TH E ART O F LIFE SERIES

.

r rd ri s E itor Edwa d H owa G gg , d

T h e Six t h Sen se

ITS CULTI'ATIO N AND USE

CHARLES H . BRENT ” r n mru n. Aurnon or w r G O D wow . ” ” “ ma ma wrru G OD mPRAYER ar . . c.

NEW YOR' H U E B H B . W S C I 9 19 ’ rmm Co c , 1911 W H BY B . . UEBSCH

irst rintin Novem F p g , ber. 1911

Second p rinting , March . 1912 Third rintin c ober 1912 p g , O t . our h ri in a 1919 F t p nt g . M y ,

PRINTED IN U. 8 . A.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THIS book was planned and promised to the publisher more th an three years ago . Exacting duties have compelled the writer from time to time to defer the completion o f n n has n his u dertaki g . The delay bee profitable in that it has afiorded opportunity for the study of recent works on kindred has topics , which in some respects modified and in some enlarged the original concep h A n tion of the subject in and . long ocea voyage at last has provided the quiet in ts which to write out these though .

S Pr i r r h S . inz E tel F ied ic ,

Gulf of Aden, 8 n 'a uary, CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

TH E SI' TH SEN SE

IN RELATION TO H EALTH

IN RELATION TO TH OU G H T

IN RELATION TO CH ARACTER

IN RELATION TO RELIG ION The Sixtb Seme

CHAPTER I

TH E SI' TH SENSE

BY the Sixth Sense I mean the Mystic n Se se , or that inner perceptive faculty which distinguishes man from the highest below him and allies him to the highest i SO n above h m. disti ctive among created t is of o in Objec s it man that it might , n t as aptly, be characterized the Human is x Sense . It used for no one e clusive purpose ; on the contrary it is only under ’ its operation that man s activities, one and all, become human . In its nature it dif fers essentially from the bodily senses though we are justified in thinking of it as its n a sense because functio is, like them , to perceive and to afford food for thought . es The five bodily sens originally, in the s es o n first tag of evoluti n , were , a d, in their u on s n e he ltimate aspect are , e e s t I 3 14 Th e Six th Sense

e h sens Of touc . By means of it plant, mollusc and worm relate themselves to the universe Of which they are a part .

- By degrees the single sense , in the evolu tionar ds o y process , fin opportunity and c for casion specialization . Sight is ex traordinarily sensitized touch by means of

r. which form and colo are perceived, and the distant object comes bowing to ou r feet ; the stars, leaping across space , are s converted into intimate friend , and ’ ou r earth s farthest horizon lies at door . Hearing is touch localized and special ized SO as to be capable Of perceiving the vibrations caused by the impact of one body upon another ; its enlarged capacity classifies sound in such a way as to offer its mutations and subtleties for ou r use and pleasure as the weaver O fiers his is s e threads to the loom . Smell that p su cialization o f touch, uniquely delicate , p posed by Maeterlinck to be Still in its ear n lier stage of development in human ki d, which responds to the stimulus Of those otherwise intangible exhalations called L z s O dor . astly, taste is touch speciali ed o as to discern the inner properties Of food e stu fi ; taste is the testing sense . Mer x zed touch determines the e istence , speciali Th e Sixth Sense 1 5 touch the character and niceties Of matter o r the physical universe . As indicative Of the unity Of the animal senses and the coOp erative sympathy b e it is one tween them , noteworthy that when th sense is impaired or destroyed, e others i diligently endeavor to supply ts absence , the entire body playing the part as far as car Or h possible of eye or , both, and eac remaining sense growing extraordinarily acute SO as to take on somewhat of the character of the most nearly affiliated or man can the neighbor sense . The blind ar th almost see with c s and hands , e deaf s can almost hear with eyes . The sense that are left strain , not without a measure to s Of success , to convey the brain impre sions for which they are not congenitally adapted . The organic differences in the bodily h find t un senses , t en , a close uni y in f ctional t all r similari y, the senso y nerves grouping themselves under the head Of touch . The e Mystic Sense , likewise , first com s to our attention as a simple faculty Of percep tion by which we gain cognition Of that department of reality that transcends bod ily touch and its subdivisions , but study t o x reveals that its uni y is ordered c mple ity , 1 6 Th e Sixth Sense

