel a searching responsibility about the wayin which our money is made, and about any disadvantages to others whichour amusements or comforts may involve. 

Here, perhaps, it is well to register a protest against the curious butprevalent notion that any such concentrated effort for thespiritualization of society must tend to work itself out in thedirection of a maudlin humanitarianism, a soft and sentimental readingof life. This idea merely advertises once more the fact that we stillhave a very mean and imperfect conception of God, and have made themistake of setting up a water-tight bulkhead; between His revelation, innature and His discovery in the life of prayer. It shows a failure toappreciate the stern, heroic aspect of Reality; the element of austerityin all genuine religion, the distinction between love andsentimentalism, the rightful place of risk, effort, even suffering, inall full achievement and all joy. If we are surrendered in love to thepurposes of the Spirit, we are committed to the bringing out of thebest possible in life; and this is a hard business, involving a quitedefinite social struggle with evil and atavism, in which some one islikely to be hurt. But surely that manly spirit of adventure which hasdriven men to the North Pole and the desert, and made them battle withdelight against apparently impossible odds, can here find itsappropriate sublimation?

If anyone who has followed these arguments, and now desires to bringthem from idea into practice, asks: "What next?" the answer simplyis--Begin. Begin with ourselves; and if possible, do not begin insolitude. "The basal principles of all collective life, " says McDougall, "are sympathetic contagion, mass suggestion, imitation":[153] and againand again the history of spiritual experience illustrates this law, thatits propagation is most often by way of discipleship and the corporatelife, not by the intensive culture of purely solitary effort. It is forthose who believe in the spiritual life to take full advantage now ofthis social suggestibility of man; though without any detraction fromthe prime importance of the personal spiritual life. Therefore, join upwith somebody, find fellowship; whether it be in a church or society, oramong a few like-minded friends. Draw together for mutual support, andface those imperatives of prayer and work which we have seen to be thecondition of the fullest living-out of our existence. Fix and keep areasonably balanced daily rule. Accept leadership where you findit--give it, if you feel the impulse and the strength. Do not wait forsome grand opportunity, and whilst you are waiting stiffen in the wrongshape. The great opportunity may not be for us, but for the generationwhose path we now prepare: and we do our best towards such preparation, if we begin in a small and humble way the incorporation of our hopes anddesires as for instance Wesley and the Oxford Methodists did. Theysought merely to put their own deeply felt ideas into action quitesimply and without fuss; and we know how far the resulting impulsespread. The Bab movement in the East, the Salvation Army at home, showus this principle still operative; what a "little flock" dominated by asuitable herd-leader and swayed by love and adoration can do--and these, like Christianity itself, began as small and inconspicuous groups. Itmay be that our hope for the future depends on the formation of suchgroups--hives of the Spirit--in which the worker of every grade, thethinker, the artist, might each have their place: obtaining fromincorporation the herd-advantages of mutual protection and unity of aim, and forming nuclei to which others could adhere. 

