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PLATONISM ANDTHE SPIRITUAL
LIFEin ' SAN ~
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517S233
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PLATONISM AND THESPIRITUAL LIFE
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BY THE SAME AUTHORLITTLE ESSAYS
THE LIFE OF REASONINTERPRETATIONS OF POETRY
AND RELIGIONTHE SENSE OF BEAUTY
CHARACTER AND OPINION INTHE UNITED STATES
SOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND ANDLATER SOLILOQUIES
SCEPTICISM AND ANIMAL FAITHDIALOGUES IN LIMBO
POEMSTHE REALM OF ESSENCETHE REALM OF MATTER
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PLATONISM AND THESPIRITUAL LIFE
BY
GEORGE SANTAYANA
NEW YORKCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
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First Published 1927Reprinted . 1927Reprinted . 1934
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE CHISWICK PRESS LTD.NEW
SOUTHGATE, LONDON, N.II
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PLATONISMAND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
INTELLECTUAL anarchy is full of lights; itsblindness is made up
of dazzling survivals,revivals, and fresh beginnings. Were it
notfor these remnants or seeds of order, chaositself could not
exist; it would be nothing.Without demanding from the men of
to-dayanything final or solid we may be grateful tothem for those
glimpses of great things pastand of great things possible, which
flashthrough their labouring minds. One of thesegreat things past
is Platonism, and one of thegreat things always possible is
spiritual life.There is, or there seems to be, a certain
affinitybetween these two, as if deep called unto deep.Yet I am not
sure that everything in Platonism,or even its first principles, can
be calledspiritual; nor is it easy to discern what theessence of
spirituality may be, entangled as itsmanifestations have always
been with all sortsof accidental traditions and prejudices.
In this perplexity I find a list of pointsB
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common to Platonism and to " spiritual religion " drawn up by
the competent hand ofthe Dean of St. Paul's.1 These points are "
afirm belief in absolute and eternal values as themost real things
in the universe a confidencethat these values are knowable by
manabelief that they can nevertheless be knownonly by whole-hearted
consecration of theintellect, will, and affections to the great
questan entirely open mind towards the discoveriesof science a
reverent and receptive attitudeto the beauty, sublimity, and wisdom
of thecreation, as a revelation of the mind andcharacter of the
Creator a complete indifference to the current valuations of the
worldling." This faith " is distinguished, amongother things, by
its deep love of this good andbeautiful world, combined with a
steadyrejection of that same world whenever itthreatens to conceal,
instead of revealing, theunseen and eternal world behind. The
Pla-tonist loves . . . Nature, because in Naturehe perceives Spirit
creating after its own likeness. As soon as the seen and the
unseenworlds fall apart and lose connection with
/. each other, both are dead." " Values are1 Cf. The Platonic
Tradition in English Religious Thought,
the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge, 1925-6, by WilliamRalph Inge,
Dean of St. Paul's, etc., Longmans, Green andCo., London, 1926. All
the phrases quoted are drawn fromthis book.
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for the Platonist not only ideals but creativepowers."
This, of course, is the language of a modern.Dean Inge is not
quoting Plato or Plotinus, butexpressing what he believes to be
substantiallytheir view in words natural to a man of hisown country
and religion. We must, therefore,puzzle a little and hazard a guess
before wecan recall the Platonic tenets to which some ofthese
phrases may refer. The term " value "in particular is subjective,
imageless, and in amanner evasive. It may be taken as a neutralterm
fairly representing the common qualityof what Plato called the good
and the beautiful,before these were hypostatized ; but then
tohypostatize not only such values, but allnatural types and
logical concepts, was the verysoul of Platonism ; and when the good
and thebeautiful have been hypostatized and havebecome God or the
One, the Ideas, the Demi-urgus, or the Soul of the World, they are
nolonger values, but independent beings, existinglong before the
need or the admiration ofmortals could attribute any value to
them.Value is something relative, a dignity whichanything may
acquire in view of the benefitor satisfaction which it brings to
some livingbeing. If God or the Ideas were mere values,as are
pleasure or health, they would be unsubstantial, and only a desired
or achievedperfection in something else. They might,
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indeed, have value in their own eyes, but onlyif they were
alive. A man, or a god, cannotprize his existence before he exists.
An automatic harmony must be established in his lifebefore he can
distinguish its direction, sufferat its diminution, or conceive and
desire itsgreater perfection. This harmony itself is agood only
because the spirit which it createsso regards it.
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IIIF I were a theologian, or even a bishop, Imight be innocently
led to ask Dean Inge whathe means by a value. Is it anything that
anybody values, or only that which some otherperson thinks we ought
to value? Is it thefact that some satisfying aspect is found
inthings, or rather a magic necessity providingthat such an aspect
shall be found there ? Or,as we gather from other Cambridge
philosophers,1 is this necessity not magical but naturaland
omnipresent in things, so that whenevera wave rises and bursts into
foam, or a snow-flake takes shape in the air, or any other
formtrembles for a moment in the flux of existence,the realization
of this visiting essence is intrinsically a value, whether it be
watched andprized by any spirit or not? Or on the contrary are
values existing supernatural beings,by their influence compelling
or incliningnature often to reproduce these satisfactoryaspects ?
And I might even like to ask, goinga little deeper, whether such
supernaturalbeings, granting that they exist, work innature towards
the production of values of any
1 For instance, in Whitehead's Science in the ModernWorld.
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and every sortas the law of the survival ofthe fittest might
work to produce harmonybetween each sort of animal and its
habitat,but to make their forms and their pleasuresmore and more
diverse or whether thesesupernatural beings are biassed in favour
ofcertain natural forms and certain values to theexclusion of
others ; and finally, whether it isthis congenital bias in
supernatural powersthat we should understand by the eternalreality
of values.
