Mysticism in English Literature Part 6

The belief in the impotence of intellectual knowledge is very closely connected, it is indeed based, upon these "gleams" of ecstasy. The prologue to _In Memoriam_ (written when the poem was completed) seems to sum up his faith after many years of struggle and doubt; but it is in the most philosophical as well as one of the latest, of his poems, _The Ancient Sage_, that we find this att.i.tude most fully expressed. Tennyson wrote of it: "The whole poem is very personal. The pa.s.sages about 'Faith' and 'the Pa.s.sion of the Past' were more especially my own personal feelings." Through the mouth of the Sage, the poet declares in impa.s.sioned words the position of the mystic, and points out the impotence of sense-knowledge in dealing with that which is beyond either the senses or the reason:

For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there But never yet hath dipt into the abysm.

Tennyson, like Wordsworth, emphasises the truth that the only way in which man can gain real knowledge and hear the "Nameless" is by diving or sinking into the centre of his own being. There is a great deal of Eastern philosophy and mysticism in the _Ancient Sage_, as, for instance, the feeling of the unity of all existence to the point of merging the personality into the universal.

But that one ripple on the boundless deep Feels that the deep is boundless, and itself For ever changing form, but evermore One with the boundless motion of the deep.

We know that Tennyson had been studying the philosophy of Lao-Tsze about this time; yet, though this is, as it were, grafted on to the poet's mind, still we may take it as being his genuine and deepest conviction.

The nearest approach to a definite statement of it to be found in his poems is in the few stanzas called _The Higher Pantheism_, which he sent to be read at the first meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869.

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-- Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision--were it not He?

In William Law, Burke, Coleridge, and Carlyle, we have a succession of great English prose-writers whose work and thought is permeated by a mystical philosophy. Of these four, Law is, during his later life, by far the most consistently and predominantly mystical.

As has been indicated, there were many strains of influence which in the seventeenth century tended to foster mystical thought in England. The group of Cambridge Platonists, to which Henry More belonged, gave new expression to the great Neo-platonic ideas, but in addition to this a strong vein of mysticism had been kept alive in Amsterdam, where the exiled Separatists had gone in 1593. They flourished there and waxed strong, and sent back to England during the next century a continual stream of opinion and literature. To this source can be traced the ideas which inspired alike the Quakers, the Seekers, the Behmenists, the Familists, and numberless other sects who all embodied a reaction against forms and ceremonies, which, in ceasing to be understood, had become lifeless. These sects were, up to a certain point, mystical in thought, for they all believed in the "inner light," in the immediate revelation of G.o.d within the soul as the all-important experience.

The persecutions of the Quakers under Charles II. tended to withdraw them from active philanthropy, and to throw them more in the direction of a personal and contemplative religion. It was then that the writings of Madame Bourignon, Madame Guyon, and Fenelon became popular, and were much read among a certain section of thinkers, while the influence of the teachings of Jacob Boehme, whose works had been translated into English between the years 1644 and 1692, can be traced, in diverse ways.

They impressed themselves on the thought of the founders of the Society of Friends, they produced a distinct "Behmenist" sect, and it would seem that the idea of the three laws of motion first reached Newton through his eager study of Boehme. But all this has nothing directly to do with literature, and would not concern us here were it not that in the eighteenth century William Law came into touch with many of these mystical thinkers, and that he has embodied in some of the finest prose in our language a portion of the "inspired cobbler's" vision of the universe.

Law's character is one of considerable interest. Typically English, and in intellect typically of the eighteenth century, logical, sane, practical, he is not, at first sight, the man one would expect to find in sympathy with the mystics. Sincerity is the keynote of his whole nature, sincerity of thought, of belief, of speech, and of life.

Sincerity implies courage, and Law was a brave man, never shirking the logical outcome of his convictions, from the day when he ruined his prospects at Cambridge, to the later years when he suffered his really considerable reputation to be eclipsed by his espousal of an uncomprehended and unpopular mysticism. He had a keen rather than a profound intellect, and his thought is lightened by brilliant flashes of wit or of grim satire. We can tell, however, from his letters and his later writings, that underneath a severe and slightly stiff exterior, were hidden emotion, enthusiasm, and great tenderness of feeling.

By middle life Law was well known as a most able and brilliant writer on most of the burning theological questions of the day, as well as the author of one of the best loved and most widely read practical and ethical treatises in the language, _A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life_. These earlier writings are by far the best known of his works, and it is with the _Serious Call_ that his name will always be a.s.sociated.

