Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays

MYSTICISM AN 7 D LOGICHeraclitus, as every one knows, was a believer in universal flux : time builds and destroys all things.From the few fragments that remain, it is not easy to discover how he arrived at his opinions, but there are some sayings that strongly suggest scientific observation as the source." The things that can be seen, heard, and learned," he says," are what I prize the most."This is the language of the empiricist, to whom observation is the sole guaran- tee of truth." The sun is new every day," is another fragment ; and this opinion, in spite of its paradoxical character, is obviously inspired by scientific reflection, and no doubt seemed to him to obviate the difficulty of understanding how the sun can work its way under- ground from west to east during the night.Actual observation must also have suggested to him his central doctrine, that Fire is the one permanent substance, of which all visible things are passing phases.In combustion we see things change utterly, while their flame and heat rise up into the air and vanish." This world, which is the same for all," he says, " no one of gods or men has made ; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be, an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling, and measures going out." 1 The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea ; and half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind."This theory, though no longer one which science can accept, is nevertheless scientific in spirit.Science, too, might have inspired the famous saying to which Plato alludes : You cannot step twice into the same rivers ;for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."But we find also another statement among the extant fragments :" We step and do not step into the same rivers ; we are ind are not."The comparison of this statement, which is mystical, with the one quoted by Plato, which is scientific, shows how intimately the two tendencies are blended in the system of Heraclitus.Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe ; and this kind of feeling leads Heraclitus, on the basis e>f his science, to strangely poignant sayings concerning life and the world, such as : " Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is a child's."It is poetic imagination, not science, which presents Time as despotic lord of the world, with all the irrespcn- 'ible frivolity of a child.It is mysticism, too, which leads Ileraciitus to assert the identity of opposites :" Good and ill are one," he says ; and again : "To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right."Much of mysticism underlies the ethics of Heraclitus.It is true that a scientific determinism alone might have inspired the statement : ' Man's character is his fate " ; but only a mystic would have said : " Every beast is driven to the pasture with blows " ; and again : " It is hard to fight with one's heart's desire.Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul " ; and again : " Wisdom is one thing.It is to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things." 1Examples might be multiplied, but those that have been given are enough to show the character of the man :the facts of science, as they appeared to him, fed the 1 All the above quotations are from Burnet's Earlv Greek Pkilo- $ophv (2nd ed., 1908), pp.146-156.Also figure to yourself a number of persons walking behind this wall, and carrying with them statues of men, and images of other animals, wrought in wood and stone and all kinds of materials, together with various other articles, which overtop the wall ; and, as you might expect, let some of the passers-by be talking, and others silent.1 Republic, 514, translated by Davies and Vaugbaa.io MYSTICISM AND LOGIC felt to be always and everywhere close at hand, thinly veiled by the shows of sense, ready, for the receptive mind, to shine in its glory even through the apparent folly and wickedness of Man.The poet, the artist, and the lover are seekers after that glory : the haunting beauty that they pursue is the faint reflection of its sun.But the mystic lives in the full light of the vision : what others dimly seek he knows, with a knowledge beside which all other knowledge is ignorance.The second characteristic of mysticism is its belief in unity, and its refusal to admit opposition or division anywhere.We found Heraclitus saying ' good and ill are one " ; and again he says, " the way up and the way down is one and the same."The same attitude appears in the simultaneous assertion of contradictory pro- positions, such as : " We step and do not step into the same rivers ; we are and are not."The assertion of Par- menides, that reality is one and indivisible, comes from the same impulse towards unity.In Plato, this impulse is less prominent, being held in check by his theory of ideas ; but it reappears, so far as his logic permits, in the doctrine of the primacy of the Good.A third mark of almost all mystical metaphysics is the denial of the reality of Time.This is an outcome of the denial of division ; if all is one, the distinction of past and future must be illusory.We have seen this doctrine prominent in Parmenides ; and among moderns it is fundamental in the systems of Spinoza and Hegel.The last of the doctrines of mysticism which we have to consider is its belief that all evil is mere appearance, an illusion produced by the divisions and oppositions of the analytic intellect.Mysticism does not maintain that such things as cruelty, for example, are good, but it denies that they are real : they belong to that lower MYSTICISM AND LOGIC II world of phantoms from which we are to be liberated by the insight of the vision. Sometimes for example inHegel, and at least verbally in Spinoza not only evil, but good also, is regarded as illusory, though nevertheless the emotional attitude towards what is held to be Reality is such as would naturally be associated with the belief that Reality is good.What is, in all cases, ethically characteristic of mysticism is absence of indignation or protest, acceptance with joy, disbelief in the ultimate truth of the division into two hostile camps, the good and the bad.This attitude is a direct outcome of the nature of the mystical experience : with its sense of unity is associated a feeling of infinite peace.Indeed it may be suspected that the feeling of peace produces, as feelings do in dreams, the whole system of associated beliefs which make up the body of mystic doctrine.But this is a difficult question, and one on which it cannot be hoped that mankind will reach agreement.Four questions thus arise in considering the truth or falsehood of mysticism, namely : 'intuition," has raised instinct to the position of sole MYSTICISM AND LOGIC pursuits which illustrate our affinity with the past : it â highly refined, highly civilised pursuit, demanding, for its success, a certain liberation from the life of instinct, and even, at times, a certain aloofness from all mundane hopes and fears.It is not in philosophy, therefore, that we can hope to see intuition at its best.On the contrary, since the true objects of philosophy, and the habit of thought demanded for their apprehension, are strange, unusual, and remote, it is here, more almost than any- where else, that intellect proves superior to intuition, and that quick unanalysed convictions are least deserving of uncritical acceptance.In advocating the scientific restraint and balance, as against the self-assertion of a confident reliance upon intuition, we are only urging, in the sphere of knowledge, that largeness of contemplation, that impersonal dis- interestedness, and that freedom from practical pre- occupations which have been inculcated by all the great religions of the world.Thus our conclusion, however it may conflict with the explicit beliefs of many mystics, is, in essence, not contrary to the spirit which inspires those beliefs, but rather the outcome of this very spirit as applied in the realm of thought.