In the modern notiona very hazy onethat values themselves might
be forces there isa contradiction, or at least an ellipsis. In
anysingle instance, indeed, a mind disinclined tolook for the
causes or origins of things may findin an actual value a final and
satisfying fact.Felt values reconcile the animal and moralside of
our nature to their own contingency : ifanything is well, we
neglect to ask why ithappens. The inner connivance and peace ofour
will explain it sufficiently. But whenvalues are supposed to
sustain themselves inbeing through a long tangle of
circumstances,and to reassert themselves intermittently bytheir own
strength, we are not merely contentnot to inquire why they arise,
but we professto explain their occasions and causes by theirfuture
presence : a position not only impossibleto defend, but impossible
to conceive clearly,and one that can be held only under cover
of
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half-thoughts and cant phrases. Perceptioncarves out its
conventional units, and finalcauses, insinuate themselves into the
survey offacts, when their patient genesis is ignored
oruntraceable. Life on the whole is a proof of thepossibility of
life; each sort of life is a proofthat circumstances made that sort
of lifeinevitable. A vigorous and courageous animalassumes that
fortune will not fail him. Did henot assume it, how should he be
able to live ?This sense of safety may be expressed andjustified
intellectually by finding the facts orhabits of nature which
support our ownhabits, and so bring the customary valuesabout in
the round of our experience. If thesefavouring circumstances are
dominant in ourworld we shall be as safe in fact as we feel
ourselves to be by instinct. This situation mightthen be expressed
elliptically, by saying thatthe good is certain to prevail, or that
values arepowers : the justification for such an expressionbeing
that our assurance of safety and goodfortune rests on a substantial
harmony betweenour interests and our circumstances. Butwhen this
harmony becomes audible, when for amoment some value is realized,
all potentialityand material efficacy are left far behind: weare in
the realm of actuality, of music, ofspirit ; and the value
actualized lives and endsin itself. The promise which often lies in
it,as well as the disillusion or disaster that may
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8ensue, will not be due to that value in itsmoral nature, to
that living and immaterialgood; it will be due to the organization
ofnature beneath. All moral functions have theirmaterial organs and
their material effects ; inthat context they are powers, or
rathervehicles of power for as the Moslems say,there is no power
but Allah. Goods are, intheir material ground, an integral part of
theflux of events ; and the healthy habit in naturewhich creates
them once may repeat them andperfect them, if the season is
favourable andthe fates allow.
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IllFOR my purpose, however, it is fortunatelyunimportant to
dispel these ambiguities, dearto half-hearted philosophies, because
thePlatonic doctrine at least is clear. If for thePlatonist goods
and evils are everlastinglyfixed and distinct, this moral dogmatism
inhim is no accident of temperament, no merelack of moral
elasticity, as in the bigot. If heis sure that some goods often
passionatelyloved are nevertheless false goods, it is onlybecause
he attributes a definite and unchangeable constitution to the
material world and tohuman nature. Life, he thinks, has beenkindled
and is alone sustained by the influenceof pre-existing celestial
models. It is byimitating these models in some measure thatwe exist
at all, and only in imitating, loving,and contemplating them that
we can ever behappy. They are our good. In themselves,however, they
are inviolate beings, serenelyshedding, like the stars, an
everlasting radiance,and no doubt happy beings, if they are
livingand self-contemplative : but they are by nomeans mere goals
which this nether world setsfreely for itself, or perfections which
it mightenjoy intrinsically. God and the Ideas couldbe ruling
powers, because they were existing
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10
beings, definite in their character and influence.They exercised
a miraculous, magnetic controlover formless matter, inducing in it
here andthere an inward striving to imitate their forms.They
therefore had the greatest value for thecreature whose life was
directed upon themand who invincibly loved them; but thisvalue in
them remained relative to the aspiration of their lover, and
variable in so far ashis nature might change ; so that St.
ThomasAquinas goes so far as to say that to the sinnerGod becomes
an evilthe Christian God, hemeans, for I suppose the reprobate
might stillfind a divine friend in Bacchus or Venus. Itwas never
the actual values found in the worldthat were separated from it,
either in Platonismor in Christianity, and conceived to compose
aneternal world behind it. The powers that werecreative,
substantial, and permanent were notvalues at all, but the
underpinning whichvalues required if they were to arise;
andalthough this substructure had to be in itselfphysical or
metaphysical, the discovery of ithad momentous consequences for
morals, inthat it enabled the enlightened believer todistinguish
possible attainable goods from theimpossible happiness after which
the heathenseek. Those goods which the nature of thingsor the will
of God assures and sanctions arethe " eternal values " ; the others
are " thecurrent valuations of the worldling." Thus
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IIreligion or philosophy was the great arbiter oftrue values,
the guide of life; it justified thesense of sin and the hope of
salvation. Thedistinction between true goods and false goodscan
never be established by ignorant feeling orby conscience not backed
by a dogmatic viewof the facts : for felt values, taken
absolutelyand regarded as unconditioned, are all equallygenuine in
their excellence, and equally momentary in their existence. The
distinctionhangs on the system of forces, natural or supernatural,
believed to produce and sustain thesevarious goods, some for a
moment, others forever. Some constitution the cosmos musthave, and
must disclose to our faith or science, \if ever we are to decide
which of our pleasuresor affections reveal " the unseen and
eternalworld behind," and which of them threaten to jconceal
it.
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IVTHIS separation of the Platonic Ideas from thethings which
manifested them has been muchblamed, yet it goes with another
doctrinewhich is much prized, often by the same critics.The
precious consequence of this abhorreddualism was that the Ideas, if
separate, mightbe powers, creative forces that generated
theirexpressions. Separation is a pre-requisite tocausal connection
: a thing cannot be derivedfrom a part of itself. If Ideas were
onlyvalues, if they were immanent in things, as theform of a poem
or its peculiar beauty isimmanent in that poem, there would be
nosense in saying that the beauty or the formwas a power that had
produced the poem.Not only would each be dead without theother, as
Dean Inge says, but each would be
, nothing ; the poem arises by taking that form,and the form is
merely that precise arrangement of words and images. The beauty of
athing is an essence which it manifests spontaneously, a pure
quality of being revealedthere, and perhaps never to be
revealedagain. The natural causes that produce thething and bring
it to notice produce also thismanifestation of beauty in it ; both
spring intoexistence together out of a complex of circum
12
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13
stances and impulses among which it isimpossible to place that
homeless essence, theform of beauty thereby revealed ; yet this
formis their only value for the spirit, a value whichthat precise
conjunction of causes was neededto realize.
There is a sensea somewhat esoteric sensein which such essences
as beauty may becalled " the most real things in the universe."They
are the ultimate characters by which onething can be distinguished
from another in theflux of nature, or one thought from another
inthe mind ; and if the word " real " be usedsentimentally, to mean
whatever is most clearor important or nearest to the heart,
suchvalues will be not only " most real " but eventhe only "
reality," because their presence orabsence, their purity or
contradiction, makeup the spiritual sum of life, all that mattersin
it, without which no one would care to raisehis head from the
pillow of non-being. If,however, by " most real " we understand
mostprimitive or fundamental physically, the rootsof existence, it
is clearly impossible that themost real things should be values.
Values pre-*'suppose living beings having a direction
ofdevelopment, and exerting themselves in it,so that good and evil
may exist in reference tothem. That the good should be relative
toactual natures and simply their innate ideal,latent or realized,
is essential to its being truly
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14
a good. Otherwise the term " good " wouldbe an empty title
applied to some existingobject or force for no assignable
reason.
