8 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



interesting strain of mysticism which pervades Plato's 

 thought the mysticism which may be called " logical ' 

 because it is embodied in theories on logic. This form of 

 mysticism, which appears, so far as the West is con- 

 cerned, to have originated with Parmenides, dominates 

 the reasonings of all the great mystical metaphysicians 

 from his day to that of Hegel and his modern disciples. 

 Reality, he says, is uncreated, indestructible, unchanging, 

 indivisible ; it is " immovable in the bonds of mighty 

 chains, without beginning and without end ; since coming 

 into being and passing away have been driven afar, and 

 true belief has cast them away." The fundamental 

 principle of his inquiry is stated in a sentence which 

 would not be out of place in Hegel : " Thou canst not 

 know what is not that is impossible nor utter it ; for 

 it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be." 

 And again : ' It needs must be that what can be thought 

 and spoken of is ; for it is possible for it to be, and it is 

 not possible for what is nothing to be." The impossi- 

 bility of change follows from this principle ; for what is 

 past can be spoken of, and therefore, by the principle, 

 still is. 



Mystical philosophy, in all ages and in all parts of the 

 world, is characterised by certain beliefs which are illus- 

 trated by the doctrines we have been considering. 



There is, first, the belief in insight as against discur- 

 sive analytic knowledge : the belief in a way of wisdom, 

 sudden, penetrating, coercive, which is contrasted with 

 the slow and fallible study of outward appearance by a 

 science relying wholly upon the senses. All who are 

 capable of absorption in an inward passion must have 

 experienced at times the strange feeling of unreality in 

 common objects, the loss of contact with daily things, in 

 which the solidity of the outer world is lost, and the soul 



