16 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



spiritual experience and direct personal apprehension 

 of God as the fundamental religious verity. 



This is the position of the moderate and sane mystic, 

 who, declaring that the Kingdom of God is within, 



Mysticism studies the soul in its relations with the 

 and Dogma. res t of God's creation by an inward exten- 

 sion of the open-minded method of experience proper 

 to natural science. The passionate love of nature, 

 which is characteristic of such great mystics as St 

 Francis of Assisi, gives, when directed to its systematic 

 study, an intuitive insight concerning its workings 

 that bears other fruit in the life and work of Paracelsus, 

 of Kepler, of Newton, and countless pioneers, who 

 turned at times from the laborious methods of observa- 

 tion, experiment and mathematical calculation to fare 

 forth in travel, " voyaging over strange seas of thought 

 alone." " Truth and Freedom," as the birthright of 

 each individual, were alike the watchwords of mystic 

 and of man of science, although, setting out under 

 the same banner, they attained thereby very different 

 results. 



If we contrast this attitude of mind with that pre- 

 valent among the peoples of the south of Europe, and 

 with that of the early inhabitants of Assyria and 

 Egypt, we are at once struck with a complete differ- 

 ence of outlook. St Francis, the Northerner, like 

 Pythagoras of Samos, man of learning and mystic, 

 some two thousand years before him, preached to 

 his brothers, the birds. The Southern Italian ill-treats 

 his mules, on the understanding that they have 

 neither souls nor feelings ; while the modern Levantine 

 pursues the same course, dubbing the four-footed 