The good may nevertheless be called absolutein several senses
proper to current speech.The good is by no means relative to
opinion,but is rooted in the unconscious and fatalnature of living
beings, a nature which predetermines for them the difference
betweenfoods and poisons, happiness and misery. Themoralist may
speak for others with authoritywhen he knows them better than they
knowthemselves, but not otherwise. Moreover, theirnatural good may
be absolute in the sense ofbeing fixed and unalterable, so long as
theliving beings concerned and the circumstancesin which they
nourish remain constant in type.That human nature and the world are
unchangeable was an assumption of classic timeswhich survives often
in modern moralists,
. without its dogmatic justification. Finally,I
the good may be called absolute in the sense', of being single
and all-sufficient, filling the
whole heart, and leaving nothing in the restof the universe in
the least tempting, interesting, or worth distinguishing.
' It is in thisTsense that lovers and mystics proclaim the
absoluteness of the good with which they areunited, and when the
thing is true as a confession it would be frivolous and ungracious
toquarrel with it as a dogma.
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IF then the Ideas were immanent in things, asthe beauty of a
poem is immanent in it, theycould not conceivably be powers
producingtheir occasional manifestation. The beautiesintrinsic to
the tragedy of Hamlet could nothave caused Shakespeare to compose
that playsince those values could not possibly come toexistence
until the play had already composeditself in his fancy, and burst
into just thosebeauties. In order to maintain seriously theefficacy
of Ideas and to conceive matters in theorthodox Platonic way, we
must make a different supposition. Suppose Hamlet had been aliving
prince, like the present Prince of Wales,and that Shakespeare, with
his company ofplayers, had happened to appear at thisprince's
court, and had conceived for him apassionate Platonic attachment,
such as heseems to have conceived for the W.H. of theSonnets: and
suppose further that, by theprodigious inspiration of this passion,
Shakespeare had been led to imagine episodes andphrases that might
in part express so tender,intellectual, and profound a character as
thatliving Prince seemed to him to possess; thenindeed a most real
Hamlet, with a pre-existingpower and charm, might have been the "
only
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i6begetter " of the play. In exactly this way thePlatonic Ideas,
the Christian God, or theChrist of devout Christians, may be
conceivedto be the causes of their temporal manifestations in
matter or in the souls of men. Evidently a play written in such
circumstancesmight have the same intrinsic value as onepurely
imaginary; but it would not be thisliterary value that would
constitute the modelor the creative influence which had producedthe
play ; this literary value would have beenbegotten, like the play
itself and inseparablyfrom it, by the influence radiating from
theliving Hamlet, a prince having his existenceapart, who by chance
had come for a momentwithin the poet's orbit.
This separation between the creator and thecreated is not only
the condition of derivation,contact, and causal influence, but it
is alsothe condition of a genuine worship; becausethen that which
is expression in the poet is atthe same time homage in the lover,
as it couldnot be except fatuously and by a poeticaffectation if
the being loved did not existseparately. And " only begetter " is
the rightphrase to indicate the relation between such acreative
influence and its work. A PlatonicIdea could never be the whole
cause of itstemporal expressions; a material or feminineelement is
involved that may receive thatinfluence and make it fruitful; a
fact which
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would also explain the many variants and themany imperfections
which things might exhibitin response to the same unchanging virtue
oftheir divine model.
When the matter is so conceived all forcedeparts from the
contention that if we separateGod or the Ideas from the temporal
world," both are dead." God and the Ideas, like theliving Prince
Hamlet, would remain exactly asthey were, with all their intrinsic
warmth andvirtue; and the temporal world, like theShakespearean
tragedy, would also remain justas it is, with all its literary
values. The onlydifference would be that the living prince
wouldhave inspired no poet, and that the self-inspired poet would
have celebrated no livingprince. Shakespeare's Hamlet would
bereduced to what, in fact, he is, an object ofoccasional
imagination, a pure essence, and nota power. Meantime the
inexhaustible powerswhich, if a divine life existed, would
certainlylie in it, would have continued to radiate un-manifested,
like those many rays of the sunwhich are dissipated in space, not
being bychance reflected or absorbed and made temporally fruitful
by any speck of an earth.
Platonism accordingly would be entirelystultified and
eviscerated if it were not sufferedto be all that modern criticism,
inspired as it isby a subjective and psychological philosophy,most
thoroughly dislikes; I mean, super-
C
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naturalistic, realistic, and dualistic. This isonly another way
of saying that, according tothe Platonic doctrine, God and the
unseenworld really exist in themselves, so that theycan precede,
create, attract, and survive theirearthly emanations.
K_
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VIIs this to say that Aristotle and all the othercritics of
Platonism have had no reason on theirside ? Far from it : their
criticism was amplyjustified by the facts of nature, and their
onlydefect was perhaps not to have felt its fullforce, and to have
still attributed power tothose very Ideas to which they denied
separateexistence.1 The Platonic system is mythological : if taken
literally and dogmatically, itcan seem to cold reason nothing but a
gratuitous fiction, as all systems of religion or metaphysics
necessarily seem to the outsider. Ofcourse they are not inwardly
gratuitous ; theyare the fervent expression and product of
thedeepest minds ; and anyone capable of sharingthe inspiration
which prompted them willknow them to be inevitable, persuasive,
andmorally coherent. Thus Dean Inge says thatthose who think
Platonism dualistic havesimply not understood; that is (if I
myselfunderstand him), they have not understood it
from within, genetically, historically, emotionally; they have
not recovered the experience
1 I have elsewhere ventured to suggest that perhaps Aristotle
himself was not guilty of this inconsistency. Cf. Dialogues in
Limbo : the Secret of Aristotle, pp 181-193.
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and the immanent logic which, as a matter offact, held the
Platonic dualism in solution.This dualism appears only in the dogma
precipitated and left, as it were, as a sediment ;and the most
sympathetic modern critic canhardly take such dogma seriously. He
cannotreceive it as a revelation, like a humble catechumen,
drinking-in the marvellous supernatural facts from the lips of the
masters.Platonism, like Christianity, cannot now produce in him the
illusion which it was its earlymission to produce. When he turns
back tothe origin of such a faith, he cannot, for all hissympathy,
share the prophetic impulse whichcarried the Fathers from their
first intuitions tothe full expression of the same in consistentand
final dogmas. Truth for him meanshistorical, psychological truth ;
and the wholeforce of his learning and imagination is spent
indissolving those dogmas dramatically into theirsubjective
components, and showing them to bebut verbal expressions for
certain radicalambient values. This is what, in fact, theywere, or
something of that kind : and he maybe assured of this not merely by
the naturalisticphilosophy (perhaps unconsciously inspiringhim)
which proclaims such dogmas to benothing else, but by the study of
the survivingdocuments. Plato's writings in particularshow clearly
that the eventual Platonic systemwas but a moral and poetic
fable.