Such a small group--and I am now thinking of something quite practical, say to begin with a study-circle, or a company of like-minded friendswith a definite rule of life--may not seem to the outward eye veryimpressive. Regarded as a unit, it will even tend to be inferior to itsbest members: but it will be superior to the weakest, and with itsleader will possess a dynamic character and reproductive power which hecould never have exhibited alone. It should form a compact organization, both fervent and business-like; and might take as its ideal acombination of the characteristic temper of the contemplative order, with that of active and intelligent Christianity as seen in the besttype of social settlement. This double character of inwardness andpracticality seems to me to be essential to its success; andincorporation will certainly help it to be maintained. The rule shouldbe simple and unostentatious, and need indeed be little more than the"heavenly rule" of faith, hope, and charity. This will involve first therealization of man's true life within a spiritual world-order, his utterdependence upon its realities and powers of communion with them; nexthis infinite possibilities of recovery and advancement; last his duty oflove to all other selves and things. This triple law would be appliedwithout shirking to every problem of existence; and the corporate spiritwould be encouraged by meetings, by associated prayer, and specially Ihope by the practice of corporate silence. Such a group would neverpermit the intrusion of the controversial element, but would be based onmutual trust; and the fact that all the members shared substantially thesame view of human life, strove though in differing ways for the sameideals, were filled by the same enthusiasms, would allow the problemsand experiences of the Spirit to be accepted as real, and discussed withfrankness and simplicity. Thus oases of prayer and clear thinking mightbe created in our social wilderness, gradually developing such power andgroup-consciousness as we see in really living religious bodies. Thegroup would probably make some definite piece of social work, or somedefinite question, specially its own. Seeking to judge the problem thispresented in the Universal Spirit, it would work towards a solution, using for this purpose both heart and head. It would strive in regard tothe special province chosen and solution reached to make its weightfelt, either locally or nationally, in a way the individual could neverhope to do; and might reasonably hope that its conclusions and itsactions would exceed in balance and sanity those which any one of themembers could have achieved alone. 

I think that these groups would develop their own discipline, not borrowits details from the past: for they would soon find that some drill wasnecessary to them, and that luxury, idleness, self-indulgence andindifference to the common-good were in conflict with the inner spiritof the herd. They would inevitably come to practise that saneasceticism, not incompatible with gaiety of heart, which consists inconcentration on the real, and quiet avoidance of the attractive sham. Plainness and simplicity do help the spiritual life, and these are moreeasy and wholesome when practised in common than when they are displayedby individuals in defiance of the social order that surrounds them. Thedifferences of temperament and of spiritual level in the group memberswould prevent monotony; and insure that variety of reaction to the lifeof the Spirit which we so much wish to preserve. Those whose chief giftwas for action would thus be directly supported by those naturalcontemplatives who might, if they remained in solitude, find itdifficult to make their special gift serve their fellows as it must. Group-consciousness would cause the spreading and equalization of thatspiritual sensitiveness which is, as a matter of fact, very unequallydistributed amongst men. And in the backing up of the predominantlyactive workers by the organized prayerful will of the group, all thereal values of intercession would be obtained: for this has reallynothing to do with trying to persuade God to do specific acts, it is aparticular way of exerting love, and thus of reaching and usingspiritual power. 

This incorporation, as I see it, would be made for the express purposeof getting driving force with which to act directly upon life. Forspirituality, as we have seen all along, must not be a lovely fluidnotion or a merely self-regarding education; but an education foraction, for the insertion of eternal values into the time-world, inconformity with the incarnational philosophy which justifies it. Suchaction--such Insertion--depends on constant recourse to the sources ofspiritual power. At present we tend to starve our possible centres ofregeneration, or let them starve themselves, by our encouragement of theactive at the expense of the contemplative life; and till this ismended, we shall get nothing really done. Forgetting St. Teresa'swarning, that to give our Lord a perfect service, Martha and Mary mustcombine, [154] we represent the service of man as being itself anattention to God; and thus drain our best workers of their energies, andleave them no leisure for taking in Fresh supplies. Often they arewearied and confused by the multiplicity in which they must struggle;and they are not taught and encouraged to seek the healing experience ofunity. Hence even our noblest teachers often show painful signs ofspiritual exhaustion, and tend to relapse into the formal repetition ofa message which was once a burning fire. 

The continued force of any regenerative movement depends above all elseon continued vivid contact with the Divine order, for the problems ofthe reformer are only really understood and seen in true proportion inits light. Such contact is not always easy: it is a form of work. Aftera time the weary and discouraged will need the support of discipline ifthey are to do it. Therefore definite role of silence andwithdrawal--perhaps an extension of that system of periodical retreatswhich is one of the most hopeful features of contemporary religiouslife--is essential to any group-scheme for the general and socialfurtherance of the spiritual life. It is not to be denied for a moment, that countless good men and women who love the world in the divine andnot in the self-regarding sense, are busy all their lives long inforwarding the purposes of the Spirit: which is acting through them, astruly as through the conscious prophets and regenerators of the race. But, to return for a moment to psychological language, whilst the Divineimpulsion remains for us below the threshold, it is not doing all thatit could for us nor we all that we could do for it; for we are notcompletely unified. We can by appropriate education bring up thatimperative yet dim impulsion to conscious realization, and wittinglydedicate to its uses our heart, mind and will; and such realization inits most perfect form appears to be the psychological equivalent of thestate which is described by spiritual writers, in their own speciallanguage, as "union with God. "

