d with the physical world. And when truth is treated in this manner,
it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul.
Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because
the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to
the senses. The result is that the full power of the truth fails to
produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically
the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work. The
higher truth--the higher spiritual life--has not become anything more
than a fact of knowledge or a probability. It has not become one's own
life. It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomes
_one's own life_, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible
for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent
governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic
movement. This is the presupposition of religion: it testifies that
within man's soul there appears something higher than sense or
intellect, but which remains surrounded by alien elements which impose
checks to its further development. It is quite evident that the
appearance of [p.140] truths which are absolute and complete within the
life is in direct antagonism to much that was previously present within
it. This fundamental fact, however, is not evident without a great deal
of attention paid to the nature of the higher elements which present
themselves. Without comparing the values of the higher and the lower
elements, how is it ever possible to know what they are and what they
mean? When the whole being attends to both elements--higher and
lower--there is no possibility of making a mistake concerning the
_different_ values of what are presented. A higher grade of reality
reveals itself over against all that had been previously gained. The
soul is forced to admit that something of a higher nature than it
hitherto possessed seeks admission. And this Higher, if it enters into
the whole of life, so far from revealing itself as a continuation of
what had already happened, reveals itself as something which is
discontinuous with the ordinary life, and superior even to the highest
attainments of the intellectual life. And it is this aspect which
produces the conviction of such a revelation as being _objective_ in its
very nature. It belongs to something or somebody outside our own
individual experience or achievement. That there is