as in the case of all developed endow

ments . Broadly speaking it is the sense which relates man to the spiritual or psy h o t u c ic aspect f reali y. It puts s into t e lation with the spiritual order of which fi xer we are a part . It nds room for e c ise , gains its freedom , and reaches its h in b e ighest development this sphere , ginning operations at the point where the bodily senses are compelled by inherent h limitations to alt. It discerns the inner Of most character, use , value the Objective , and difierentiates between the human and the n animal estimate of things . I deed it h as in it that which is not of this world or h order . It soars beyond uman and mun ‘ dane afiairs and steeps its wings in Divine

altitudes where the throne of God is set. Not only does it perceive but it also lays hold of and appropriates that phase of re h ality which lies beyond t e unaided reach , or of ou r eludes the grasp , all the rest of i h t faculties n t eir happiest combina ion , and therefore of any one of them independently . It takes the material gathered by physical

contact with the world of sight and sound , and presents it to the mind for rationaliz

ing operations . More than that , it comes back freighted with wealth gathered in Th e Sixth Sense I 7

explorations in regions where neither body ’ r f no reason can tread, converting li e s dull prose into poetry and song . The most alert and indispensable of en h dowments , it is at once sociable wit the ’ of x and remainder man s faculties , e ternal

internal , and jealously independent of them saving of human consciousness alone . In its higher stages omf development it ac ce pts suggestions fro all , dictation from I i c none . ts manner s ourteous and its mode Of approach one of promptings and h f hints . The sphere Of every ot er aculty is its sphere where it is content to play the of h v modest part a andmaiden, ne er usurp v ai ing functions already pro ided for, though it h as a sphere of its own whither n not eve reason can follow . It is supple me r n n n nta y to all , co tradictory to o e . Without its exercise there can be no prog h I ress or growt . t has its origin in a fi groping instinct, its nal development in orderly activities capable of increasingly fi n clear classi catio . Body, intellect, char acter, moral and religious , are under its influence and dependent upon its b eneficent

n . the on operatio s It plays upon body, c tributing to its health and efficiency ; it gives n wings to the i tellect, making it creative The Sixth Sense an of n d productive , capable formulati g hypotheses and venturing upon speculation ; it converts the seemingly impossible into h e o t n rmal, bringing moral ideals within r h l eac Of the wi l , without which improve ment in character would be a matter of chance ; it unfolds the Divine to the hu man and forms a nexus between here and

- fi in beyond , now and to morrow, nite and not finite , God and man . It looks only up but down , making the nature outside of us intelligible to the nature inside of us h i and friendly wit t. If it peoples the

the . stars , it also makes a universe of atom in It is mysterious , recollective , emotional , i tuitive , speculative , imaginative , prophet c,

x . minatory, e pectant, penetrative As it or so moves up down with equal freedom , or at it reaches backward forward , is a he o h t c d r detac ed at will , in its opera tions . x to The Si th Sense , or , be more accurate , the second group of senses , has its special ize ffi to d functions , di cult as it is analyze with accu racy ‘ this most spiritual endow t ment of human personali y, the inner gift has z l Of touch . It speciali ations paralle to those of the bodily senses . Sight, hear r ing and testing are its functions . So clea Th e Sixth Sense 1 9

eyed is it that it can see with the nicety of so an eye aided by the microscope , sensitive to voices that the lowest whispers impart to a message , so critical as test values with a p recision and swiftness that surpass the taste and smell which tell us what is sweet r and what unsavo y . If it be argued that I am but dilating I on certain aspects of mind , am not con cerned to deny that all may be compre

- hended under that convenient blanket word . But they are as distinct from the rational izing media as from the will . The nearest approach to a satisfactory substitute for the term mystic sense in “ terms of the reason is conceptual rea ” son h the . It furnishes us wit thought Of a faculty which has procreative or genera tive properties capable of being fertilized by intercourse with that which is separate f fi rom and higher than itself . Its rst ac tiv ity is to lay itself over against that h n of o n which , thoug partaki g its w na

not is - z ture , is itself. It not self fertili ing and can conceive or beget only after hav 1 ing perceived and apprehended . It has

