Nature Mysticism | Page 6

comes into the mind as "a given." When conscious thought

grips this "given," it can put it into all manner of relations with other
"givens." It may even to some extent control the course of subsequent
sensations by the exercise of attention and in accordance with a
conscious purpose. But thought cannot create a sensation. The
sensation is thus at the base of all mental life. It furnishes material for
the distinction between subject and object--between the outer and the
inner. The conscious processes, thus primed, rise through the various
stages of contemplation, reflection, abstraction, conception, and
reasoning.
The study of sense perception is thus seen to be a study of primary
mystical intuition. But the similarity, or essential bond, between the
two may be worked at a deeper level. When an external object
stimulates a sensation, it produces a variety of changes in the mind of
the percipient. Most of these may remain in the depths of subconscious
mental life, but they are none the less real as effectual agents of change.
Now what is here implied? The external object has somehow or other
got "inside" the percipient mind--has penetrated to it, and modified it.
In other words, a form of mystical communion has been established.
The object has penetrated into the mind, and the mind has come into
living touch with the Real external to itself. The object and the subject
are to this extent fused in a mystic union. How could the fusion take
place unless the two were linked in some fundamental harmony of
being? Other and higher modes of mystical union may be experienced;
but sense perception contains them all in germ. How vain, then, the
absolutist's attempt to sever himself from the sphere of sense!
Intuition, we have seen, must be deemed to be independent of
conscious reasoning processes. But this is not to say that it is
independent of reason, either objectively or subjectively. Not
objectively, for if the world is a cosmos, it must be rationally
constituted. Not subjectively, for man's reasoning faculties may
influence many of his mental activities without rising to the level of
reflective ratiocination. And thus man's communion with the cosmos,
of which he is himself a part, will be grounded in the reason which
permeates the whole.

If we go on to ask what is the relation between intuition and conscious
reflective processes, the answer would seem to be somewhat of this
kind. "Intuition, in its wide sense, furnishes material; reason works it up.
Intuition moves about in worlds not systematised; reason reduces them
to order. Reflective thought dealing with the phenomena presented to it
by sensation has three tasks before it--to find out the nature of the
objects, to trace their causes, and to trace their effects. And whereas
each intuitional experience stands alone and isolated in its immediacy,
reason groups these single experiences together, investigates their
conditions, and makes them subserve definite conscious purposes.
But if mystics have too often made the mistake of underrating the
powers and functions of reflective reason, the champions of logic have
also been guilty of the counter-mistake of disparaging intuition, more
especially that called mystical. That is to say, the form of thought is
declared to be superior to the matter of thought--a truly remarkable
contention! What is reason if it has no material to work up? And
whence comes the material but from sensation and intuition? Moreover,
even when the material is furnished to the reasoning processes, the
conclusions arrived at have to be brought continuously and relentlessly
to the bar, not only of physical fact, but also to that of intuition and
sentiment, if serious errors are to be avoided. Systematising and
speculative zeal have a tendency to run ahead of their data.
Bergson has done much to restore to intuition the rights which were
being filched or wrenched from it. He has shown (may it be said
conclusively?) that systematised thought is quite unequal to grappling
with the processes which constitute actual living. Before him,
Schopenhauer had poured well-deserved contempt on the idea that the
brain, an organ which can only work for a few hours at a stretch, and is
dependent on all the accidents of the physical condition of the body,
should be considered equal to solving the problems of existence.
"Certainly" (writes Schwegler) "the highest truths of reason, the eternal,
the divine, are not to be proved by means of demonstration." But this is
no less true of the simplest manifestations of reality. Knowledge is
compelled to move on the surface when it aims at scientific method and
demonstrated results. Intuitive knowledge can often penetrate deeper,

get nearer to the heart of things and divine their deeper relations. When
intuitions can be gripped by conscious reasoning processes, man gains
much of the knowledge which is power.