approach toward all problems and situations, a clear and readily applicable sense of beauty, virtue, wisdom, justice and generosity.

There is no magic door into any of the good things of life; no clever ruse ever fooled Nature into giving up her secrets or dropping her blessings promiscuously among the good and bad. We cannot find anywhere an effective sesame with whose power to charm we can pass instantly into either vocational success of a virtuous life, nor can we find that secret elixir which can in a twinkling give us strength of soul and purity of heart and with these, courage to love and intelligence to learn the truth. These are, true enough, the constant aims and aspirations of mystics the same as they are the ever-present test conditions demanded by philosophers in any life claiming to be religious and devout. With the sophist vulgarian, on the other hand, they are valued automorphically and judged to be merely the shrewd counters against the crass catchwords of finite interests, worldliness and their less innocent propaganda. If some of us didn't give endless voice in preachment of the good and by our own example show the proper sort of emotional response to the inspiration of heroism, justice, courage, beauty and genius, the world in no time would become a veritable hogwallow, if not a desolate vale of ravaging knaves and gullible fools. It is the exemplary function of mysticism to forestall the ignorant superstition that a good life is won by magic or that spiritual rehabilitation may be realized by miracle or mimicry. A certain amount of honest effort, persistence and idealism is necessary, but without some degree of noble spirituelle and kindly disposition to start with, little and but slow progress upward can be made.

In those classical anticipations of pragmatism which felt no anxieties over ideas, opinions and value-judgments so long as these continued to give men happy moods or share with them some mysterious power over life and progress we can read no little measure of shrewd ethical device, for their principal function was the more or less direct ordering of men into social relations with each other. No one seemed to object to false notions or self-sought religions so long as these were useful, well-argued or preservative of past tradition; but they did object strongly whenever anyone attempted to challenge their vital lies and fallacies. Some such a similar condition is necessary for any sort of pragmatic religion to take root and flourish; there must be a general tenor of cupidity among the people, a popular approval of whatever is foolish, ephemeral, promiscuous and illusory. It is fashionable to be low-aiming and mercenary,

trusting to luck and placing faith in whatever magic formula happens to be the most loudly advertised. Just now we are passing through an age of irresponsible rhyomism, everyone appears to be hellbent on some pet fallacy of will, some private perquisite of power, some personal adventure patterned after the wild opportunism of Fortunatus. No wonder there are so many pragmatic sponsors of religion, so many clever manipulators of rewards and retributions. But the situation is not unique; there have been a thousand previous vulgarian ages at certain intervals in the world's past history, and nearly every one of them has been a dismal repetition of its prede

cessor.

The situation that is unique is revealed when we think of the occasional flourish of philosophy, how the world manages to forget its mad folly long enough to now and then produce an age rich in righteousness and reflection, an age of justice, honor, sincerity, courage and reverence. Then it is that we find a fair number of saints, sages, heroes and geniuses who know how to think with clear vision and free faculty, who have intelligent faith and soon grow impatient with the crude fallacies of creed and deed which surround them. They have no manufactured pedigree because their true ancestry is all the struggles, hopes, thoughts, dreams and disappointments of humanity's past experience. They have no artificial pose to strike, no magic formula to apply, for their ambition is sincere and they play fair tourney in winning life and livelihood from the world. This is one good reason why they are often misunderstood by the multitude which confuses them with those no higher souled than their own vulgarian companions or with those no more exalted or devout than the average rabble-ranter. The general mass of people never come in contact with anyone but fools and fakers, knaves and nincompoops, so we shouldn't wonder at them when they look on philosophers and saints also as so many Cagliostroes and spiritual rat-catchers.

I feel quite fertile whenever a discussion is raised as to the relationship, even the dependence, of a man's religion to his interest in such subjects as Art, History, Science, Mysticism, Government, Philosophy and Social Efficiency. I believe that whatever religious faith a man professes as well as the one he actually practices is vitally influenced if not almost wholly determined, by the amount of study. or the degree of understanding he has of the principles and purposes of these great domains of human achievement. They are items in our cultural progress, our spiritual enlightenment and exaltation, so

why should they not be among the principal interests of anyone desiring to be religious and intelligent himself, or at least have a tolerant understanding of reverence and wisdom in others? Not being accomplished in either of these talents he is certainly a dunce and makes an unprofitable mate as well as a boorish companion.

True genius does not resort to things fantastical, false, mythical, uncertain or extreme in his attempt to work out a valid symbolism of life and art. It is the function of genius, the same as it is the purpose of art, to disprove and repudiate these very things, to certify the beautifully good and true in such a way as to inspire and teach others. It is only cynics like Nietzsche or La Rochefoucauld who regard art and religion as subtle narcotics to make us forget our cares and woes. Some consolation against this view may be had in remembering that other narcotic addicts like De Quincey, Coleridge and Poe have found more honorable security in art and religion than in the petty umbrage of a cynic philosophy. This phase of the question concerning magic and artifice in one's religious outlook cannot be ignored and evaded with empty cavilling or catch-worded ridicule. It is live enough to demand our attention and interesting enough to delight us with the advantage of understanding what it means. The mystic philosopher is no free-lance postichee, he works no magic tricks on his fellows, he is never the cheap miracle-monger who is forever spoliating the temple and obtaining an easy livelihood through his clever but fallacious manipulations. Instead of this he is a genius of genuine capacity, his unique nature is of noble origin and his loyal affections last through a lifetime. It is not because of fear, laziness or egotism that he often retires to a quiet refuge from the world, but because his superior spiritual powers reveal the utter vanity of worldly effort, the utter futility of all ephemeral aims and conflicts. His life then bears no petty spite or spoil, it does not exist for base utility or ease, but for the nobler cause of spiritual refinement, mystic exaltation and philosophic revery. He understands the true purpose of individuality, that it is the door to destiny, that its value is symbolic and its function is constructive, that its ultimate aim is to realize progressive transfiguration and its only justification is its power for happiness, for a wholesome life redeemed. from meanness, folly, sin, mediocrity and the semi-animal poverty of our souls. The whole procedure is bound by a sense of piety and justice, feeling always responsible for what is done as well as accountable for what is not done. It is this piety perhaps which is the only really religious teaching which can be derived from mysti

