s island are exercising more
influence on thought than any other men, for good or for evil.
Coleridge and Alexander Knox have changed the minds, and with them
the acts, of thousands; and when they are accused of having
originated, unknowingly, the whole "Tractarian" movement, those who
have watched English thought carefully can only answer, that on the
confession of the elder Tractarians themselves, the allegation is
true: but that they originated a dozen other "movements" beside in
the most opposite directions, and that free-thinking Emersonians will
be as ready as Romish perverts and good plain English churchmen to
confess that the critical point of their life was determined by the
writings of the fakeer of Highgate. At this very time too, the only
real mystic of any genius who is writing and teaching is exercising
more practical influence, infusing more vigorous life into the minds
of thousands of men and women, than all the other teachers of England
put together; and has set rolling a ball which may in the next half
century gather into an avalanche, perhaps utterly different in form,
material, and direction, from all which he expects.

So much for mystics being unpractical. If we look faithfully into
the meaning of their name, we shall see why, for good or for evil,
they cannot be unpractical; why they, let them be the most self-
absorbed of recluses, are the very men who sow the seeds of great
schools, great national and political movements, even great
religions.

A mystic--according to the Greek etymology--should signify one who is
initiated into mysteries, one whose eyes are opened to see things
which other people cannot see. And the true mystic in all ages and
countries, has believed that this was the case with him. He believes
that there is an invisible world as well as a visible one--so do most
men: but the mystic believes also that this same invisible world is
not merely a supernumerary one world more, over and above the earth
on which he lives, and the stars over his head, but that it is the
cause of them and the ground of them; that it was the cause of them
at first, and is the cause of them now, even to the budding of every
flower, and the falling of every pebble to the ground; and therefore,
that having been before this visible world, it will be after it, and
endure just as real, living, and eternal, though matter were
annihilated to-morrow.

"But, on this showing, every Christian, nay, every re