pher Harvey; Blake and Francis Thompson.

Bibliography

Index

Mysticism in English Literature

Chapter I

Introduction

Mysticism is a term so irresponsibly applied in English that it has
become the first duty of those who use it to explain what they mean by
it. The _Concise Oxford Dictionary_ (1911), after defining a mystic as
"one who believes in spiritual apprehension of truths beyond the
understanding," adds, "whence _mysticism_ (n.) (often contempt)."
Whatever may be the precise force of the remark in brackets, it is
unquestionably true that mysticism is often used in a semi-contemptuous
way to denote vaguely any kind of occultism or spiritualism, or any
specially curious or fantastic views about God and the universe.

The word itself was originally taken over by the Neo-platonists from the
Greek mysteries, where the name of [Greek: mystes] given to the
initiate, probably arose from the fact that he was one who was gaining a
knowledge of divine things about which he must keep his mouth shut
([Greek: myo] = close lips or eyes). Hence the association of secrecy or
"mystery" which still clings round the word.

Two facts in connection with mysticism are undeniable whatever it may
be, and whatever part it is destined to play in the development of
thought and of knowledge. In the first place, it is the leading
characteristic of some of the greatest thinkers of the world--of the
founders of the Eastern religions of Plato and Plotinus, of Eckhart and
Bruno, of Spinoza, Goethe, and Hegel. Secondly, no one has ever been a
lukewarm, an indifferent, or an unhappy mystic. If a man has this
particular temperament, his mysticism is the very centre of his being:
it is the flame which feeds his whole life; and he is intensely and
supremely happy just so far as he is steeped in it.

Mysticism is, in truth, a temper rather than a doctrine, an atmosphere
rather than a system of philosophy. Various mystical thinkers have
contributed fresh aspects of Truth as they saw her, for they have caught
glimpses of her face at different angles, transfigured by diverse
emotions, so that their testimony, and in some respects their views, are
dissimilar to the point of contradiction. Wordsworth, for instance,
gained his revelation of divinity through Nature, and through Nature
alone; whereas to Blake "Nature was a hindrance," and Imagination the
only reality. But all alike agree in one respect, in one passionate
asse