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VERY EEV. W. R. INGE^, M.A., D.D.^ ON 



spiritual life has its own laws, which are different from those of 

 the body — I will even say, adopting the tripartite classification 

 of our natures into body, soul, and spirit, that the laws of spirit 

 are different from the laws of soul. I think we shall under- 

 stand the mystics better, and even more scientifically, if we 

 adopt provisionally their own point of view, and assume that 

 when they tell us that they have had an illumination from 

 above, they are speaking the truth, and are neither deceivers nor 

 deceived. 



I shall therefore not take the psychologist's standpoint in 

 speaking of mysticism ; I shall rather assume the mystical 

 experience as a fact, guaranteed by the numerous persons who 

 have testified to it. And I wish in this address to consider the 

 special characteristics of the intellectual life of the mystic. 

 Some of you may feel inclined to protest that the intellect is 

 not an active or necessary factor in mysticism. The mystical 

 experience, it will be said, is pure, immediate feeling, a thing 

 given as it is. It is purest and most trustworthy when it is 

 taken simply as it is, not " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 

 thought." The intellect, it will be said, loorks over the remem- 

 bered experience, the wonderful illumination, and distorts it. 

 It selects, rejects, and rearranges ; it moulds the experience in 

 accordance with preconceived notions — e.g., the scholastics of 

 mysticism have often arrayed mystical experiences in a chrono- 

 logical order. According to these authorities, the first stage is 

 a period of disquietude and oscillation, in which the subject, 

 uncertain what he is seeking and how to get it, renounces effort 

 and abandons himself to passivity. Then comes the response — 

 the period of visions and auditions, of trance and ecstasy — all 

 the " mystical phenomena." Thirdly, a period of depression, 

 pain, and feeling of dereliction. Lastly, of expansion and 

 tranquil joy, when the soul has recovered from its sickness, and 

 knows that it has what it desired. Or, again, another scheme 

 divides the ascent of the soul into three stages of purification, 

 illuminati(m, and union. But are these stages really experi- 

 enced, and always in the prescribed order ? Or does the 

 intellect impose its own forms upon the memory, giving the 

 experience a shape and order which they had not of themselves ? 

 Again, how often the intellect has interpreted the mystical 

 experience in terms of dogma or philosophy ! The mysterious 

 visitant of the soul, which at the time merely appeared as 

 something divine, something not ourselves and higher than 

 ourselves, is invested by the intellect with the attributes 

 of Christ or the Virgin Mary. The mystical state, which is 



