a fact that we cannot afford to disregard. But in our final
decision in so high and difficult a matter nothing can be allowed to
claim an universal assent except the rhythmic activity of the soul's
apex-thought in its supreme moments.

At this point in our argument it is advisable to glance backward
over the way we have come; because the reality of this "eternal
vision" depends, more than has as yet been understood, upon our
whole attitude to the mystery of personality, and to the place of
personality, as the secret of the world.

The feeling which we have about the emotion of love, as if it were
a thing pouring through us from some unfathomable depth, does
not imply that "the invisible companions" are themselves that
depth. The "invisible companions" are not in any sense connected
with the conception of an "over-soul." That "depth," from which
the power of creative love pours forth, is not the "depth" of any
"over-soul" but is the depth of our own unfathomable nature.

The introduction of "something behind the universe," the
introduction of some "parent" or "first cause" of the universe, from
which we have to suppose this secret of love as emerging, is as
unnecessary as it is unbeautiful. It does nothing but fling the
mystery one step further back without in the least elucidating it;
and in thus throwing it back it thins it out and cheapens it. There is
nothing which appeals to the aesthetic sense about this hypothesis
of an "over-soul" from whose universal being the ideas of beauty
and truth and goodness may be supposed to proceed. It is a clumsy
and crude speculation, easy to be grasped by the superficial mind,
and with an air of profundity which is entirely deceptive.

So far from being a spiritual conception, this conception of an
over-soul, existing just behind the material universe and pouring
forth indiscriminately its "truth," "beauty," "nobility" and "love,"
is an entirely materialistic one. It is a clumsy and crude metaphor
or analogy drawn from the objective world and projected into that
region of sheer unfathomableness which lies beyond human
thought.

When the conception of the over-soul is submitted to analysis it is
found to consist of nothing else than vague images drawn from
material sensation. We think of the world for instance as a vast
porous sponge continually penetrated by a flood of water or air or
vapour drawn from some hidden cistern or reservoir or cosmic
lake. The modern theological ex