MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 27 



ness is relative to ourselves and our needs, and disappears 

 in an impartial survey. Some such distinction, I think, 

 is necessary in order to understand the ethical outlook 

 of mysticism : there is a lower mundane kind of good 

 and evil, which divides the world of appearance into 

 what seem to be conflicting parts ; but there is also a 

 higher, mystical kind of good, which belongs to Reality 

 and is not opposed by any correlative kind of evil. 



It is difficult to give a logically tenable account of this 

 position without recognising that good and evil are sub- 

 jective, that what is good is merely that towards which 

 we have one kind of feeling, and what is evil is merely 

 that towards which we have another kind of feeling. In 

 our active life, where we have to exercise choice, and to 

 prefer this to that of two possible acts, it is necessary to 

 have a distinction of good and evil, or at least of better 

 and worse. But this distinction, like everything per- 

 taining to action, belongs to what mysticism regards as 

 the world of illusion, if only because it is essentially 

 concerned with time. In our contemplative life, where 

 action is not called for, it is possible to be impartial, and 

 to overcome the ethical dualism which action requires. 

 So long as we remain merely impartial, we may be content 

 to say that both the good and the evil of action are 

 illusions. But if, as we must do if we have the mystic 

 vision, we find the whole world worthy of love and 

 worship, if we see 



1 The earth, and every common sight. . 

 Apparell'd in celestial light," 



we shall say that there is a higher good than that of 

 action, and that this higher good belongs to the whole 

 world as it is in reality. In this way the twofold attitude 

 and the apparent vacillation of mysticism are explained 

 and justified. 