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The Ideas originally were really nothing butvalues. Socrates had
conceived them as formsof the good, and this good itself was
identicalwith the useful, beneficent, or advantageous.In the
Republic we learn that anythingashepherd or a ruler, a bridle or a
bedis goodwhen it fulfils its natural function. Fitness tocontrol a
horse for the purposes of war, commerce, or sport would be the Idea
(or value) ofa bridle, and fitness to induce sound and comfortable
sleep would be, I suppose, the Idea ofa bed ; and as to the eternal
Idea of a ruler orshepherd, what should it be but to protect
andconduct his sheep or his people, and in dueseason to shear them?
This homely Socraticwisdom may seem not far removed from "
thecurrent valuations of the worldling " ; it restedon no
revelation, private or public, and had noprinciple save the
reasonableness of the simplestmortal when forced by shrewd
questions todisentangle his prejudices and to discover whathe
really wants. But great is the power oflogic, when the mind is
single and the heartopen. In a trice it will bring the
humblestjudgements into the clarifying presence of thehighest good.
Socrates was a plain man, butfearless ; he was omnivorous, playful,
ironical,but absolutely determined. His one purposewas to be
rational, to find and do what wasbest. If Anaxagoras would tell him
whatprofit men might draw from the sun and moon,
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he would listen gladly; but if it was only aquestion of the
substance or motions of thosebodies, he would turn his back on
Anaxagorasand laugh. This cobbler's wisdom was thesame that almost
made saints of the Cynics ; itreappeared in the monks ; it may
reappear anyday in some popular prophet. A fervidutilitarianism has
a strangely revolutionaryforce : in squeezing the world to get
every dropof pure good out of it, it leaves the worldworthless, and
has to throw it away : nothingremains but the immediate good of the
spirit,the naked soul longing to be saved.
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VIIIN Plato and in his followers this revolutiontook more time
and a larger sweep. Plato'smind was more accomplished and less
consecrated than that of his master: that of hisfollowers was more
dogmatic and single thanhis own. Idealism, as it moves away from
itsorigins, may easily become idolatrous: whileleaving earthly
things dry and empty, it mayworship the pure forms which these
thingswould have had if they had been perfect. Incriticizing and
condemning this world theprophet will find himself in the presence
ofanother world, its sublimated image. The giftof thinking in
myths, once native to the Greeks,was not altogether lost ; it could
still fuse theforms seen with a life unseen ; it could transform
definition of terms into intuition ofIdeas; it could personify the
functions ofthings and turn their virtues into patrondeities
animating those things and causingthem to shine with a strength and
beauty aliento their earthly substance. In the unclouded,synthetic,
believing mind of Plotinus thischastened mythology crystallized
into themost beautiful of systems.
An inexhaustible divine energyso thesystem ran poured
perpetually down into the
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chaos of matter, animating and shaping it aswell as that torpid
substance would permit.At the bottom or centre there was little
life,but it stirred more actively and nobly at eachsuccessive
level, somewhat as the light of thesun floods the ether absolutely,
the air variously,the sea dubiously, and the earth only darkly,with
a shallow warmth. Hence the hierarchy
v/of created goods, which is itself a good; andas to the defeats
and confusions involved inbeing other than the highest, and other
thanone's own Idea, they were due to the inopportune inertia of
matter, or to blind accident, orto a diabolical soul intervening
and poisoningthe fountains of divine grace. All levels of
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25
political goods; so that while the variousspheres of being, like
the terraces of Dante'sPurgatorio, were all permanent and divinely
x (.
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sopher was to transcend and transfigure hishuman nature, and to
pass unsullied throughthis nether world in adoration of the
worldabove.
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VIIIPLOTINUS professed to be, and actually was,an orthodox
Platonist ; and yet this dominantsense in him of the spiritual life
was perfectlyforeign to Socrates and Plato. I say this without
forgetting the dialogues on love or thealmost Roman religiosity of
the Laws. Afterhaving been very poetical Plato became veryaustere ;
but his philosophy remained politicalto the end. To this descendant
of Solon theuniverse could never be anything but a crystalcase to
hold the jewel of a Greek city. Divineas the heavens were, they
were but a motheringand brooding power : in their refined
materialityand mathematical divinity they circled aboutthe earth,
at once vivifying it and rebuking itby the visible presence of an
exemplary good.The notion of the heavenly spheres was nomere
optical image, the dream of a philosopherwho, on a clear night,
could measure theradius of the universe with the naked eye :
thisimage was a moral parable. The realm ofethics will always be a
set of concentric circles.Life necessarily radiates from centres ;
it stirshere, in the self; from here it looks abroadfor supports
and extensions, in the family, thenation, the intellectual world,
the parent andsubject universe. Wide as it may seem, this
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prospect is homely, and taken from the hearthof Vesta.
If the theology of Socrates and Plato was inthis way domestic,
the remnant of traditionalreligion in them was doubly so. Their
attachment to ancient piety was childlike and superstitious when it
remained personal, but moreoften it was expressly political and
politic:they saw in religion a ready means of silencingdangerous
questions and rebuking wickedness.It was a matter of moral
education and police,and in no sense spiritual.
As to the Socratic philosophy of love, thereis an obvious
spiritual tendency in it, inasmuchas it bids the heart turn from
the temporal tothe eternal; and it does so not by way of an
/ r-arid logic but by a true discipline of the affec-jtions,
sublimating erotic passion into a justI enthusiasm for all things
beautiful and perfect.
] This is the secret of Platonism, which makes itperennial, so
that if it were ever lost as atradition it would presently be
revived as an
.inspiration. It lives by a poignant sense ofJ eternal values
the beautiful and the goodrevealed for a moment in living creatures
or inearthly harmonies. Yet who has not felt thatthis Platonic
enthusiasm is somewhat equivocal and vain ? Why ? Because its
renunciation is not radical. In surrendering someparticular hope or
some personal object ofpassion, it preserves and feeds the
passion
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itself ; there is no true catharsis, no liberation,but a sort of
substitution and subterfuge, oftenhypocritical. Pure spiritual life
cannot besomething compensatory, a consolation forhaving missed
more solid satisfactions: itshould be rather the flower of all
satisfactions,in which satisfaction becomes free from
care,selfless, wholly actual and, in that inwardsense, eternal.