cism, but without it Christianity itself would be in need of salvation. Religion may be of the Medici, the Grammatici, Physici or Mystici, but it is as Prof. Gilbert Murray so charmingly shows, a poor religio if it does not "free us from imprisonment in the rancor and wreck of the external present." Its aim is spiritual salvage and its method is heroic sacrifice, renunciation and intelligent self-control. The general attitude is one of reverence and responsibility, aspiration and sympathy with Nature, God and the Cosmic Consciousness. Pure religion is essentially a lifetime search for some means of establishing communication between man's mind, nature and experience with those divine existences which we call Nature, God, the Universe. It was the clear vision of this possibility and ideal achievement which inspired all the great saints and mystic philosophers of antiquity; it encouraged their speculations on divine things and ennobled their dealings with their fellow-men. It was a recognized fact which gave both foundation and validation to the mystic realism of Plato's ideal types and Spinoza's eternal forms; it is the constant cementing element giving coherence and inter-functional relation to Doctor Wallace's hierarchy of demi-gods and angels, cellsouls and exalted spiritual agencies. Many and various religions throughout the world's past history have found unity at least on this one feature of cosmic emotion, reverence and mystic exaltation. Among them may be mentioned those esoteric cults of theurgy and theosophy, Mithraic magic and Kaaba lore, mystic ecstacy and Neoplatonism, doctrines of creation and redemption such as Chaldean. cosmogony and Logos-power, Gnostic Demiurgos and Byzantine Eucharist, oriental meditations and occidental industry.

The actual trend of religious progress and enlightenment has been away from miracles and magic toward normal experience and honest achievement. It has been a slow and laborious culture of man's soul, his mind and heart; not a sudden mysterious transfiguration or wheedler's promise of vicarious merit. It has been a natural process of time and effort, not a mythical emprise after imaginary golden fleeces. One of the first impulses toward religious feeling and aspiration was when some shaggy anthropoid began to wonder what made the stars shine or why the sun made him feel warm; then, after untold ages of vague observations, weird wonderings, superstitions and fetich-worship, the ancient peoples became selfconscious and adopted a veneration of heroes, tribal leaders and medicine men which soon gave rise to philosophies of man-made postulates and automorphic predications, to social theories of class, occu

pation, government, customs and creeds. Two examples of what was perhaps the world's most unique program of mysticism are to be found existing contemporaneously in India and Greece during the days of ancient glory. Without making any close sectarian distinctions we find that there was a general practice and ritual built up in ancient India on the religious significance of a meditative asceticism which renounced all physical activity whether good or bad and which was supposed to give one power over the natural law of Karma which meant that one was enabled to evade the pernicious cycle of fate and all attachment to the seductions of sentient existence. Not only did the Hindus aim to free themselves from the vain exigencies of the external present, but they even went so far as to propose repudiation of the whole process and procuration of worldly life. In contemporary Greece we find the Eleusinian Mysteries offering their astonished devotees, who were usually erratic of mind if not erotic in emotion, a more or less enigmatic program of intellectual mystification under which (the flesh being willing and the spirit weak) was also given a teasing taste of emotional persuasion. The ultimate creed aimed at was a shrewd device of oracular manipulation whose only spirit and courage for good found expression in a specious ambiguity of advice which aimed to secure political power at a time when several states were jockeying for leadership in Greek sovereignty. In reality they were the feminine cults centering around the worship of Persephone and derived from the Egyptian cults of Isis; thus acting as correlatives to the masculine cults (Dionysaic Mysteries) centering around the Bacchanalian hedonism which Orpheus brought over from the Egyptian devotees to Horus. Very few of their rites were either religiously devout in the strict sense or sensually pure in the latitudinarian sense, and we should not reveal our own corrupt persuasion by considering them less devoted to cheap magic than to a hard-won sincerity in spiritual purity and mystic exaltation. Greek talent was more worldly than that of the ascetic Hindus.

Is it not a strange coincidence and commentary on our modern situation to find that among those who seek to minimize and extenuate religious fallacy and hypocrisy are reverend gentlemen hiding behind sackcloth frocks and rosaries de Cluny? How can a confessed casuist like Hastings Rashdall admit that the plain truth is not always the highest propriety and yet claim to be devout and loyal to a creed which frowns on all mischief and mendacity? Non committal assent to a falsehood will sooner or later prove to be culp