1 It is only partially true to say that concept follows upon percept. Their action is simultaneous more C i nearly than consecutive. onceptual sm a com . as pl ete system cannot perh aps stand but in Its origin it 2 0 The Sixth Sense

constant regard for an Objective and com mu ni ation h c wit it . The operation of the Mystic Sense is e the summ d up in single word faith , which is described as the giving substance i of to that which s hoped for, the testing 1 s T no o thing not seen. here is objection t letting the word faith cover the whole o f th working e Mystic Sense, provided it is not restricted to a severely religious is is meaning. It thus that it commonly or in understood, at any rate wh en applied other connections it is assumed to be the working of a difierent faculty from that x h i s e ercised in t e sphere Of religion . In t i the distinctively religious meaning, faith s operation of the Mystic Sense in its highest T is t employment . here no One faculty tha is reserved exclusively for religious em m i s h ploy ent . The fact s that religiou fait is no more separate from the processes o f the Mystic Sense which appropriate health for for the the body, hypotheses mind, fo working principles r the man of action, or and ideals f the character, or independent h of of t em , than the act physical percep was a healthy reaction against both nominalism and i iat c bi i th e in real sm, as well as a med or om n ng good both . 1 : Heb . xi 1 . Th e Six th S ense 2 1

to tion , which enables us touch the stars , is separate from that use of the sensory nerv es which relates us to the book we are handle , or independent Of it. They or both the result Of a single faculty, group

o difi rent . f faculties , operating in e altitudes Faith will be accepted in these pages as a philosophic term . Thus we speak of fi scienti c faith , moral faith , and religious s faith with equal appropriatene s , meaning the Mystic Sense operating respectively in fi the interests of the Scienti c , of the moral , and of the religious . The Mystic Sense has for its workshop the uplands of life in the rarefied atmos here p of ideas and ideals . It is at once a ’ super- sense giving us a bird s- eye view of the universe which is not permitted at close

- quarters , and a sub sense bringing before our attention the contents hidden beneath h t o the surface of t ings . There are not w d r s ec worl s , objective and subjective e p ti l two ve y, but aspects of one world things as they are in their ab solute and u l timate being, and things as they are rela tively or as apprehended by our cognitive r powe s . Our conception of the truth is a or distortion falls short of the truth , and it is ou r aspiration to bring about such a co 2 2 Th e Sixth Sense incidence as will make the relation of sub e j ct to Object perfect . We draw the thing as we see it for the G od of things as they

n w o- are o , not t morrow only, the sole dif ference being that to morrow ou r painting will be truer to the original and conse now Oh quently more artistic than . All ective b j is immediately reduced by man , y or subconscious conscious process , into sub ecti e so he j v , that we may for t sake of con v enience talk of subjective and Objective the h phases Of reality, subjective being u s h be man, partial, progre sive , t e objective and ing divine , absolute , final . There is an objective physical world and an objective psychic or spiritual world , the latter being immanent in the former, h h o t oug not limited by it, s that every ma terial has l Object Spiritua contents . The spiritual is no more an inside without an outside than the physical is an outside with ou t an its t e inside . Each has phase of the ality, though in the ultimate analysis physical is dependent for its value upon its t spiritual capaci y. The physical has a non - sensible inside which to be discerned calls for distinctively human as distin gu ished from mere animal powers Of per e tion is c p . Dimly in animal life there a

24 The Sixth Sense ternal substance and form of a material the e o object and clos r we are t it, the greater the difficulty for the average char acter to gain cognition of its spiritual es sence: How hardly shall they that have ” 1 ' of riches enter into the ingdom God , Even those who place an undue valuation o f upon the material , whether possessed ffi wealth or not, have a like di culty in pene trating into the internal realm which lies beneath and around as well as above and 2 x I is within the e ternal . t absurd for men to expect to sense the spiritual except with spiritual faculties . The physical world is perceived by a sensory apparatus of the same substance as that of the physical world ; th e spiritual world is perceived by a sensory apparatus of the same substance as that of the spiritual world . There must be an inherent affinity between the thing apprehended and the organ apprehending . Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; and he cannot know 8 them because they are spiritually proved .

