i8 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



pursuits which illustrate our affinity with the past : it is 

 a highly refined, highly civilised pursuit, demanding, for 

 its success, a certain liberation from the life of instinct, 

 and even, at times, a certain aloofness from all mundane 

 hopes and fears. It is not in philosophy, therefore, that 

 we can hope to see intuition at its best. On the contrary, 

 since the true objects of philosophy, and the habit of 

 thought demanded for their apprehension, are strange, 

 unusual, and remote, it is here, more almost than any- 

 where else, that intellect proves superior to intuition, 

 and that quick unanalysed convictions are least deserving 

 of uncritical acceptance. 



In advocating the scientific restraint and balance, as 

 against the self-assertion of a confident reliance upon 

 intuition, we are only urging, in the sphere of knowledge, 

 that largeness of contemplation, that impersonal dis- 

 interestedness, and that freedom from practical pre- 

 occupations which have been inculcated by all the great 

 religions of the world. Thus our conclusion, however it 

 may conflict with the explicit beliefs of many mystics, is, 

 in essence, not contrary to the spirit which inspires those 

 beliefs, but rather the outcome of this very spirit as 

 applied in the realm of thought. 



II. UNITY AND PLURALITY 



One of the most convincing aspects of the mystic 

 illumination is the apparent revelation of the oneness of 

 all things, giving rise to pantheism in religion and to 

 monism in philosophy. An elaborate logic, beginning 

 with Parmenides, and culminating in Hegel and his 

 followers, has been gradually developed, to prove that 

 the universe is one indivisible Whole, and that what 

 seem to be its parts, if considered as substantial and self- 



