Nineteenth-Century Science and Religion ly^ 



object, by a Divine Being, existing outside the mystic's conscious- 

 ness. In order to be able to say that, it is necessary to make a 

 decision, to pass beyond the moment lived, and to give an interpre- 

 tation of it in intellectual terms. It is not the state of ecstasy 

 alone, therefore, which constitutes the certain revelation of the 

 reality of God, but the intellectual interpretation which the mystic, 

 restored to himself, makes of what he has experienced. Without 

 the function of the intelligence as judge, therefore, the ecstasy 

 would have no discernible significance. 



Further, can we accept with closed eyes the idea that the in- 

 terpretation given by the mystic of his subjective experiences is 

 correct ? Can we bluntly exclude a priori the possibility of errors 

 and illusions .? 



The content of the revelations which the mystics say they have 

 had, the truths which they say they have gathered by direct intui- 

 tion in the state of ecstasy, vary according to the different religions. 

 Which of them is to be held as true ? If the attestations are 

 contradictory, it is clear that some of them at least must have 

 exchanged subjective phenomena of their consciences for 

 objective revelations. 



James sees this clearly, and does not hesitate to regard the 

 incidents described by the mystics as hallucinations, from which 

 it is necessary to purify religious experience, which consists 

 essentially of that feeling of the presence of, and of contact with, a 

 vaster life which has no representation. But how can this feeling, 

 we insist, guarantee to us the reality of its object ? And can it 

 alone exhaust the religious life ^ 



Feeling cannot reveal to us the fullness or the completeness 

 of reality. It is merely a moment of consciousness, which does 

 not include in itself the whole of our personality, and still less can 

 it include the life of other souls or of the whole universe. Any 

 particular emotion reveals no more than itself — a fugitive moment 

 of one's life, and nothing more which differs from itself. Pain, 

 for instance, as a pure feeling, tells us nothing concerning the 

 causes which have produced it, unless there is added to it a represen- 

 tation, a concept, or an opinion. " I experience fear or veneration " 

 — this is a sentimental experience. But the sentiment, as such, 

 does not tell me whether this fear or this veneration comes from 

 any other man whatsoever or from a Supreme Being. In order, 

 therefore, to distinguish the emotion which one feels towards 