1 Mk. x zzg. 2 Mk. z zz 2 . 3 ‘I'vxucbs 2”mor e: of: Mxerat rd Tov H rehp aros a ai r- i xal oh 6mm: roii Oeofi mle. e on 6 p y p G , ‘ 81 1 t m ruuis drax in rac u p , 1 Cor, ii, 14, Th e Sixth S ense 2 5

Reality is a term too Often confined to that which can be expressed in terms of bodily senses ; whereas it is that which has x e e istence in heaven above , in the earth b n the eath , and in the waters under earth , and which , apart from human perception , h mi s thoug in a in mum degree or pas ively , plays upon and sfiects man and his uni verse , but which reaches its highest poten tialit y manward when , by the volitional operation of human faculties it is subjee tively apprehended and finds permanent place in his consciousness . Reality is that which supports and feeds the subconscious life by the pressure of its mere existence or i of laws of being, but which s capable bestowing larger gifts in proportion to the degree in which it receives conscious ad mission into the activities of personal ex r e o or p e i nce. It is a law f spiritual as x psychic , as well of physical , e istence that every part is related to every other part and influenced by it through either at traction or energy . In the case of inani mate matter mere spacial propinquity or distance determines the measure of attrac tion or energy of object upon Object, but where sentient beings are concerned the reaction of conscious volition on environ 2 6 Th e Sixth Sense ment is the determining factor regulating o r the degree f influence eleased . The search for the real in internal proc e x esses cannot ignor the e ternal . Con versely the activities of the workaday world cannot summarily dismiss the in n 1 The h ter al . p ysical senses have a mod est but indispensable part to play under the primacy of the Mystic Sense . The normal use of the Mystic Sense does not make a h h mystic . The ealt ily developed man is h not mystical thoug a mystic . His dom inatin e is th the g sens at Of spirit, not that t fi of the flesh . A mystic , echnically de ned, i in s a specialist the subjective or internal , just as a collector is a specialist in the oh ective or x n j e ternal . There is no da ger in either extreme except so far as its votary adopts an exclusive attitude toward its seeming Opposite (which really is its com plement ) or toward the balance of human thought and life . A deliberate and per sistent use of the Mystic Sense without t e spect for the objective would be subversive

“ 1 T i it it not ith rue pr or y and superior y lies, w one the t h of these constituents against o her, but wit the e — total subj ctive obj ective interaction or resultant, which is superior, and indeed gives their place and ”— ’ h t . ' ON HOG BL S wort to, those in erdependent parts

M stical El mnt o Reli i on . ii . 1 1 . y e e f g , vol , p 4 Th e Six th Sense 2 7

Of all progress and a reversion to chaos . The progress of thought consists in grad u ally separating the series of objective and universally valid , from that of subjective x e periences . In the measure that their confusion prevails , man is , to all intents and purposes , mad ; and it is this note of insanity that characterizes medicine and t e i i s l g on in their early stage . Dreams and reality are mixed up ; subjective connections ” 1 ob ti are j ec fied . If the Obj ective and the subjective may not be divorced and set at odds against one another, neither may they f in be con used . Both errors would result x disorder and hopeless perple ity . x ho The serious cru is w, in the realm of the spiritu al and the physically intangi u ble , to disting ish between the real and

the seeming, the true and the false . This it is the function of the Mystic Sense to do aided by the full complement of inner fac l ie u t s. In a measure the Mystic Sense , like

the bodily senses , acts automatically, but like them it needs special training in order f t to to separate phantasm rom reali y, de t s ermine values , and to grade and clas ify ideals until they reveal themselves to be

ordered unity, not less but more mysterious

’ ‘ ’ 1 I Y RE h istianit at th C oss Ro E LL S C r ad . r y e s, p . 2 40 Th e Six th Sense because more intelligible or apprehensible The by the whole man . first principle to lay down is that no man can treat himself as a unit or credit the findings of his Mys tic Sense with absolute or final authority until he has tried them by some valid cor t po ate test . Neither Sight , nor hearing, W x nor touch , used ithout regard to the e erienc or p e of others and respect f it, can f ail to lead us astray . The conclusions of the wisest and the competent register them f to selves rom age to age , coming us in the shape of beneficent authority to pre vent a man from repeating work that has already been done and well done . ' eri fication i no s t contemptuous Of authority, h flou ts who t ough he authority, indeed , ignores it in a process of individualistic ex eriments p . Pure individualism at best can apprehend but a fragment of reality and at worst declines into eccentricity or even in t sani y. Those who are really educated recognize their relation to a social whole and bring the results of their sense percep tions , before accepting their verdict , to be