I have been at some pains to avoid the use of this special language ofthe mystics; but now perhaps we may remind ourselves that, by thedeclaration of all who have achieved it, the mature spiritual life issuch a condition of completed harmony--such a theopathetic state. Therefore here to-day, in the worst confusions of our social scramble, no less that in the Indian forest or the mediæval cloister, man's reallyreligious method and self-expression must be harmonious with alife-process of which this is the recognized if distant goal: and in allthe work of restatement, this abiding objective must be kept in view. Such union, such full identification with the Divine purpose, must be asocial as well as an individual expression of full life. It cannot besatisfied by the mere picking out of crumbs of perfection from thewelter, but must mean in the end that the real interests of society areindentical with the interests of Creative Spirit, in so far as these arefelt and known by man; the interests, that is, of a love that is energyand an energy that is love. Towards this identification, the willedtendency of each truly awakened individual must steadfastly be set; andalso the corporate desire of each group, as expressed in its prayer andwork. For the whole secret of life lies in directed desire. 

A wide-spreading love to all in common, says Ruysbroeck in a celebratedpassage, is the authentic mark of a truly spiritual man. [155] In thisphrase is concealed the link between the social and personal aspects ofthe spiritual life. It means that our passional nature with its cravingsand ardours, instead of making self-centred whirlpools, flows out instreams of charity and power towards all life. And we observe too thatthe Ninth Perfection of the Buddhist is such a state of active charity. "In his loving, sympathizing, joyful and steadfast mind he willrecognize himself in all things, and will shed warmth and light on theworld in all directions out of his great, deep, unbounded heart. "[156]

Let this, then, be the teleological objective on which the will and thedesire of individual and group are set: and let us ask what it involves, and how it is achieved. It involves all the ardour, tenderness andidealism of the lover, spent not on one chosen object but on all livingthings. Thus it means an immense widening of the arc of human sympathy;and this it is not possible to do properly, unless we have found thecentre of the circle first. The glaring defect of current religion--Imean the vigorous kind, not the kind that is responsible for emptychurches--is that it spends so much time in running round the arc, andrather takes the centre for granted. We see a great deal of love ingenerous-minded people, but also a good many gaps in it which referenceto the centre might help us to find and to mend. Some Christian peopleseem to have a difficulty about loving reactionaries, and some aboutloving revolutionaries. And in institutional religion there are peopleof real ardour, called by those beautiful names Catholic andEvangelical, who do not seem able to see each other in the light of thiswide-spreading love. Yet they would meet at the centre. And it is at thecentre that the real life of the Spirit aims first; thence flowing outto the circumference--even to its most harsh, dark, difficult andrugged limits--in unbroken streams of generous love. 

Such love is creative. It does not flow along the easy paths, spendingitself on the attractive. It cuts new channels, goes where it is needed, and has as its special vocation--a vocation identical with that of thegreat artist--the "loving of the unlovely into lovableness. " Thus doesit participate according to its measure in the work of Divineincarnation. This does not mean a maudlin optimism, or any other kind ofsentimentality; for as we delve more deeply into life, we always leavesentimentality behind. But it does mean a love which is based on a deepunderstanding of man's slow struggles and of the unequal movements oflife, and is expressed in both arduous and highly skillful actions. Itmeans taking the grimy, degraded, misshapen, and trying to get themright; because we feel that essentially they can be right. And further, of course, it means getting behind them to the conditions that controltheir wrongness; and getting these right if we can. Consider what humansociety would be if each of its members--not merely occasionalphilanthropists, idealists or saints, but financiers, politicians, traders, employers, employed--had this quality of spreading a creativelove: if the whole impulse of life in every man and woman were towardssuch a harmony, first with God, and then with all other things andsouls. There is nothing unnatural in this conception. It only means thatour vital energy would flow in its real channel at last. Where thenwould be our most heart-searching social problems? The social order thenwould really be an order; tallying with St. Augustine's definition of avirtuous life as the ordering of love. 

