MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 31 



happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it 

 directly ; and it would seem that the same is true of the 

 good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget good 

 and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely 

 to achieve good than those who view the world through 

 the distorting medium of their own desires. 



We are thus brought back to our seeming paradox, 

 that a philosophy which does not seek to impose upon 

 the world its own conceptions of good and evil is not only 

 more likely to achieve truth, but is also the outcome of a 

 higher ethical standpoint than one which, like evolu- 

 tionism and most traditional systems, is perpetually 

 appraising the universe and seeking to find in it an 

 embodiment of present ideals. In rehgion, and in every 

 deeply serious view of the world and of human destiny, 

 there is an element of submission, a realisation of the 

 limits of human power, which is somewhat lacking in 

 the modern world, with its quick material successes and 

 its insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress. 

 " He that loveth his life shall lose it " ; and there is 

 danger lest, through a too confident love of life, life itself 

 should lose much of what gives it its highest worth. The 

 submission which religion inculcates in action is essen- 

 tially the same in spirit as that which science teaches in 

 thought ; and the ethical neutrahty by which its victories 

 have been achieved is the outcome of that submission. 



The good which it concerns us to remember is the good 

 which it lies in our power to create ^the good in our own 

 lives and in our attitude towards the world. Insistence 

 on belief in an external realisation of the good is a form 

 of self-assertion, which, while it cannot secure the 

 external good which it desires, can seriously impair the 

 inward good which lies within our power, and destroy that 

 reverence towards fact which constitutes both what is 