the - l n - ex eri tested by age o g , man wide p ences of humanity as formulated in the ac cep ted conclusions of their generation and Uni found in its institutions and customs . Th e Six th Sense 2 9 v ersal experience is never wholly but only x et appro imately infallible , y accurate enough to be authoritative for corrective n n in purposes . By respectful atte tio to it , dividual judgment is checked in possible error and at the same time is given opp or tunity to ofler its own contribution to the t n h totali y of k owledge , a contribution whic en al may endorse , modify, or large that i o ready reached . In this way only s s e ci ty preserved from becoming a . mob of h i his eccentrics and fanatics, eac whirling n own little circle . Commerce , art , science , e n letters , gov rnme t, religion in short every department of life you can think of requires such a mode of procedure for the protection of reality in its varied manifes tations and for the protection of the indi e u i no v idual against hims lf . B t n condi tions is a social checking off of findings more essential than in the psychic or spir ex n n itu al realm . Mystical perie ce orga i zes itself or is consciously organized in a sufficient degree to give men that high kind of freedom which comes to u s when we act with constant reference to the fact that we one r so the are members of anothe , that experience o f the human race is ours where with to enrich ourselves . A mystic of the 30 Th e Sixth S ense

ee typ e of St . Theresa , who could hardly s the Objective in her rush past form to reach idea , could not be distinguished from the inmate of a madhouse who insists that his l tinse crown is the diadem of a Napoleon , u nless she interpreted her p ersonal exp eri ence in relation to the spiritual conscious ” s ne s of Christendom . Once , writes I this saint, when was holding in my hanmd the cross of my rosary, He took it fro me into His own hand . He returned it ; but it was then four large stones incomp ar ably more precious than diamonds : the five wounds were delineated on them with the most admirable art. He said to me that for the future that cross would appear so to me always , and so it did . The pre ciou s stones were seen , however, only by ” 1 myself . A madman would have omit ted the last sentence . Her mystical ex p erience was individual though it preserved for its foundation a background of uni x versal e perience . It united her to her fel lows , instead of separating her from them . The law of use is as applicable to the Mystic Sense as to the rest of the gifts and endowments which make up the complete x ness of human personality . Its e ercise

1 UG EL ii t b ' ON . . r8. 'uo ed y H , vol , p

3 2 Th e Six th Sense

elusion . We agree that mysticism is not everyth ing but thi v in any one soul , some ng in e ery soul of man . Th e entire passage reads as follows :

t i t h a thi as a Is there, then, s r c ly speaking, suc ng

- suthcin M tica specifically distinct, self g, purely ys l h R ' I t it t t mode of appre ending eality ake , dis inc ly not ; and th at all th e errors of the Exclusive Mystic proceed precisely from the contention that Mysticism h does constitute suc an entirely separate, completely

- t h Th self suppor ed kind of uman experience. is de th s s not nial does not, of course, mean at oul doe difi er th e t quite indefinitely from soul, in amoun and th e i ti kind of recollect ve, intuitive, deeply emo ve ele ment possessed and exercised by it concurrently or i h th ts th e th e alternately w t o er elemen , sense of Infinite with in and without th e Finite springing up in the soul on occasion of its contact with th e Contin h s c i gent ; nor, again, t at these more or les ongen tal difl erences and vocations amongst souls cannot be and are not still further developed by grace and i t i s h i and h eroism nto ypes of relig ou appre ens on life, at i ht to s so strikingly divergent, as, first s g , eem r to th B ut hardly even supplementa y th e one the o er. it th t in th e i means a , even most purely cont ngent s i in its eem ng soul, and apparently but Institutional t ts th is h and Historical assen s and ac , ere ever , t ere can e to be h i h n ver fail , some, owever, mplicit, owever h h i t t s slig t, owever n ermitten , ense and experience of i v e t c i the Infin te, e idenc d by at leas some dissatisfa t on th F t Fi i with e inite, excep as this nitude is an occas on