What about the master and the worker in such a possibly regeneratedsocial order? Consider alone the immense release of energy for workneeding to be done, if the civil wars of civilized man could cease andbe replaced by that other mental fight, for the upbuilding of Jerusalem:how the impulse of Creative Spirit, surely working in humanity, wouldfind the way made clear. Would not this, at last, actualize the Paulinedream, of each single citizen as a member of the Body of Christ? It isbecause we are not thus attuned to life, and surrendered to it, that oursocial confusion arises; the conflict of impulse within society simplymirrors the conflict of impulse within each individual mind. 

We know that some of the greatest movements of history, veritabletransformations of the group-mind, can be traced back to a tinybeginning in the faithful spiritual experience and response of some oneman, his contact with the centre which started the ripples of creativelove. If, then, we could elevate such universalized individuals into theposition of herd-leaders, spread their secret, persuade society first toimitate them, and then to share their point of view, the real and sane, because love-impelled social revolution might begin. It will begin, whenmore and ever more people find themselves unable to participate in, orreap advantage from, the things which conflict with love: when tenderemotion in man is so universalized, that it controls the instincts ofacquisitiveness and of self-assertion. There are already for each of ussome things in which we cannot participate, because they conflict tooflagrantly with some aspect of our love, either for truth, or forjustice, or for humanity, or for God; and these things each individual, according to his own level of realization, is bound to oppose withoutcompromise. Most of us have enough widespreading love to be--forinstance--quite free from temptation to be cruel, at any rate directly, to children or to animals. I say nothing about the indirect tortureswhich our sloth and insensitiveness still permit. Were these firstflickers made ardent, and did they control all our reactions tolife--and there is nothing abnormal, no break in continuity involved inthis, only a reasonable growth--then, new paths of social dischargewould have been made for-our chief desires and impulses; and along thesethey would tend more and more to flow freely and easily, establishingnew social-habits, unhampered by solicitations from our savage past. Tous already, on the whole, these solicitations are less insistent thanthey were to the men of earlier centuries. We see their gradual defeatin slave emancipation, factory acts, increased religious tolerance, every movement towards social justice, every increase of the arc overwhich our obligations to other men obtain. They must now disguisethemselves as patriotic or economic necessities, if we are to listen tothem: as, in the Freudian dream, our hidden unworthy wishes slip throughinto consciousness in a symbolic form. But when their energy has beenfully sublimated, the social action will no longer be a conflict but aharmony. Then we shall live the life of Spirit; and from this life willflow all love-inspired reform. 

Yet we are, above all, to avoid the conclusion that the spiritual life, in its social expression, shall necessarily push us towards mere change;that novelty contains everything, and stability nothing, of the will ofthe Spirit for the race. Surely our aim shall be this: that religioussensitiveness shall spread, as our discovery of religion in the universespreads, so that at last every man's reaction to the whole of experienceshall be entinctured with Reality, coloured by this dominantfeeling-tone. Spirit would then work from within outwards, and all lifepersonal and social, mental and physical, would be moulded by itsinspiring power. And in looking here for our best hope of development, we remain safely within history; and do not strive for any desperatepulling down or false simplification of our complex existence, such ashas wrecked many attempts to spiritualize society in the past. 