Until middle age he showed no marked mystical tendency, although we know that from the time he was an undergraduate he was a "diligent reader"

of mystical books, and that he had studied, among others, Dionysius the Areopagite, Ruysbroek, Tauler, Suso, and the seventeenth century Quietists, Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and Antoinette Bourignon.

When, however, he was about forty-six (c. 1733), he came across the writings of the seer who set his whole nature aglow with spiritual fervour, so that when he first read his works they put him into "a perfect sweat." Jacob Boehme--or Behmen, as he has usually been called in England--(1575-1624), the illiterate and untrained peasant shoemaker of Gorlitz, is one of the most amazing phenomena in the history of mysticism, a history which does not lack wonders. His work has so much influenced later mystical thought and philosophy that a little s.p.a.ce must be devoted to him here. He lived outwardly the quiet, hard-working life of a simple German peasant, but inwardly--like his fellow-seer Blake--he lived in a glory of illumination, which by flashes revealed to him the mysteries and splendours he tries in broken and faltering words to record. He saw with the eye of his mind into the heart of things, and he wrote down as much of it as he could express.

The older mystics--eastern and western alike--had laid stress on unity as seen in the nature of G.o.d and all things. No one more fully believed in ultimate unity than did Boehme, but he lays peculiar stress on the duality, or more accurately, the trinity in unity; and the central point of his philosophy is the fundamental postulate that all manifestation necessitates opposition. He a.s.serted the uniformity of law throughout all existence, physical and spiritual, and this law, which applies all through nature, divine and human alike, is that nothing can reveal itself without resistance, good can only be known through evil, and weakness through strength, just as light is only visible when reflected by a dark body.

Thus when G.o.d, the Triune Principle, or _Will_ under three aspects, desires to become manifest, He divides the Will into two, the "yes" and the "no," and so founds an eternal contrast to Himself out of His own hidden Nature, in order to enter into struggle with it, and finally to discipline and a.s.similate it. The object of all manifested nature is the transforming of the will which says "No" into the will which says "Yes,"

and this is brought about by seven organising spirits or forms. The first three of these bring nature out of the dark element to the point where contact with the light is possible. Boehme calls them harshness, attraction, and anguish, which in modern terms are contraction, expansion, and rotation. The first two are in deadly antagonism, and being forced into collision, form an endless whirl of movement. These two forces with their resultant effect are to be found all through manifested nature, within man and without, and are called by different names: good, evil and life, G.o.d, the devil and the world, h.o.m.ogeneity, heterogeneity, strain, or the three laws of motion, centripetal and centrifugal force, resulting in rotation. They are the outcome of the "nature" or "no" will, and are the basis of all manifestation. They are the "power" of G.o.d, apart from the "love," hence their conflict is terrible. When spirit and nature approach and meet, from the shock a new form is liberated, lightning or fire, which is the fourth moment or essence. With the lightning ends the development of the negative triad, and the evolution of the three higher forms then begins; Boehme calls them light or love, sound and substance; they are of the spirit, and in them contraction, expansion, and rotation are repeated in a new sense.

The first three forms give the stuff or strength of being, the last three manifest the quality of being good or bad, and evolution can proceed in either direction.

The practical and ethical result of this living unity of nature is the side which most attracted Law, and it is one which is as simple to state as it is difficult to apply. Boehme's philosophy is one which can only be apprehended by living it. Will, or desire, is the radical force in man as it is in nature and in the G.o.dhead, and until that is turned towards the light, any purely historical or intellectual knowledge of these things is as useless as if hydrogen were to expect to become water by study of the qualities of oxygen, whereas what is needed is the actual union of the elements.

The two most important of Law's mystical treatises are _An Appeal to all that Doubt_, 1740, and _The Way to Divine Knowledge_, 1752. The first of these should be read by any one desirous of knowing Law's later thought, for it is a clear and fine exposition of his att.i.tude with regard more especially to the nature of man, the unity of all nature, and the quality of fire or desire. The later book is really an account of the main principles of Boehme, with a warning as to the right way to apply them, and it was written as an introduction to the new edition of Boehme's works which Law contemplated publishing.

The following is the aspect of Boehme's teaching which Law most consistently emphasises.

Man was made out of the Breath of G.o.d; his soul is a spark of the Deity.

