Mysticism
Even "pronounced individuality" "has an element of mysticism" in it--of the
non-rational, which we feel the more distinctly the more decidedly we
reject all attempts to make it rational again through crude or subtle
mythologies. This is much more true of genius, artistic insight, and
inspiration. But these are much too delicate to be exposed to the
buffeting of controversy, much more so the dark and mysterious boundary
region in the life of the human spirit which we know under the name of
mysticism in the true sense, without inverted commas. It is not a subject
that is adapted for systematic treatment. Where it has been subjected to
it, everything becomes crude and repulsive, a mere caricature of pure
mysticism like the recrudescent occultism of to-day. Therefore it is
enough simply to call the attention of the sympathetic reader to it and
then to pass it by. In face of the witness borne to it by all that is
finest and deepest in history, especially in the history of religion,
naturalism is powerless.