Consider the way by which we have come. We found in man an instinct fora spiritual Reality. A single, concrete, objective Fact, transcendingyet informing his universe, compels his adoration, and is apperceived byhim in three main ways. First, as the very Being, Heart and Meaning ofthat universe, the universal of all universals, next as a Presenceincluding and exceeding the best that personality can mean to him, lastas an indwelling and energizing Life. We saw in history the persistentemergence of a human type so fully aware of this Reality as to subdue toits interests all the activities of life; ever seeking to incarnate itsabiding values in the world of time. And further, psychology suggestedto us, even in its tentative new findings, its exploration of ourstrange mental deeps, reason for holding such surrender to the purposesof the Spirit to represent the condition of man's fullest psychichealth, and access to his real sources of power. We found in theuniversal existence of religious institutions further evidence of thisprofound human need of spirituality. We saw there the often sharp andsky-piercing intensity of the individual aptitude for Reality enveloped, tempered and made wholesome by the social influences of the cultus andthe group: made too, available for the community by the symbolisms thatcultus had preserved. So that gradually the life of the Spirit emergedfor us as something most actual, not archaic: a perennial possibility ofnewness, of regeneration, a widening of our span of pain and joy. Ahuman fact, completing and most closely linked with those other humanfacts, the vocation to service, to beauty, to truth. A fact, then, which must control our view of personal self-discipline, of education, and of social effort: since it refers to the abiding Reality which alonegives all these their meaning and worth, and which man, consciously orunconsciously, must pursue. 

And last, if we ask as a summing up of the whole matter: _Why_ man isthus to seek the Eternal, through, behind and within the ever-fleeting?The answer is that he cannot, as a matter of fact, help doing it sooneror later: for his heart is never at rest, till it finds itself there. But he often wastes a great deal of time before he realizes this. Andperhaps we may find the reason why man--each man--is thus pressedtowards some measure of union with Reality, in the fact that hisconscious will thus only becomes an agent of the veritable purposes oflife: of that Power which, in and through mankind, conserves and slowlypresses towards realization the noblest aspirations of each soul. Thispower and push we may call if we like in the language of realism thetendency of our space-time universe towards deity; or in the language ofreligion, the working of the Holy Spirit. And since, so far as we know, it is only in man that life becomes self-conscious, and ever more andmore self-conscious, with the deepening and widening of his love and histhought; so it is only in man that it can dedicate the will and desirewhich are life's central qualities to the furtherance of this Divinecreative aim. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 149: "The Mirror of Eternal Salvation, " Cap. 7. ]

[Footnote 150: A good general discussion in Tansley: "The New Psychologyand its Relation to Life, " Caps. 19, 20. ]

[Footnote 151: Aug. Conf. , Bk. X, Cap. 27. ]

[Footnote 152: Blake; "Jerusalem. "]

[Footnote 153: "Social Psychology, " Cap. I. ]

[Footnote 154: "The Interior Castle": Sleuth Habitation, Cap. IV. ]

[Footnote 155: "The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, " Bk. II, Cap. 44. ]

[Footnote 156: Warren: "Buddhism in Translations, " p. 28. ]

PRINCIPAL WORKS USED OR CITED. 

_S. Alexander_. Space, Time, and Deity. London, 1920. 

_Blessed Angela of Foligno_. Book of Divine Consolations (New MediævalLibrary). London, 1908. 

_St. Thomas Aquinas_. Summa Contra Gentiles (Of God and His Creatures), trans. By J. Rickaby, London, 1905. 

_St. Augustine_. Confessions, trans. By Rev. C. Bigg. London, 1898. 

_Venerable Augustine Baker_. Holy Wisdom, or Directions for the Prayerof Contemplation. London, 1908. 

_Charles Baudouin_. Suggestion et Auto-suggestion. Paris, 1920. 

_Harold Begbie_. William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army. London, 1920. 

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_Jacob Boehme_. The Aurora, trans. By J. Sparrow, London, 1914. 

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_G. A. Coe_. A Social Theory of Religious Education. New York, 1920. 

