any other miracle; the latter appears to be more
acceptable to those of more advanced religious views. Both conceptions,
however, imply that the religious truth of revelation was communicated to
man by a special act of God.

2. Each creative act is a mystery beyond the reach of human observation.
In all fields of endeavor the flashing forth of genius impresses us as the
work of a mysterious force, which acts upon an elect individual or nation
and brings it into close touch with the divine. In the religious genius
especially is this true; for in him all the spiritual forces of the age
seem to be energized and set into motion, then to burst forth into a new
religious consciousness, which is to revolutionize religious thought and
feeling. In a child-like age when the emotional life and the imagination
predominate, and man's mind, still receptive, is overwhelmed by mighty
visions, the Deity stirs the soul in some form perceptible to the senses.
Thus the "seer" assumes a trance-like state where the Ego, the
self-conscious personality, is pushed into the background; he becomes a
passive instrument, the mouthpiece of the Deity; from Him he receives a
message to the people, and in his vision he beholds God who sends him.
This appearance of God upon the background of the soul, which reflects Him
like a mirror, is Revelation.(74)

3. The states of the soul when men see such visions of the Deity
predominate in the beginnings of all religions. Accordingly, Scripture
ascribes such revelations to non-Israelites as well as to the patriarchs
and prophets of Israel,--to Abimelek and Laban, Balaam, Job, and
Eliphaz.(75) Therefore the Jewish prophet is not distinguished from the
rest by the capability to receive divine revelation, but rather by the
intrinsic nature of the revelation which he receives. His vision comes
from a moral God. The Jewish genius perceived God as the moral power of
life, whether in the form expressed by Abraham, Moses, Elijah, or by the
literary prophets, and all of these, coming into touch with Him, were
lifted into a higher sphere, where they received a new truth, hitherto
hidden from man. In speaking through them, God appeared actually to have
stepped into the sphere of human life as its moral Ruler. This
self-revelation of God as the Ruler of man in righteousness, which must be
viewed in the life of any prophet as a providential act, forms the great
historical sequence in the history of Israel, upon which rest