DEFENCE OF MYSTICISM 325 



exact knowledge, and that it is difficult to imagine that 

 anything corresponding to exact science will ever be 

 applicable to this part of our environment, the mystic 

 is unrepentant. Because we are unable to render exact 

 account of our environment it does not follow that it 

 would be better to pretend that we live in a vacuum. 



If the defence may be considered to have held good 

 against the first onslaught, perhaps the next stage of the 

 attack will be an easy tolerance. "Very well. Have it 

 your own way. It is a harmless sort of belief — not like 

 a more dogmatic theology. You want a sort of spiritual 

 playground for those queer tendencies in man's nature, 

 which sometimes take possession of him. Run away 

 and play then; but do not bother the serious people who 

 are making the world go round." The challenge now 

 comes not from the scientific materialism which pro- 

 fesses to seek a natural explanation of spiritual power, 

 but from the deadlier moral materialism which despises 

 it. Few deliberately hold the philosophy that the forces 

 of progress are related only to the material side of our 

 environment, but few can claim that they are not more 

 or less under its sway. We must not interrupt the 

 "practical men", these busy moulders of history carry- 

 ing us at ever-increasing pace towards our destiny as 

 an ant-heap of humanity infesting the earth. But is it 

 true in history that material forces have been the 

 most potent factors? Call it of God, of the Devil, 

 fanaticism, unreason; but do not underrate the power of 

 the mystic. Mysticism may be fought as error or believed 

 as inspired, but it is no matter for easy tolerance — 



We are the music-makers 



And we are the dreamers of dreams 



Wandering by lone sea-breakers 

 And sitting by desolate streams ; 