_Benedetto Croce_. Æsthetic, or the Science of Expression, trans. By D. Ainslie. London, 1909. 

--Theory and History of Historiography, trans. By D. Ainslie. London, 1921. 

_Dante Alighieri_. Tutte le Opere. Rived. Nel testo da Dr. E. Moore. Oxford, 1894. 

_Abbot Delatte_. The Benedictine Rule. Eng. Trans. London, 1921. 

_John Donne_. Sermons: Selected Passages, with an Essay by L. PearsallSmith. Oxford, 1919. 

_Meister Eckhart_. Schriften und Predigten aus dem Mittelhochsdeutschen. Ubersetzt und herausgegeben von Buttner. Leipzig, 1903. 

_John Everard_. Some Gospel Treasures Opened. London, 1653. 

_George Fox_. Journal, edited from the MSS. By N. Penney. Cambridge, 1911. 

_Elizabeth Fry_. Memoir with Extracts from her Journals and Letters, edited by two of her Daughters, 2nd. Ed. London, 1848. 

_Edmund Gardner_. St. Catherine of Siena. London, 1907. 

_Gabriela Cunninghame Graham_. St. Teresa, her Life and Times. London, 1894. 

_Viscount Haldane_. The Reign of Relativity. London, 1921. 

_J. O. Hannay_. The Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism. London, 1903. 

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_F. H. Hayward and A. Freeman_. The Spiritual Foundations ofReconstruction. London, 1919. 

_Violet Hodgkin_. A Book of Quarter Saints. London, 1918. 

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_Edmond Holmes_. What Is and What Might Be. London, 1911. 

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--Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion. London, 1921. 

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INDEX

 Abreaction, 109

 Abu Said, 16

 Adolescence, 240 seq. 

 Alexander, S. 26

 Angela of Foligno, Blessed, 99, 130

 Apperception, 179, 284

 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 26, 58, 200

 Asceticism, 69, 89, 288

 Augustine, St. , 8, 13, 27, 60, 198, 202, 208, 270, 273, 295

 Autistic thought, 112, 117, seq. 

 Auto Suggestion _see_ Suggestion

 Baudouin, C. , 144, 173

 Benedict, St. 48, 64, seq. , 68, 210

 Benedictine Order, 52, 61, 64, seq. 

 Bernard, St. 52

 Bhakti Marga, 18, 21

 Bible-reading, 212

 Blake, W. , 11, 33, 46, 71, 277

 Boehme, Jacob, 4, 33, 55, 70, 84, 86, 89, 118, 150, seq. , 198, 201, 204, 244

 Bonaventura, St. , 146

 Booth, General, 54, 59, 63, 96

 Bosanquet, Bernard 6

 Brahmo Samaj, 155

 Brothers of Common Life, 52

 Buddhism, 72, 182, 258, 292

 Butler, Dom C. , 65, 169

 Caird, Edward, 246

 Catherine of Genoa, St. , 55, 67, 70, 71

 Catherine of Siena, St. , 68, 71, 87, 128

 Christianity, Primitive, 56, 164

 Church, 155, seq. Essentials of, 164, seq. , 171 future, 188, 281 gifts of, 161 limitations, 170

 Cloud of Unknowing, The, 87, 96, 104, seq. , 110, 123, 143, 145, 146, 147, 151, 248

 Complex, 108, seq. 

 Conflict, Psychic, 81, 88, 100, 103, 216, seq. 

 Consciousness, 116, seq. Group, 162, seq. , 288, seq. Spiritual, 219, 225

 Contemplation, 17, 121, seq. , 138, seq. , 212, 219 in children, 260

 Conversion, 68, 75, 89, 93, 103, 265

 Croce, Benedetto, 41, 43

 Cultus, 171, seq. 

 Dante, 9

 Delatte, Abbot, 65

 Dionysius, the Areopagite, 9, 141

 Discipleship, 58, 271, seq. 

