SCIENCE AND MYSTICISM 319 



single-minded purpose to ensuring that qp — pq shall be 

 equal to ih/m. 



In a previous chapter I have tried to show that by 

 following this course we reach a cyclic scheme which 

 from its very nature can only be a partial expression of 

 our environment. It is not reality but the skeleton of 

 reality. "Actuality" has been lost in the exigencies of 

 the chase. Having first rejected the mind as a worker 

 of illusion we have in the end to return to the mind and 

 say, "Here are worlds well and truly built on a basis 

 more secure than your fanciful illusions. But there is 

 nothing to make any one of them an actual world. 

 Please choose one and weave your fanciful images into 

 it. That alone can make it actual". We have torn away 

 the mental fancies to get at the reality beneath, only to 

 find that the reality of that which is beneath is bound 

 up with its potentiality of awakening these fancies. It 

 is because the mind, the weaver of illusion, is also the 

 only guarantor of reality that reality is always to be 

 sought at the base of illusion. Illusion is to reality as 

 the smoke to the fire. I will not urge that hoary un- 

 truth "There is no smoke without fire". But it is 

 reasonable to inquire whether in the mystical illusions of 

 man there is not a reflection of an underlying reality. 



To put a plain question — Why should it be good for 

 us to experience a state of self-deception such as I have 

 described? I think everyone admits that it is good to 

 have a spirit sensitive to the influences of Nature, good 

 to exercise an appreciative imagination and not always 

 to be remorselessly dissecting our environment after 

 the manner of the mathematical physicists. And it is 

 good not merely in a utilitarian sense, but in some 

 purposive sense necessary to the fulfilment of the life 

 that is given us. It is not a dope which it is expedient 