Spiritual life is simple anddirect, but it is intellectual. Love,
on thecontrary, as Plotinus says, is somethingmaterial, based on
craving and a sense of want.For this reason the beautiful and the
good, forthe Platonic enthusiast, remain urgent values ;he would
cease to be a true Platonist or a raptlover if he understood, if he
discounted hisillusions, rose above the animal need or themental
prejudice which made those valuesurgent, and relegated them to
their relativestation, where by their nature they belong.Yet this
is what a pure spirit would do, onetruly emancipated and
enlightened.
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IXHERE, at the risk of parting company withDean Inge and even
with Plato, I come to aradical conclusion. Spiritual life is not
aworship of " values," whether found in thingsor hypostatized into
supernatural powers. Itis the exact opposite ; it is
disintoxication fromtheir influence. Not that spiritual insight
canever remove values from nature or cease to feelthem in their
moral black and white and in all
v their aesthetic iridescence. Spirit knows thesevital
necessities : it has been quickened in theirbosom. All animals have
within them aprinciple by which to distinguish good fromevil, since
their existence and welfare arefurthered by some circumstances and
acts andare hindered by others. Self-knowledge, witha little
experience of the world, will then easilyset up the Socratic
standard of values naturaland inevitable to any man or to any
society.These values each society will disentangle inproportion to
its intelligence and will defend inproportion to its vitality. But
who woulddream that spiritual life was at all concernedin asserting
these human and local values to bealone valid, or in supposing that
they wereespecially divine, or bound to dominate theuniverse for
ever ?
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In fact, the great masters of the spirituallife are evidently
not the Greeks, not even theAlexandrian Greeks, but the Indians,
theirdisciples elsewhere in the East, and thoseMoslems, Christians,
and Jews who havesurrendered precisely that early,
unregenerateclaim to be enveloped in a protecting worlddesigned for
their benefit or vindication, aclaim of which Platonism after all
was but a ^
refined version. To cling to familiar treasuresand affections is
human, but it is not particularly spiritual; to hypostatize these
homevalues into a cosmic system especially plannedto guarantee
them, certainly expresses anintelligible passionate need for
comfort andcoddling in the universe, but with spiritualityit has
nothing to do. If such confidence maybe called faith, it may also
be called fatuityand insolence; an insolence innocent in aspirited
child, but out of place in a philosopher.Spirituality comes
precisely of surrendering Vthis animal arrogance and this moral
fanaticismand substituting for them pure intelligence:not a
discoursing cleverness or scepticism, but ,perfect candour and
impartial vision. Spirit is vmerciful and tender because it has no
privatemotive to make it spiteful ; yet it is unflinchingly austere
because it cannot make anyprivate motive its own. It need have
noscientific or artistic pretensions; it appearsquite adequately in
straight seeing of simple
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things; these, to pure spirit, are speculativeenough and good to
whet its edge upon; theproudest dreams of science or theology are
nobetter for the purpose. The spirit is contentwith the widow's
mite and a cup of cold water ;it considers the lilies of the field
; it can saywith literal truth : Inasmuch as ye did it untothe
least of these, ye did it unto me.
As the spirit is no respecter of persons, so itis no respecter
of worlds : it is willing to put upwith any of them, to be feasted
in one or to bemartyred in another. And while it is allowedto livea
point that concerns the world itlives in rather than the spirit
itselfit lookswith a clear and untroubled sympathy on
suchmanifestations of being as happen to beunrolled before it. As
it loves the non-humanparts of nature, so it loves the human
parts,and is in no way hostile to the natural passionsand to the
political and religious institutionsthat happen to prevail. If
spirit was to beincarnate and to appear in existence at all, ithad
to be born in one odd world or another:why should it quarrel with
its earthly cradle ?This is not to say that all circumstances
areequally favourable to the spiritual life. Onthe contrary, most
circumstances exclude italtogether; the vast abysses of nature
seemto be uninhabited; and even where spiritfeebly appears, it is
in order to be, very often,stifled at once, or long tormented.
Almost
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always its world is too much with it ; the spiritis so deeply
engaged and distracted by currentevents that it cannot realize its
proper function,which is to see such things as come in its wayunder
the form of eternity, in their intrinsiccharacter and relative
value, in their transitive-ness and necessity, in a word, in their
truth.This contemplative habit evidently finds afreer course in
solitude than in society, in artthan in business, in prayer than in
argument.It is stimulated by beautiful and constantthings more than
by things ugly, tedious,crowded, or uncertain. For this reason it
ismore prevalent and freer in the East than inthe West, among
Catholics than among Protestants, among Moslems than among Jews.For
the same reason the Platonic system, up toa certain point, is
sympathetic to the spirit.Its universe was compact and immortal;
theoscillations of fortune on earth could notdisturb its
unchangeable order. If nature wereconceived to be, as in fact she
is, barbarous andin indefinite flux, giving rein to anything
andeverything, there would seem hardly to be timeto reach
perfection on any level of being beforethe soil was undermined and
the budding Ideawas lost and dissipated. The great merit of
anunchanging world is that all its inhabitantscan be adapted to it.
If they ever fall out oftune the cause will be but a passing
diseaseand an accidental slackness in the strings; it
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will be easy to screw up the pegs, to renew asnapped cord, and
to restore the harmony.Such a world offers an immovable basis
andsanction for the good: it establishes anorthodox morality.
Imperfection enters itonly below the circle of the moon, like
badmanners below stairs; and even here, onearth, evil is but an
oscillation and dizziness inmatter which nature perpetually calls
back tothe norm, as the motion of a top rights it in
itsgyrations.
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XI AM not confident, however, that a pure spiritwould feel safe
in such a seven-walled celestialcastle, or would prize the sort of
safety which,if it were real, it would afford. Existence
iscontingent essentially. As things might justas well have been
different, so they might justas well prove to be inconstant ; and
since theycannot manifest their groundlessness by nowbeing other
than they happen to be, they maymanifest it by being other at other
times andplaces. No existing being can have the meansof knowing
that it will always exist or prosperin the universe : the neatest
cosmos and themost solitary god might collide with
somethingunsuspected; or the unsuspected thing mightexist in its
own preserves without being discovered or coming into collision.