 Donne, John, 16, 46

 Eckhart, Master, 9, 142

 Education, 102, seq. , 177 seq. Factors of, 231, seq. Spencer on, 234 Spiritual, 179, 206, 228, seq. , 243, seq. , 251, 264 dangers of, 250, seq. , 262

 Emotion, Religious, 18, 99, 145, 250, 263

 Eternal Life, 3, 48, 195, 271

 Everard, John, 35, 40

 Fox, George, 8, 45, 59, 62, 67, 96, 109, 155, 215, 270, 273

 Francis of Assisi, St. , 47, 54, 59, 61, 63, 67, 270, 273

 Friends of God, 63, 271

 Fry, Elizabeth, 55, 63, 210

 Gardner, Edmund, 87

 God, Experience of, 7 seq. , 74, 127, 214, 238, seq. , 252, 275, 298 personality of, 9, seq. , 17 seq. 

 Grace, 138, seq. , 206, 211

 Groot, Gerard, 68

 Groups, 61, 271, 285, seq. 

 Guyon, Madame, 143

 Habit, 85, 90, 102, 172

 Hadfield, J. A. , 100

 Haldane, Viscount, 28

 Hayward, F. H. , 259

 Hinduism, 18, 21, 45, 51, 155, 182

 History and spiritual life, 38, seq. , 212 in education, 256, seq. 

 Höffding, H. , 24, 212

 Hügel, Baron, F. Von, 2, 29, 52, 70, 125, 209 on spiritual life, 195, seq. 

 Humility, 109, 217, 275, 282

 Hymns, 148, 173, seq. 

 Ignatius, Loyola, St. , 61, 68, 95

 Instinct, 76, 78, seq. , 90, seq. , 102, 263 herd, 272 in children, 249

 Intercession, 289

 Introversion, 121

 Isaiah, 12

 Jacopone da Todi, 12, 55, 68, 90, 93, 107, 131

 James, William, 157

 Jerome, St. , 154

 Jesus Christ, 17, 40, 47, 51, 56, 59, 61, 156, 182, 198, 202, 268, 273, 279

 Joan of Arc, St. , 95

 "John Inglesant", 61

 John, St. , 107, 244

 John of the Cross, St. , 128, 208

 Julian of Norwich, 20, 87, 135, 144

 Kabir, 5, 11, 70, 155, 198

 Lawrence, Brother, 55

 Law, William, 27, 90, 91

 Liturgy, _see_ Cultus

 Livingstone, W. P. , 96

 Love, 90, 97, 104, 211, 244, seq. , 292, seq. Defined, 200, seq. 

 Lucie, Christine, 14

 Mass, The, 177

 McDougall, W. , 163, 285

 McGovern, W. M. , 72

 Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. , 89, 129

 Memory, 179, seq. 

 Methodists, 15, 53, 286

 Mind, analysis of, 76, seq. Foreconscious, 117, seq. Instinctive, 89, seq. , 137, seq. Primitive, 82, 99, 104, 181, seq. Rational, 100, seq. Unconscious, 114, seq. , 141, seq. , 230, 264

 Motive, 84, 109

 Mystical Experience, 99, 107, 113

 Nanak, 155

 Nicholson, Reynold, 11, 16, 18, 51, 70

 Pascal, 137

 Patmore, Coventry, 119

 Paul, St. , 13, 52, 55, 63, 68, 81, 83, 95, 136, 210, 244, 269

 Penn, William, 36, 125, 137

 Plotinus, 2, 5, 11, 18, 29, 37, 77, 201, 205

 Pratt, J. B. , 20, 149, 157

 Prayer 52, 108, 113, 120, seq. , 199, 204, seq. , 211, 253, 265, seq. Childrens', 229, 243 corporate, 169, 286 distractions in, 126, 149 education in, 102, 248 of quiet, 124, 141 Sadhu on, 209 short act, 144 and suggestion 138, seq. Vocal, 144 and work, 253

 Psyche, The, 77, seq. , 103, 116, 230

 Purgation, 69, 76, 90, 108, seq. , 218

 Quakers, 63, 164, 174, 258

 Ramakrishna, 149

 Recollection, 123, seq. , 139, 208, 219, seq. Corporate, 281

 Regeneration, 15, 89, 94 corporate, 271, seq. , 293, seq. 

