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VERY UEV. W. E. INGE, M.A., D.D., ON 



He could not close without alluding also with great pleasure to 

 the wonderful glimpses of the future state that Dean Inge had given 

 with so much eloquence. All present had had a great privilege in 

 listening to such a paper. 



Mrs. E. Herman (author of The Meaning and Value of Mysticism, 

 who was present by invitation of the Council) was called upon by 

 the Chairman to open the discussion. 



Mrs. Herman said : It gives me peculiar pleasure to be here — 

 thanks to the kindness of the Council — and to enjoy the privilege of 

 listening to Dean Inge, to whom, in common with all students of 

 Mysticism, I am under great obligation. May I be permitted to 

 say, that in my own humble efforts to help students of Mysticism 

 towards a just appreciation of its main tendencies, I have consist- 

 ently striven to show that all valid Mysticism involves intellectual 

 activity of the highest order, and that I owe my convictions upon 

 this point to the influence of the Dean's Bampton Lectures on 

 "Christian Mysticism," which first set me to investigate the 

 philosophical affiliations of the great Mystics. In expressing my 

 high admiration of the paper to which we have just listened, I 

 would only draw attention to a question asked at its close. " What 

 relation," asked Dean Inge, "has Mysticism to Christian thinking?" 

 The connection in which this question was put suggests at least an 

 alleged cleavage between mystical philosophy and Christian thought. 

 I venture to submit that there is indeed such a cleavage, and that 

 while Mysticism represents an integral element of Christianity — the 

 element of inwardness — it has not provided a fruitful principle for 

 Christian thinking. I cannot substantiate this position in any 

 convincing manner in so short a time; I can only indicate its basis. 



Briefly, the cleavage between mystical theology and the main 

 stream of Christian thought is that the former centres in the 

 Incarnation, while the latter finds its normative principle in the 

 Cross. It arises out of a living experience of redemption, and it is 

 this experience, and not Neoplatonic speculation, as we find it in 

 the philosophical mystics, that has proved the source of the most 

 influential developments of theology. Church history is one long- 

 commentary upon this text. The great thinkers who made Church 

 history were men who sought to formulate, not a Christology 

 primarily, but a Soteriology : men whose interest in redemption 

 was the animating pulse of all their thought. I need only remind 



