84 



VERY EEV. W. E. INGE^ M.A.^ J).D., ON 



has to acknowledge that the whole book, the completed thought, is 

 lying there open to view. 



It is difficult, as the writer has pointed out, for those who have 

 not gone through a certain experience, to understand the language 

 of the Mystics ; the experience is not in any way a vision in the 

 ordinary acceptance of the word, it is not anything that can be seen, 

 heard or felt by the touch, it is entirely independent of the physical 

 senses. The " still small voice," which may at times of rapture be 

 momentarily experienced in music, is something much more wonder- 

 ful than can be formed by sounds ; but it cannot be held or described 

 in finite words, and yet it is much more real and dear to us than the 

 outward physical impression. 



Intellection tries to solve the question of questions in the form : 

 " Can I (with my intellect) find out the Absolute so that I may 

 possess him 1 " And the answer ever comes back : " No, because I 

 am trying to storm the Sanctuary of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, 

 by means of a ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite concep- 

 tions, and can deal therefore only with the shadows cast by the 

 outlying ramparts upon our physical plane " ; he is, of course, looking 

 in the wrong direction, namely, outward instead of inward ; but the 

 Mystic asks the question : " Can the Absolute find me out and 

 possess me, and thus make me feel that that which is within me is 

 akin to, is, in fact, a part of Him, and that I am possessed thereby 1 

 And the answer ever comes back from those who are on the true 

 Quest : " Yes, because the Unthinkable, the Hidden, which desires 

 to be found, is ever trying to come into our consciousness to waken 

 the knowledge that His Sanctuary, or what is called the Kingdom 

 of Heaven, is within us, that we are not an external but an internal 

 creation of the All-loving." Such a realization, like the " still small 

 voice " in music, is far above analysis and synthesis or intellectual 

 gymnastics as employed by Intellection. 



Rev. John Tuckwell, M.E.A.S. : — I am much disappointed at 

 being unable to be present at the reading of this paper. It is a 

 subject in which I feel a deep interest, and there are some questions 

 relating to it on which I should have welcomed further information. 



I have accepted the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as 

 true, but the Mystics tell us that they have come into direct contact, 

 at the summit of the " mystical ladder" (page 60), with the Infinite 

 or Absolute or Ultimate Reality, and often epell those terms witk 



