Source:
W. R. Inge, Light, life and love - Selections from the German
Mystics of the Middle Ages, 1904
Page 23
9.
MODERN MYSTICISM
The revival of interest in the old mystical
writers is not surprising when we consider the whole trend of modern thought.
Among recent philosophers--though Lotze, perhaps the greatest name among them,
is unsympathetic, in consequence of his over-rigid theory of personality--the
great psychologist Fechner, whose religious philosophy is not so well known in
this country as it deserves to be, has with some justice been called a mystic.
And our own greatest living metaphysician, Mr F.H. Bradley, has expounded the
dialectic of speculative mysticism with unequalled power, though with a bias
against Christianity. Another significant fact is the great popularity, all over
Europe, of Maeterlinck's mystical works, "Le Tresor des Humbles,"
"La Sagesse et la Destine," and "Le Temple Enseveli."
The growing science of psychology has begun
to turn its attention seriously to the study of the religious faculty. Several
able men have set themselves to collect material which may form the basis of an
inductive science. Personal experiences, communicated by many persons of both
sexes and of various ages, occupations, and levels of culture, have been brought
together and tabulated. It is claimed that important facts have already been
established, particularly in connexion with the phenomena of conversion, by this
method. The results have certainly been more than enough to justify confidence
in the soundness of the method, and hope that the new science may have a great
future before it. Towards mysticism, recent writers on the psychology of
religion have been less favourable than the pure metaphysicians. While the
latter have shown a tendency towards Pantheism and Determinism, which makes them
sympathise with the general trend of speculative mysticism, psychology seems
just at present to lean towards a pluralistic metaphysic and a belief in
free-will or even in chance. This attitude is especially noticeable in the now
famous Gifford Lectures of Professor William James[xxxi]
and in the recent volume of essays written at Oxford.[xxxii]
But even if the rising tide of neo-Kantianism should cause the speculative
mystics to be regarded with disfavour, nothing can prevent the religion of the
twentieth century from being mystical in type. The strongest wish of a vast
number of earnest men and women to-day is for a basis of religious belief which
shall rest, not upon tradition or external authority or historical evidence, but
upon the ascertainable facts of human experience. The craving for immediacy,
which we have seen to be characteristic of all mysticism, now takes the form of
a desire to establish the validity of the God-consciousness as a normal part of
the healthy inner life. We may perhaps venture to predict that the Christian
biologist of the future will turn the Pauline Christology into his own dialect
somewhat after the following fashion:--"The function of religion in the
human race is closely analogous to, if not identical with, that of instinct in
the lower animals. Religion is the racial will to live; not, however, to live
anyhow and at all costs, but to live as human beings, conforming as far as
possible to the highest type of humanity. Religion, therefore, acts as a higher
instinct, inhibiting all self-destroying and race-destroying impulses in the
interest of a larger self than the individual life." To turn this statement
into theological form it is only necessary to claim that the "perfect
man" which the religious instinct is trying to form is "the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ," that that perfect humanity was once
realised in the historical Christ, and that the higher instinct within
us--ourselves, yet not ourselves--which makes for life and righteousness, and is
the source of all the good that we can think, say, or do, may (in virtue of that
historical incarnation) be justly called the indwelling Christ. This is
all that the Christian mystic needs.
