THE MYSTIC VIEW.* "READERS of these pages," writes Miss Evelyn

Underhill in her preface,

"will find nothing about trances, ecstasies, and other rare psychic phenomena ; which sometimes indicate holiness, and sometimes only disease. For information on these matters they must go to larger and more technical works. My aim here is the more general one of indicating first the characteristic expe- riences—discoverable within all great religions—which justify or are fundamental to the spiritual life, and the way in which these experiences may be accommodated to the world-view of the modern man : and next, the nature of that spiritual life as it appears in human history."

It is a common experience when we examine the lives or writings of the mystics of all ages to lose sight of the worth and fundamental healthiness of their ultimate aims, conscious or unconscious, through a just impatience with their methods, and also to regard their ideals as both hermitical and out of date, the concern of a view of life long since superseded.

Miss Underhill's book' has the special merit that it treats the ideals and methods of the mystics in the light of modern bio- logical and psychological knowledge and shows them in their true nature divested of inessentials ; and also that it emphasizes the fact that the mystic attitude in its essence is not a matter of historic periods, but one as appropriate to the most modern times as to the most ancient. For this reason she prefers to approach the subject through philosophy and psychology rather than through pure history, which unduly emphasizes the external and temporal at the expense of the human and real. "We are not," she very wisely points out,

"to think of spiritual epochs now closed ; of ages of faith utterly separated from us ; of saints as some peculiar species, God's pet animals, living in an incense-laden atmosphere and less vividly human and various than ourselves. Such conceptions are empty of historical content in the philosophic sense ; and when we are dealing with the accredited heroes of the Spirit--that is to say, with the Saints—they are particularly common and par- ticularly poisonous. As Benedetto Croce has observed, the very condition of the existence of real history is that the deed cele- brated must live and be present in the soul of the historian ; must be emotionally realized by him now, as a concrete fact weighted with-significance. It must answer to a present, not to a past interest of the race, for thus alone can it convey to us some knowledge of its inward truth."

The distinction, then, of "the ages of faith" from other periods is arbitrary and misleading. Miss Underhill amusingly and forcibly points out the influence of mere phraseology on the attitude of many people towards mental and spiritual phenomena. The pill may be coated and embodied in a surprising variety of sugars :—

" Perhaps no generation has ever been so much at the mercy of such labels as our own. Thus many people who are inclined to jib at the doctrine of original sin welcome it with open arms when it is reintroduced as the uprush of primitive instinct. Opportunity of confession to a psycho-analyst is eagerly sought and gladly paid for by troubled spirits who would never resort for the same purpose to a priest. The formulte of auto-sug- gestion are freely used by those who repudiate vocal prayer and acts of faith with scorn."

Whether we talk, then, of primitive instinct or the temptations of the devil does not, from one point of view, very much matter.

" It is true that every man has within him such a tempting spirit; but its characters can better be studied in the Zoological Gardens than in the convolutions of a theological hell:"

and whereas in the old phraseology the life of the Spirit was said to be active, contemplative, ascetic, and apostolic, in the

* (I) The Life of the Spirit anti the Life of To-Day. By Evelyn Underhill. London: Methuen. pg. ad. net.]—(2) English Mystics. By Geraldine nediaoa. Loudon ; if.owbrayb. pa. dd. sat.]

new it is said to consist of work, prayer, sell-discipline, and social service.

Miss Underhill does the mystics a service by exposing ruth- lessly certain of their shortcomings. When the Blessed Angela of Foligno records a eonversation with the Holy Ghost—" And dewy often did He say unto me, Bride and daughter, sweet art thou unto Me, I love thee better than any other who is in the valley of Spoleto' "—Miss Underhill does not hesitate to diagnose it as "a subtle form of self-assertion" on the part of Angela.

The light which modern psychology and the recent discoveries of psycho-analysis and auto-suggestion are able to throw on the mystics and their ways, so far from detracting from them. is a striking justification of all that is beet in them and a searching and healthy exposure of all that is worse.

Miss Underhill goes on to discuss "Institutional Religion" and the perpetual and useful reactions between an established organization and the revolutionary sincerity of the great reformers ; after which there are chapters on the individual, education and the social order. Her spiritual attitude, however

(as is inevitable) individuals may disagree with certain details of it, is sane, healthy, and divested of all artificiality. It is an attitude in accord with Meredith's in the Hymn to Colour "Not forfeiting the beast with which they are crossed, To stature of the gods will they attain."

Our only quarrel with Miss Underhill is because of a certain dullness of style which makes her book less readable than it would otherwise be. This is in no sense a complaint at an

absence of fine writing, nor at the scientific attitude and ter- minology which necessarily form part of the book ; it is that one

feels the need of a sharper precision and concentration which

would have presented the essentials more clearly by actually diminishing the volume of the matter.

A fascinating book might be written on the subject of the

English Mystics in the form in which Dr. Geraldine Hodgson presents them,2 that is as a series of character studies connected

by discussions of their common and distinguishing qualities ; for few subjects have a deeper human and psychological interest. But the accusation of dullness—in a greater degree and with less excuse—applies also to Dr. Hodgson. Her style frequently achieves the purest journalese, as when she tells us that Father Augustine Baker was "pulled up with a moral jerk." Her

book is, in fact, too much like the sort of book that might be called Handbook of English Mystics. But if the book cannot be

called fascinating it is both interesting and useful, and Dr. Hodgson wisely illustrates her subjects with liberal quotations from their writings. After a chapter on early antecedents she begins with Marjory Kempe, who was Ancress of Lynn towards the close of the thirteenth century, and carries the subject down to modern times, including such names as William Wordsworth and George Tyrrell.

In English Mystics generally, Dr. Hodgson points out, the

"most persistent traits are a very simple directness, absence of all elaboration, and in almost all, with the exception of the Tractarians, a marked quaintness, a wit ready to play over the gravest matters . . . . Far more striking, however, than this is the absence of raptures and ecstasies, of exhaled fragrances and perfumes which fill a considerable place in the experience of mystics of other races . . . . and further, contests with the powers of evil, so real and so Vivid to some mystics that the combatants feel the actual presence of devils, play scarcely any part in the lives and practice and experience of English Mystics."

It is this sanity, this absence of pathological symptoms, which gives to many of the English Mystics such a clear and human charm.