MYSTICISM, mis'ti-siz'm, a term derived from the Latin mysticus, Greek/mm/033 mystical, secret, from a mystic, one initiated into mysteries, and from utifiv, , to close the lips or eyes. Mysticishas for many minds a repel lent sense, owing, as a recent writer has acutely observed, to its association with the delusions of visionaries and the extravagance not only of gnostics and Neoplatonists, but of many so called Christian mystics, who, misled by a resemblance in terminolo and statement, as well as in practice and line between the false and the true, have ailed to observe a difference of infinite movement in principle and substance, and have striven to mingle•into one system utterly antagonistic elements. Against extravagances such as these common sense has justly rebelled, while philistinism has found in them a pretext for making a clean sweep of everything ,that would seem to raise religion above the plain man's apprehension and crit icism.
For many, mysticism means simply an aban donment of all attempt to reconcile the "re ligious sentitnenV with intelligent thought, a deliberate yielding of one's self to any un checked and unverifiable fancy or speculation which seems to interpret the vague yearning of the soul after a transcendent being. Or it suggests a morbid quietism effected by a com plete deadening of the affections and stupefac tion of the mind, an Oriental contempt not only for everything material and natural, but even for all desire and existence; thus giving a Buddhist interpretation to the Christian disci pline of self.* Or at best the term stands for the exalted state of a few saint-like beings who have attained to a preternatural state of com munion with the Deity, a state that has no practical interest to the ordinary mortal. But merely to tabulate the countlessly divergent senses associated with the term, not only in common usage but by authors of high repute, would exhaust the limits of the present article. The reader interested in the matter can consult some such work as that of Mr. Inge, men tioned below. One reason for the great dis crepancy of usage has been already suggested. The confusion results mainly from the fail ure to view mysticism objectively in its ultimate meaning and relations, its origin and finality; an omission on which has followed a confusion of a primary and an essential erty of human nature with one or other of iRs merely contingent modifications or partial tend encies; and thus abnormal and insane phe nomena have come to be associated with a term which radically expresses the deepest movement and loftiest aspiration of man's being.
Like all other words of similar structure, the team mysticism connotes both a tendency or a realized experience, and a theory conversant therewith. For the sake of brevity the former
acceptation may be here subsumed under the latter. The finality inherent in all creation—a tendency so imminent in nature that the effort to explain it away by reducing it to merely mechanical motion is impugned by the very ideas and terminology in which the attempt is conceived and expressed — reaches its highest expression in man's nature. Whether it be viewed as a process of natural selection, an adaptation to environment, a part of the strug gle for existence, or under any other biological metaphor, this tendency to a purpose is as essen tially— nay, surpassingly more so — a property of man as it is of any of the lower forms of life, vegetable or animal. If it be asked what is this purpose, this goal to which man ever presses, the answer may be given in terms of universal significance, that ultimately it is the realization of the plan of the universe. To this end, however, man strives unconsciously, and in a certain sense mechanically and involun tarily. Proximately, on the other hand, man is forever seeking self-realization, the develop ment of his total self. This self, however, is perfected only in and by the exercise of its highest activity, and that activity can reach its complete perfection only when directed to and exercised on its highest object. Now man's highest activity to which all other forms of energy within him are subordinate is mental, intellectual and volitional, and the highest object answering thereto is the True and the Good. The true as perfective of the intellec tual side of human nature is identified with the Good as it satiates the appetitive or conative side, and both are concretely realized only in the Supreme Being, the Infinite, the Absolute, God. Now the mystic is one who, whether ex plicitly or implicitly, recognizes this essential relation of his nature to God and strives to adjust his life accordingly. It may of course be said that this is a conception of mysticism in the abstract, as seen from some transcendent viewpoint of man's personality, but not of mysticism in the concrete, as it octurs in actual life and history. In some measure this may be admitted. On the other hand it is the con ception realized in those who have lived it out in the sanest form and the most perfect degree, and is inapplicable only in the case of those who directing their energies to some one or other partial object; to an object answering to only individual tendencies of their nature, to the neglect of the demands of their complete selves, have thrown their lives into disorder and confusion and have brought mysticism into obloquy and derision.