Introductory

A wave of Mysticism is passing over the civilised nations. It is

welcomed by many: by more it is mistrusted. Even the minds to

which it would naturally appeal are often restrained from

sympathy by fears of vague speculative driftings and of

transcendental emotionalism. Nor can it be doubted that such an

attitude of aloofness is at once reasonable and inevitable. For a

systematic exaltation of formless ecstasies, at the expense of

sense and intellect, has a tendency to become an infirmity if it

does not always betoken loss of mental balance. In order,

therefore, to disarm natural prejudice, let an opening chapter be

devoted to general exposition of aims and principles.



The subject is Nature Mysticism. The phenomena of "nature"

are to be studied in their mystical aspects. The wide term

Mysticism is used because, in spite of many misleading

associations, it is hard to replace. "Love of nature" is too

general: "cosmic emotion" is too specialised. But let it at once

be understood that the Mysticism here contemplated is neither

of the popular nor of the esoteric sort. In other words, it is not

loosely synonymous with the magical or supernatural; nor is it a

name for peculiar forms of ecstatic experience which claim to

break away from the spheres of the senses and the intellect. It

will simply be taken to cover the causes and the effects involved

in that wide range of intuitions and emotions which nature

stimulates without definite appeal to conscious reasoning

processes. Mystic intuition and mystic emotion will thus be

regarded, not as antagonistic to sense impression, but as

dependent on it--not as scornful of reason, but merely as more

basic and primitive.



Science describes nature, but it cannot _feel_ nature; still less

can it account for that sense of kinship with nature which is so

characteristic of many of the foremost thinkers of the day. For

life is more and more declaring itself to be something fuller

than a blind play of physical forces, however complex and

sublimated their interactions. It reveals a ceaseless striving--an

_elan vital_ (as Bergson calls it) to expand and enrich the forms

of experience--a reaching forward to fuller beauty and more

perfect order.



A certain amount of metaphysical discussion will be necessary;

but it will be reduced to the minimum compatible with

coherency. Fortunately, Nature Mysticism can be at home with

diverse world-views. There is, however, one exception--the

world-view which is based on the concept of an Unconditioned

Absolute. This will be unhesitatingly rejected as subversive of

any genuine "communion" with nature. So also Symbolism will

be repudiated on the ground that it furnishes a quite inadequate

account of the relation of natural phenomena to the human

mind. The only metaphysical theory adopted, as a generalised

working basis, is that known as Ideal-Realism. It assumes three

spheres of existence--that which in a peculiar sense is _within_

the individual mind: that which in a peculiar sense is _without_

(external to) the individual mind: and that in which these two

are fused or come into living contact. It will be maintained, as a

thesis fundamental to Nature Mysticism, that the world of

external objects must be essentially of the same essence as the

perceiving minds. The bearing of these condensed statements

will become plain as the phenomena of nature are passed in

review. Of formal theology there will be none.



The more certain conclusions of modern science, including the

broader generalisations of the hypothesis of evolution, will be

assumed. Lowell, in one of his sonnets, says:



"I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away

The charm that nature to my childhood wore

For, with that insight cometh, day by day,

A greater bliss than wonder was before:

The real doth not clip the poet's wings;

To win the secret of a weed's plain heart

Reveals some clue to spiritual things,

And stumbling guess becomes firm-rooted art."



Admirable--as far as it goes! But the modern nature-mystic

cannot rest content with the last line. The aim of nature-insight

is not art, however firm-rooted; for art is, so to speak, a

secondary product, a reflection. The goal of the nature-mystic is

actual living communion with the Real, in and through its

sensuous manifestations.



Nature Mysticism, as thus conceived, does not seek to glorify

itself above other modes of experience and psychic activity. The

partisanship of the theological or of the transcendental type is

here condemned. Nor will there be an appeal to any ecstatic

faculty which can only be the vaunted appanage of the few. The

appeal will lie to faculties which are shared in some degree by

all normal human beings, though they are too often neglected, if

not disparaged. Rightly developed, the capacity for entering into

communion with nature is not only a source of the purest

pleasure, but a subtle and powerful agent in aiding men to

realise some of the noblest potentialities of their being.



When treating of specific natural phenomena, the exposition

demands proof and illustration. In certain chapters, therefore,

quotations from the prose and poetry of those ancients and

moderns who, avowedly or unavowedly, rank as nature-mystics,

are freely introduced. These extracts form an integral part of the

study, because they afford direct evidence of the reality, and of

the continuity, of the mystical faculty as above defined.



The usual method of procedure will be to trace the influence of

certain selected natural phenomena on the human mind, first in

the animistic stage, then in the mythological stage, and lastly in

the present, with a view to showing that there has been

a genuine and living development of deep-seated nature

intuitions. But this method will not be too strictly followed.

Special subjects will meet with special treatment, and needless

repetition will be carefully avoided. The various chapters, as far

as may be, will not only present new themes, but will approach

the subject at different angles.



It is obvious that severe limitations must be imposed in the

selection from so vast a mass of material. Accordingly, the

phenomena of Water, Air, and Fire have received the fullest

attention--the first of the triad getting the lion's share; but

other marked features of the physical universe have not been

altogether passed by. The realm of organic life--vegetable and

animal--does not properly fall within the limits of this study.

For where organised life reveals itself, men find it less difficult

to realise their kinship with existences other than human. The

curious, and still obscure, history of totemism supplies abundant

evidence on this point; and not less so that modern sympathy

with all living things, which is largely based on what may be

termed the new totemism of the Darwinian theory. But while

attention will thus be focussed on the sphere of the inorganic,

seemingly so remote from human modes of experience, some

attempt will nevertheless be made to suggest the inner

harmonies which link together all modes of existence. A further

limitation to be noted is that "nature" will be taken to cover only

such natural objects as remain in what is generally called their

"natural" condition--that is, which are independent of, and

unaffected by, human activities.



Let Goethe, in his Faust hymn, tell what is the heart and essence

of Nature Mysticism as here to be expounded and defended.



"Rears not the heaven its arch above?

Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us lie?

And with the tender gaze of love

Climb not the everlasting stars on high?

Do I not gaze upon thee, eye to eye?

And all the world of sight and sense and sound,

Bears it not in upon thy heart and brain,

And mystically weave around

Thy being influences that never wane?"