SYMBOLIC AND INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE 321 



But I cannot think there is much amiss with our appre- 

 ciation of the natural scene that so impresses us. I do 

 not think a being more highly endowed than ourselves 

 would prune away much of what we feel. It is not so 

 much that the feeling itself is at fault as that our 

 introspective examination of it wraps it in fanciful 

 imagery. If I were to try to put into words the essen- 

 tial truth revealed in the mystic experience, it would be 

 that our minds are not apart from the world; and the 

 feelings that we have of gladness and melancholy and 

 our yet deeper feelings are not of ourselves alone, but 

 are glimpses of a reality transcending the narrow limits 

 of our particular consciousness — that the harmony and 

 beauty of the face of Nature is at root one with the 

 gladness that transfigures the face of man. We try to 

 express much the same truth when we say that the 

 physical entities are only an extract of pointer readings 

 and beneath them is a nature continuous with our own. 

 But I do not willingly put it into words or subject it to 

 introspection. We have seen how in the physical world 

 the meaning is greatly changed when we contemplate 

 it as surveyed from without instead of, as it essentially 

 must be, from within. By introspection we drag out the 

 truth for external survey; but in the mystical feeling 

 the truth is apprehended from within and is, as it should 

 be, a part of ourselves. 



Symbolic Knowledge and Intimate Knowledge. May I 

 elaborate this objection to introspection? We have two 

 kinds of knowledge which I call symbolic knowledge 

 and intimate knowledge. I do not know whether it 

 would be correct to say that reasoning is only applicable 

 to symbolic knowledge, but the more customary forms 

 of reasoning have been developed for symbolic know- 