It therefore cannot die, for it "has the Unbeginning, Unending Life of G.o.d in it." Man has fallen from his high estate through ignorance and inexperience, through seeking separation, taking the part for the whole, desiring the knowledge of good and evil as separate things. The a.s.sertion of self is thus the root of all evil; for as soon as the will of man "turns to itself, and would, as it were, have a Sound of its own, it breaks off from the divine harmony, and falls into the misery of its own discord." For it is the state of our will that makes the state of our life. Hence, by the "fall," man's standpoint has been dislocated from centre to circ.u.mference, and he lives in a false imagination. Every quality is equally good, for there is nothing evil in G.o.d from whom all comes; but evil appears to be through separation. Thus strength and desire in the divine nature are necessary and magnificent qualities, but when, as in the creature, they are separated from love, they appear as evil.[34] The a.n.a.logy of the fruit is, in this connection a favourite one with both Law and Boehme. When a fruit is unripe (i.e. incomplete) it is sour, bitter, astringent, unwholesome; but when it has been longer exposed to the sun and air it becomes sweet, luscious, and good to eat.

Yet it is the same fruit, and the astringent qualities are not lost or destroyed, but trans.m.u.ted and enriched, and are thus the main cause of its goodness.[35] The only way to pa.s.s from this condition of "bitterness" to ripeness, from this false imagination to the true one, is the way of death. We must die to what we are before we can be born anew; we must die to the things of this world to which we cling, and for which we desire and hope, and we must turn towards G.o.d. This should be the daily, hourly exercise of the mind, until the whole turn and bent of our spirit "points as constantly to G.o.d as the needle touched with the loadstone does to the north."[36] To be alive in G.o.d, before you are dead to your own nature, is "a thing as impossible in itself, as for a grain of wheat to be alive before it dies."

The root of all, then, is the will or desire. This realisation of the momentous quality of the will is the secret of every religious mystic, the hunger of the soul, as Law calls it, is the first necessity, and all else will follow.[37] It is the seed of everything that can grow in us; "it is the only workman in nature, and everything is its work;" it is the true magic power. And this will or desire is always active; every man's life is a continual state of prayer, and if we are not praying for the things of G.o.d, we are praying for _something else_.[38] For prayer is but the desire of the soul. Our imaginations and desires are, therefore, the greatest realities we have, and we should look closely to what they are.[39]

It is essential to the understanding of Law, as of Boehme, to remember his belief in the reality and actuality of the oneness of nature and of law.[40] Nature is G.o.d's great Book of Revelation, for it is nothing else but G.o.d's own outward manifestation of what He inwardly is, and can do.... The mysteries of religion, therefore, are no higher, nor deeper than the mysteries of nature.[41] G.o.d Himself is subject to this law.

There is no question of G.o.d's mercy or of His wrath,[42] for it is an eternal principle that we can only receive what we are capable of receiving; and to ask why one person gains no help from the mercy and goodness of G.o.d while another does gain help is "like asking why the refreshing dew of heaven does not do that to the flint which it does to the vegetable plant."[43]

Self-denial, or mortification of the flesh is not a thing imposed upon us by the mere will of G.o.d: considered in themselves they have nothing of goodness or holiness, but they have their ground and reason in the nature of the thing, and are as "absolutely necessary to make way for the new birth, as the death of the husk and gross part of the grain is necessary to make way for its vegetable life."[44]

These views are clear enough, but the more mystical ones, such as those which Law and Boehme held, for instance, about fire, can only be understood in the light of this living unity throughout nature, humanity, and divinity.

"Everything in temporal Nature," says Law, "is descended out of that which is eternal, and stands as a palpable, visible Outbirth of it: ... Fire and Light and Air in this World are not only a true Resemblance of the Holy Trinity in Unity, but are the Trinity itself in its most outward, lowest kind of Existence or Manifestation.... Fire compacted, created, separated from Light and Air, is the Elemental Fire of this World: Fire uncreated, uncompacted, unseparated from Light and Air, is the heavenly Fire of Eternity: Fire kindled in any material Thing is only Fire breaking out of its created, compacted state; it is nothing else but the awakening the Spiritual Properties of that Thing, which being thus stirred up, strive to get rid of that material Creation under which they are imprisoned ... and were not these spiritual Properties imprisoned in Matter, no material Thing could be made to burn.... Fire is not, cannot be a material Thing, it only makes itself visible and sensible by the Destruction of Matter."[45] "If you ask what Fire is in its first true and unbeginning State, not yet entered into any Creature, It is the Power and Strength, the Glory and Majesty of eternal Nature.... If you ask what Fire is in its own spiritual Nature, it is merely a _Desire_, and has no other Nature than that of a _working Desire_, which is continually its _own Kindler_." [46]

All life is a kindled fire in a variety of states, and every dead, insensitive thing is only dead because its fire is quenched or compressed, as in the case of a flint, which is in a state of death "because its fire is bound, compacted, shut up and imprisoned," but a steel struck against it, shows that every particle of the flint consists of this compacted fire.