 Religious ceremonies, 173, seq. , 188 education, 179, seq. Institutions, 154, seq. , 281 magic 185, seq. Orders, 60

 Repentance, 108, seq. , 218, 269 social, 275, seq. 

 Reverie, 117, 122, seq. 

 Richard of St. Victor, 55, 58

 Rolle, Richard, 41, seq. , 67

 Rosary, 144

 Russell, Bertrand, 102, 179

 Ruysbroeck, 17, 17, 51, 54, seq. , 106, 120, seq. , 126, 142, 199, 212, 261, 270, 292

 Sacrifice, 185

 Sadhu, Sundar, Singh, 68, 130, 209

 Saints, 41, 257

 Salvation, 76, 89, seq. 

 Salvation Army, 48, 91, 260, 286

 Semon, R. , 179

 Sin, 76, 81, 85, seq. , 109, 149, 218 corporate, 276

 Sins, Seven Deadly, 93

 Slessor, Mary, 54, seq. , 96

 Social reform, 282, seq. , 296 service, 267, seq. 

 Spencer, Herbert, 234

 Spirit of Power, 13, 52, 62, 222, 290

 Spiritual Life in adolescence, 247, seq. Characters of, 22, seq. , 32, 43, 54, 58, 64, 76, 96, seq. , 158, seq. , 192, seq. , 221, seq. , 261, 269, 274, seq. , 283, 292, 298 contagious, 56, seq. , 72, 169, 261, 273, 285, seq. , 295 corporate, 58, 153, seq. , 168, 250, 254, 275, seq. , 285, seq. Dangers of 99, seq. , 263 development of, 67, seq. , 108, 213, seq. And education, 228, seq. And history, 38, seq. , 159, seq. , 212 and institutions 158, seq. Personal, 191, seq. , 250, seq. , 256, 268, 274 and prayer, 204, seq. And, psychology, 76, seq. , 195, seq. And reading, 211 social, aspect of, 266, seq. And work, 222, 253, 256, 282

 Spiritual Type, 51, 192, seq. , 226

 Stigmata, 134

 Streeter, B. H. , 47, 130

 Sublimation, 91, 96, seq. , 110, 201. 297

 Sufis, 11, 16, 18, 51, 59, 70, 155, 258

 Suggestion, 75, 103, 132, seq. , 167 and faith, 137 laws of, 141, seq. In worship, 148, 173, seq. 

 Surrender, 220, 299

 Symbols, 127, seq. , 173, seq. , 180, seq. 

 Tagore, Maharerhi Devendranath, 13, 14, 51, 67, 213

 Tansley, C. , 272

 Tauler, 257, 282

 Teresa, St, 47, 54, 61, 69, 71, 88, 95, 123, 142, 150, 202, 212, 290

 Theologia, Germanica, 211, 222

 Thérèse de l'Enfant, Jésus, Vénérable, 137, 148

 Thomas à Kempis, 48, 83, 128, 139, 198, 212

 Trinity, Doctrine of, 14

 Trotter, W. F. , 168

 Unamuno, Don M. De, 10, 85

 Unification, 98, seq. , 110, 195, 198, 221, 227, 278

 Union with God, 67, 72, 204, 291, 299

 Upton, T. , 10

 Varendonck, J. , 117

 Vincent de Paul, St. 55

 Virtues, Evangelical, 94

 Visions, 129, seq. 

 Vocation, 220, 225, 294, 300

 Wesley, John, 53, 55, 62, 71, 210, 270

 Work, 222, 253, 282

 Worship, 175, 255, 260