Yet thatundiscovered world, for the spirit, would be asreal and as
interesting as this world. Ignorancecannot justify any negative
prophecy: butexistence, while it is the home of
particularcertitudes, is also a cage in which an inevitableand
infinite ignorance sings and dies imprisoned.Existence is
self-centred, limited in characterby the character which it chances
to have,and in duration by the crawling fact that itexists while it
is found existing. There is no
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necessary and all-comprehensive being exceptthe realm of
essence, to which existence isirrelevant : for whether the whole
exist or onlya part, or even if no part existed, the alternative
fact would always be knocking at thedoor; and nothing in the actual
facts couldever prove that the door would not suddenlyopen and let
the contrary in. Like peopleliving on the slopes of volcanoes, we
ignorethese possibilities, although a catastrophe israpidly
approaching each of us in the form ofdeath, and who knows how soon
it may overtake the whole confused life of our planet
?Nevertheless, except in the interests of detachment and freedom,
spirit has no reason fordwelling on other possible worlds. Wouldany
of them be less contingent than this one,or nearer to the heart of
infinite Being ? Andwould not any of them, whatever its
character,lead the spirit inexorably there ? To master theactual is
the best way of transcending it.Those who know but one language,
like theGreeks, seem to find language a purer and moretransparent
vehicle than those of us who noticeits idiosyncrasies and become
entangled in itsmeshes. So it is the saints most steeped eachin his
traditional religion who are nearesttogether in spirit ; and if
nature caused themto change places, it is they that after amoment's
pause to get their bearings, would bemost at ease in one another's
skins. No one is
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more unspiritual than a heretic, or more graceless and wretched
than an unfrocked priest;yet the frock of the faithful is but an
earthlygarment ; it melts into the clouds which, intheir ascension,
they leave behind them.
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XIIN what places the spirit shall awake, and howlong and how
freely it shall be suffered toflourish are evidently questions of
mundanephysics and politics : it is the world's business
^ to call down spirit to dwell in it, not the spirit'sbusiness
to make a world in which to dwell.The friends of spirit, in their
political capacity,will of course defend those forms of society
inwhich, given their particular race and traditions, spirit may
best exist : they will protectit in whatever organs and instruments
it mayalready have appeared, and will take care thatit pursues its
contemplative life undisturbedin its ancient sanctuaries.
Spirituality hasmaterial conditions; not only the generalconditions
of life and intuition (for a man mustexist before he can become a
spiritual man),
Ibut subtler and more special conditions suchas concentration of
thought, indifference to
I fortune and reputation, warmth of tempera-Vment (because
spirit cannot burn clear except/ at a high temperature) disciplined
into chastityvand renunciation. These and other such conditions the
master of novices does well to
i consider ; but spirit itself, when once aroused,Moes not look
back in that direction. ManyChristian saints have qualified their
spiritualitywith too much self-consciousness ; it was no
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doubt their religious duty to examine theirconsciences and study
to advance in holiness;but the holiness really did not begin until
theyforgot themselves in the thought of God. Sowith those who were
consumed with zeal forthe Church, the conversion of sinners, and
otherworks of charity. These are moral interests orduties accruing
to men as members of someparticular society; they are political
cares.They may be accompanied by spiritual insight,if it be really
salvation or spiritualization ofsouls that preoccupies the
missionary, and notsome outward change of habit or allegiance,that
may make other people more like himselfand ensure the dominance of
his home traditions. Political zeal even in the true friends
ofspirit is not spiritual; a successful apostlemust have rather a
worldly mind, because heneeds to have his hand on the pulse of
theworld; his appeal would not be intelligible ifit were not
threatening or spectacular or full oflewd promises. It will be only
afterwards,perhaps, when people have been domesticatedin the new
faith, that the spirit will descendupon them. The spirit itself is
not afraid ofbeing stamped out here, or anxious to bekindled there;
its concern is not about itsinstances or manifestations ; it is not
essentiallylearned or social; its kingdom is not of thisworld. It
leaves propaganda to those who callthemselves its friends but
probably know
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nothing of it, or are even its enemies, and onlythe agents of
some worldly transformationultimately quite nugatory.
Nor has the world, on its side, any obligationAo cultivate the
spiritual life. Obligations are
moral ; they presuppose a physical and socialorganism with
immanent spontaneous interestswhich may impose those obligations.
Thevalue and opportuneness of spiritual life, inany of its possible
forms, must be adjudged byreason in view of the moral economy
forwhich, in any instance, reason may speak.All values fall within
the purview of ethics,
* which is a part of politics. Spirituality is thesupreme good
for those who are called to it,the few whose intellectual thirst
can bequenched only by impartial truth and theself-annihilating
contemplation of all Being.The statesman and the father of a family
maynot always welcome this disposition; it mayseem to them wasteful
and idle. Just as thevalue of an artist must be judged by the
world,in view of all the interests which his art affectsor
subserves, while the artist himself lives only
j in his own labour, irresponsible, technical, andvisionary; so
the value of spiritual life ingeneral, or in any of its incidental
forms, mustbe judged morally by the world, in view of its
I own ambitions, while the spirit, standinginvisibly at its
elbow, judges the world and itsambitions spiritually.
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XIIIT is impossible that spirit in a living creatureshould ever
be wholly freed from the body andfrom the world ; for in its
inwardness it wouldhave ceased to follow and enact the fortunesof
that creature; it would either have beenabsorbed in the
contemplation of pure Beingand become virtually omniscient, or at
leastit would contemplate its special objects equablyunder the form
of eternity, and not in theperspectives determined by the station
of itsbody in time and place. Pure Being, or thesespecial essences
and truths, would evidentlygain nothing by the fact that this new
mindhad been lost in them; and this mind, ingaining them, would
have lost itself ; it would,in fact, have ceased to exist
separately. Meantime the body of that creature might go onliving
automatically; the mind which it hadpreviously fed, as a lamp feeds
its flame, wouldhave evaporated, gone up into the sun, andceased to
light the precincts and penumbra ofthat particular vessel, or to be
a measure of itslittle oil. But a living automaton is by
natureconscious: the lamp has not been materiallyextinguished : the
creature is accordingly stillbreeding a faithful if flickering
mind, whichfeels and notes its further vicissitudes. Evi
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dently this fresh mind is the true continuationof that
creature's experience ; it is again continuously cognizant of that
body in that world.The effort to liberate souls from their bodiesor
to transport them beyond their world hastherefore a rather ironical
result : the redeemedsoul ceases to be anybody's soul, and the
bodycontinues to have a soul that is quite personaland
unregenerate.