But even as, throughout all nature, a state of death is an imprisoned fire, so throughout all nature is there only one way of kindling life.

You might as well write the word "flame" on the outside of a flint and expect it to emit sparks as to imagine that any speculations of your reason will kindle divine life in your soul.

No; Would you have Fire from a Flint; its House of Death must be shaken, and its Chains of Darkness broken off by the Strokes of a Steel upon it. This must of all Necessity be done to your Soul, its imprisoned Fire must be awakened by the sharp Strokes of Steel, or no true Light of Life can arise in it.[2]

All life, whether physical or spiritual, means a death to some previous condition, and must be generated in pain. 6 1: _An Appeal, Works_, vol. vi. pp. 166. 2 _Ibid._, p, 82.

If this mystical view of Fire be clear, it will be easy enough to follow what Law says about Light and Darkness, or Air, Water, and Earth, interpreting them all in the same way as "eternal Things become gross, finite, measurable, divisible, and transitory."[47]

_The Spirit of Prayer_ is of all Law's works the one most steeped in mystic ardour, and it possesses a charm, a melody of rhythm, and an imaginative quality rarely to be found in his earlier work. It should be read by those who would see Law under a little known aspect, and who do not realise that we have an English mystic who expresses, with a strength and beauty which Plotinus himself has rarely surpa.s.sed, the longing of the soul for union with the Divine.

Burke, Coleridge, and Carlyle are three very different writers who are alike in the mystical foundations of their belief, and who, through their writings, for over a hundred years in England carry on the mystical att.i.tude and diffuse much mystical thought.

Burke, the greatest and most philosophic of English statesmen, was so largely because of his mystic spirit and imagination. Much of the greatness of his political pamphlets and speeches and of their enduring value is owing to the fact that his arguments are based on a sense of oneness and continuity, of oneness in the social organism and of continuity in the spirit which animates it. He believes in a life in the Universe, in a divine order, mysterious and inscrutable in origins and in ends, of which man and society are a part.

This society is linked together in mutual service from the lowest to the highest. "Society is indeed a contract," he says in a memorable pa.s.sage,

It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place.

These are strange words for an English statesman to address to the English public in the year 1790; the thought they embody seems more in keeping with its surroundings when we hear it thundered out anew forty years later by the raw Scotch preacher-philosopher in the chapter he calls "Organic Filaments" in his odd but strangely stirring mystical rhapsody, _Sartor Resartus_.

It is on this belief of oneness, this interrelationship and interdependence that all Burke's deepest practical wisdom is based. It is on this he makes his appeal for high principle and n.o.ble example to the great families with hereditary trusts and fortunes, who, he says, he looks on as the great oaks that shade a country and perpetuate their benefits from generation to generation.

This imaginative belief in the reality of a central spiritual life is always accompanied, whether definitely expressed or not, with a belief in the value of particulars, of the individual, as opposed to general statements and abstract philosophy. The mystic, who believes in an inward moulding spirit, necessarily believes that all reforms must come from within, and that, as Burke points out in the _Present Discontents_, good government depends not upon laws but upon individuals. Blake, in a characteristic phrase, says: "He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars; general good is the plea of the hypocrite, flatterer, and scoundrel." This sums up the essence of the social philosophy of these three thinkers, as seen by Burke's insistence on the value of concrete details in Coleridge's use of them in his Lay Sermon, and in Carlyle's belief in the importance of the single individual life in history.

It is easy to see that Coleridge's att.i.tude of mind and the main lines of his philosophy were mystical. From early years, as we know from Lamb, he was steeped in the writings of the Neo-platonists and these, together with Boehme, in whom he was much interested, and Sch.e.l.ling, strengthened a type of belief already natural to him.

In spite of his devotion to the doctrines of Hartley, it is clear from his poetry and letters, that Coleridge very early had doubts concerning the adequacy of the intellect as an instrument for arriving at truth, and that at the same time the conviction was slowly gaining ground with him that an act of the will is necessary in order to bring man into contact with reality. Coleridge believed in a Spirit of the universe with which man could come into contact, both directly by desire, and also mediately through the forms and images of nature, and in the _Religious Musings_ (1794) we get very early a statement of this mystical belief.

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind Omnific. His most holy name is Love.

From Him--

... we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire,

and the greatest thing we can achieve, "our noon-tide majesty," is--