The difference between the life of the spiritand that of the
flesh is itself a spiritual difference : the two are not to be
divided materiallyor in their occasions and themes so much as inthe
quality of their attention: the one isanxiety, inquiry, desire, and
fear ; the other isintuitive possession. The spirit is not a
talebearer having a mock world of its own tosubstitute for the
humble circumstances of thislife ; it is only the facultythe
disenchantingand re-enchanting faculty of seeing this worldin its
simple truth. Therefore all the worldlyhatred of spiritand it is
very fiercecannever remove the danger that, after a
thousandpersecutions and a long conspiracy of derision,a child of
the spirit should be born in thebosom of the worldly family. The
moreorganic and perfect the life of the world becomes, the more
intelligent it will be : and whatshall prevent intelligence from
asking what allthis pother is about and driving the moneychangers
from the house of prayer? Spirit
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must have some organ ; but when once arousedit does not look in
the direction of its organ orcare at all about preserving it. It
looks rather,as we see in Indian philosophy, to a realmanterior to
all worlds, and finds there a comprehensive object which in one
sense includes allworlds, since it is infinite Being, but for
thatvery reason excludes the enacted existence ofany one of them,
since they can be enacted, asthe moments of time are enacted, only
byexcluding and ousting one another. Thisworld, for a speculative
mind, is exactlyanalogous to this moment. It seems alonereal to
those who inhabit it, but its preeminence is relative and
egotistical: it maintained dogmatically it becomes at once
illusoryand absurd.
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XIIINOT that the existence of a particular worldperhaps its
exclusive existenceis an evil. Ifthe lovers of pure Being are ever
tempted tosay so, it is only in their human capacity,because some
rude fact may have woundedtheir feelings. These feelings are a part
of theworld which they condemn, inevitable as thisworld is
inevitable, and unnecessary in thesense in which this world is
unnecessary. Thecontradiction or self-dislike which they betrayin
that world is, no doubt, a defect from thepoint of view of the
parts in it which arequarrelling, each of which would wish to
haveit all its own way. But this fact does notrender that world, or
the conflicts in it, evilabsolutely. Evil can arise only within
eachworld when it becomes faithless to some Ideawhich it has begun
to pursue, or is crossed inthe pursuit of it either by some
external enemy
(if any) or by the inward contradiction andcomplexity of its
impulses, which allow it onlyto drift towards uncertain, tragic,
and romanticissues. But, as we see in some desperatelyromantic
philosophers, this very disorder mayplease an imagination which is
stirred by thatstimulus more deeply than by any impulsetowards
harmony and fixity of form. Some
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impulse towards form, some initial essence oressences, a world
must preserve so long as itexists, else it would dissolve into
chaos or intothat metaphysical non-entity, matter withoutform : but
this modicum of form may becomposed by the perpetual defeat of
everyparticular endeavour, and the greatest evil ofthe greatest
number of souls may fulfil theromantic ideal. The theologians who
havemaintained that the damnation of the greatmajority is no evil
in the sight of God, andleaves his intrinsic holiness and glory
unsullied,have understood the matter speculatively ;and although
the ferocity of the Calvinists wasnot spiritual, and their notion
of "an angryGod " was grotesque, there was spirituality intheir
elevation above the weak judgements ofthe flesh and even of the
heart ; only that thespeculative sword really cuts both ways,
andtheir sense for the superhuman should alsohave dissolved their
moral fanaticism. PureBeing is infinite, its essence includes
allessences; how then should it issue particularcommands, or be an
acrimonious moralist ?
The two-edged sword falls again here. If it ,be true that the
world can be evil only in itsown eyes and therefore only partially
and provisionally, until the eyes are closed or arehardened like
the eagle's to that woundinglight, so it is true also that it can
be good in its own eyes only : and more, that the spiritual
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life and the pure Being to which its contemplation is addressed,
can be good only in relation
/to the living souls that may find their goodthere. Plotinus and
many other mystics haveadmitted that the One, though
habituallycalled good, is not properly so called. It is thegood of
religion, because religion is a conversionfrom one object of
pursuit to another, underthe form of the good : but in the One
itself, orin attainment, the pursuit is absent, and thecategory of
the good no longer has any application. The title may be retained,
in humanparlance, to indicate that the attainmentreally satisfies
the aspiration which preceded,and does not disappoint it; for to
end there,to end absolutely, was the very aim of thataspiration.
The case is like that of a manbuilding his tomb, or bequeathing his
propertyto his son ; the result is a good for him in thathe desired
it, but not in that he survives toenjoy it. So is the peace that
passeth understanding, that annuls desire, and that excludesthe
gasping consciousness of peace.
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XIVSPIRIT, which is ultimately addressed to pureBeing, is not
itself this pure Being. It is thegift of intuition, feeling, or
apprehension : anovertone of animal life, a realization, on
ahypostatic plane, of certain moving unities inmatter. So, at
least, I understand the word;but its original meaning was a breath
or wind,and hence, often, an influence. In this lastsense it is
used in Christian theology ; the HolyGhost is not the Father nor
the Son, but proceeds from them and animates the world, or at
,least the souls of the elect7 It is the fountain (of grace. We
also read in the gospel that God 1is a spirit, to be worshipped in
spirit and intruth. Here the word evidently bears morethan one
sense; the spirit in which God isworshipped is a disposition of the
mind, whereas God himself, we may presume, is a spirit inthe mighty
sense in which Jehovah swept thevoid, a breath or a word, bringing
order out of/chaos; the same voice that spoke to Job outof the
whirlwind, with the sheer authority ofpower. Spirit thus seems to
be sometimes a
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f 48i creative energy, sometimes a sanctifying influ
ence. So in the Latin hymn :Veni creator Spirituscorda tuorum
visitansimple supernA. gratid, Ll^L " 1 * ',, "*""X'' 7
'
qua* tu creasti pectora. &.
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person. This is a verbal survival of myth,poetry become cant :
spirit here means thosecharacters of a thing which a
myth-makingmind would have attributed to a spirit.
In contrast to all these uses I am employingthe word spirit to
mean something actual;indeed, the very fact of actuality, the
gleamof intuition or feeling. But this gleam ordinarily serves only
to light up material life andthe perspectives in which it moves in
time andin space: an incessant sketchy sense of theaffairs of the
body and of its world. Thedigestion and preparation of action (as
thebehaviourists have shown) is a physical matter.In that business
the spirit is entirely superfluous.The behaviourists even affect to
deny itsexistence, on the ground that it is invisible andwould be a
useless luxury in nature : excellenteconomy, as if a man, the
better to provide forhis future, should starve himself to death.The
spirit in us is that which, morally, weVactually are : if anything
is to be expungedfrom the complex face of reality it mightrather be
our material and social setting andall the strange and incoherent
stories told us inhistory and science. Certainly all these apparent
or reported facts would be perfectly vain,if they did not create
the spirit, and teach itto observe and enjoy them. So we are
broughtback to the immediate revelation of things,which is also
their ultimate value : we are
E
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i brought back to the spirit. Its life is composedof feelings
and intuitions, in many stages anddegrees ; and when spirit is free
and collectedit has no life but this spiritual life, in which
theultimate is immediate. All the experiences ofthe spirit, until
they are so exorcized andappropriatedso enshrined in pure
Beingaresheer distraction.
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XVWERE any world perfect, as the Platoniststhought that this
world was in its upper parts,its spirit would view it with the same
contemplative satisfaction with which it views anypure essence that
spontaneously engages itsattention. It would not, in respect to
thatperfect world, be harassed by remorse, as itmust be in an
imperfect world when it countsthe cost of existence and considers
the dreadfulsufferings which plagued it like a nightmare,before
something beautiful and good couldappear even for a moment. I say
remorse,because such is the feeling that comes over mewhen I
remember the travail which, at least inman, the spirit has had to
endure in bringingits better life to birth : but the spirit itself
hasno guilt in the matter ; it was caught in a vice ;and it may
accept and overlook that terriblegestation when at last it reaches
the open andrewards itself with an hour of freedom andgladness.
These are its natural notes: it isborn out of an achieved harmony,
only increatures already formed and in some measurefit to live :
contradiction and torment areinexplicable to it, and danger a cause
of laughter. How should spirit, the very essence ofradiance, ever
become morose? It runs and
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sparkles wherever it may, the free child ofnature. It has no
grudge against its fosteringworld ; on the contrary, nothing but
delightedwonder. It has no native enmity towards thefleshthat comes
to it afterwards from thesad flesh itself ; it has no
disinclination to folly.The difference between folly and
wisdom,between crime and piety, is not naturallyknown to spirit ;
it is a lesson learned byexperience, in view of the conditions of
materiallife ; spirit would of itself gladly take a turnwith the
devil, who is also a spirit. Yet all thisinnocent joy and courage
native to spirit bindit to the world with no tie. That which is
tied,that which cannot live save in its home climateand family
nest, is only the mortal psyche, thepoor, absurd, accidental human
person. Thepsyche in each of us is like Vesta, the goddessof the
Hearth, mother of the Prometheanflame, mother of spirit ; and she
needs to learnthe difficult unselfishness of the parent or ofthe
foster-parent: for her child is of anotherrace. She must be content
to be abandoned,revisited only in haste on some idle holiday,with a
retrospective piety; and even as sheembraces her full-grown
over-topping son hewill seem a stranger to her, and she will
catchsight of his eyes, gazing over her head into afar country.
At the same time this homelessness of spiritis not romantic; it
is not impatience of this
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and longing for that ; it is not the snobbery oflearning and
culture so characteristic of intellectual people who are not
spiritual. No : thehomelessness of spirit comes from
detachment,detachment no less from the grander thingwhich the snob
respects and pretends to knowas from this humbler thing which he
despises.Anything is enough if it be pure ; but purityitself comes
to things from the simplicity of thespirit which regards them, not
indeed withindifference, rather with joy, but without anyulterior
interest ; in other words, purity comesof detaching the thing seen
and loved from theworld that besets and threatens it and attaching
it to the spirit to which it is an eternalpossession. But this
thing eternally possessedby the spirit is not the thing as the
worldknows and prizes it; it is not the person, ornation, or
religion as it asserts and flauntsitself, in a mortal anxiety to be
dominant ; it isonly that thing in its eternal essence, out ofwhich
the stress and the doubt of existencehave wholly passed. It is that
thing dead,immortal, its soul restored, as Plotinus wouldhave said,
to the soul of the universe where,together with all other souls, it
has always beencontained in its purity and perfection. Butthe truth
of it there is not the fact of it here ;and therefore the world,
though the spirit lovesit far more truly and tenderly than it
lovesitself, is chilled and rebuked by that look of
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divine love, which, if it were heeded, wouldtransmute its whole
life and change it fromwhat it so passionately and cruelly is, in
time,into that which the spirit sees it to be ineternity.
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XVITHE human heart is full of political, religious,metaphysical
ambition; it hugs all sorts ofpleasant projects in art and in
fortune. Theseare moral interests and, if not misguided, maybring
hidden or future facts before the mind,and broaden the basis for
rational action. Sothe Platonic philosophy sets the scene in oneway
for the play, the Christian system in a waysomewhat different, and
modern science, if wemake a naturalistic system out of it, in
stillanother. I will not say that the questionwhich of these is
true, or truer, is indifferent tothe spirit; its fortunes and
temper will evidently vary if it is bred in one or another ofthese
climates. But if the facts were discovered, whatever they might
turn out to be,the spirit would be equally ready and able toface
them. It is not in the least bound up withthe supposition, whatever
it may mean exactly,that any " values are the most real things in
theuniverse." What should the spirit care ifmoralistic metaphysics
ceased to invade thefield of natural philosophy, venturing
thereupon some guesses flattering to human vanity ?What if the most
realthat is, I suppose, themost fundamental and dynamicthings in
theuniverse were utterly inhuman ? Would spiritu
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ality be thereby prevented from being spiritual,from seeing and
judging whatever worldhappened to exist in the light of spirit
?
When I say the light of spirit I might as wellsay light simply ;
for what is spirit but the actof making light actual, of greeting,
observing,questioning, and judging anything and every-i thing ?
Spirit is awareness, intelligence, recollection. It requires no
dogmas, as does animalfaith or the art of living. Human
morality,for the spirit, is but the inevitable and hygienic
\bias of one race of animals. Spirit itself is nothuman ; it may
spring up in any life ; it maydetach itself from any provincialism;
as itexists in all nations and religions, so it mayexist in all
animals, and who knows in howmany undreamt-of beings, and in the
midst ofwhat worlds ? It might flourish, as the Stoicsfelt, even in
the face of chaos, except that chaoscould not sustain the animal
life, the psyche,which spirit requires for its organ. From
theexistence of spirit a psychologist may therefore argue back to
the existenceat least localand temporaryof some cosmos of
organizedmatter : but this dependence of mind on bodyis a lesson
taught by natural philosophy, whennatural philosophy is sound; it
is not a freeor evident requirement of spirit in its
firstdeliverance. On the contrary, the body whichis the matrix and
cradle of spirit in time, seemsa stumbling-block to it in its
spontaneous
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career ; and a rather long discipline and muchchastening hardly
persuade this supernaturalnursling that it is really so domestic,
and thatit borrows its existence from a poor, busy,precarious
animal life; or that the naturalrhythms, pauses, and synthetic
reactions ofthat life