h in - h it for growt , and a part expression of, t at Infin e,

h . i it h t e th e our true ome And, aga n, means, t a ven

sti - i s s most exclusively my cal seem ng oul ever depend , Th e Sixth Sense 33 for th e fulness and h ealthiness of even th e most t t t purely mystical of its ac s and s a es, as really upon its t th th e C t past and present contac s wi ontingen , S h i and Temporal, and pacial, and wit soc al facts elements, as upon its movement of concentration, i of and the sense and exper ence, evoked on occasion t ts s it those con ac or of their memorie , of the Infin e hi fi i d s i wit n and around those n tu e and tself. O h M u nly t us does ysticism attain to its tr e, full h h c i not dignity, w ic onsists precisely in be ng, every in bu t i r thing any one soul, someth ng in eve y soul in at th e t of man ; and presenting its fullest, amples i w th e development, among certain spec al natures ith h i and h elp of certa n special graces heroisms, or w at, in t in r t some degree and form, is presen eve y ruly ’ h r at human soul , and in suc a soul s eve y, all genuine

t - and comple e, grace stimulated religious act and state. e it P i M i n And only thus do s , as art al yst cism, retai all the strength and escape th e weaknesses and

- b e P M i dangers of would ure yst cism, as regards the h R E ' mode and c aracter or eligious xperience, nowl ” edge, and Life.

i t i h i b e t he If my n erpretat on of t is wr ter correc , t t terms tha a recollective, intuitive, deeply emo ive element ” which I conceive to be a mystic faculty or t t h sense. The fac tha it pervades every part of uman personality does not disqualify it from claiming th e i dignity of a dist nctive faculty. It bears a similar relation to th e higher endowments of personality which the ether bears to light and to th e call of Th M S th i world to world . e ystic ense is e enabl ng

h . i s faculty, whic makes man human Its pervas venes ot c it its does n detra t from, rather does enhance, dis Th e Sixth S ense

tinctness. To call it an element seems to clothe it in a vagueness which its character does not merit .

If man were merely a phase of matter, we could h employ the term element with propriety. T at which can in i s at an rat ma be only an element a un ver e, y e y i b e a faculty or sense n man. CHAPTER II

IN RELATION TO HEALTH

THERE is nothing so multiple in its com position , and yet nothing so seemingly sim

- e ple , so unit lik a unity , as normal person — ality a normal character englobed by a normal body. Normality is the product

- of a two fold force , the true interrelation between the organs of the body and a sim ilat interrelation between the inner facu l ties , culminating in a rhythmic interaction between the two . The normal man acts in the completeness of his manhood in all rdl that he does , never adopting the e of In either mere machine or mere ghost . SO far as the inside and the outside of man

Work as a unity, the dignity of human per sonality manifests itself ; any departure from harmony approaches that dangerous borderland beyond which lies disintegra ea tion and disorder . Dis se is a lack of

ou t . rhythm , a note in the scale of tune

Health is harmony . Up to the time that consciousness of ex 35 36 Th e Sixth S ense i ence h e o st awakens , t processes of life p crate under the stimulus and protection of the human and physical environment which h surround the infant. Wit the immediate effect of suitable shelter and wholesome nourishment we are fairly conversant . As to just what direct or indirect influence psychic surroundings have upon the subcon

scious life of a baby, we are not in a posi can tion to dogmatize, though we arrive inferentially at certain rational probabili ties .

Apparently the infant, and certainly the x child , is e traordinarily sensitive to subtle

forces . Acting upon this supposition the

Christian Church from the beginning, by

a symbolic and sacramental act , has aimed to thrust children deep into the bosom of of God by the rite baptism , and claimed for them not only a place but a place of

chief importance in the spiritual society . x so Instinctively the mother, with e quisite

licitude , whispers her ideals for the future of her offspring into the ears of the babe h one at her breast , talking as thoug to

whose consciousness were awake . In this a w y Samuels have been raised to Israel . At the close of each day the mother bids her child Sleep by singing lullabies and \ Th e Sixth S ense 37 hanging mystic poppies over wide - awake eyes . She speaks in the highest type o f language , in poetry adorned with song , to this little unconscious scrap of humanity . In other words her mystic sense is press ing upon the mystic sense of her child as naturally and fittingly as her arms fold the infant body and her lips touch its cheek . Unless positive proof to the contrary is adduced, it is safe to believ e that it makes a great difference to the child’s after life of what sort its psychic environment is dur fi ing its rst years on earth , whether the x minds about it are healthy , e pressing h themselves ealthily, whether the tone of family life is hopeful and spiritual . Though it cannot finally determine the ’ f e course that the child s li e will tak , at any rate it affords the best opportunity for e making it a worthy course . My convi ff tion is, that the di erence between good and bad psychic environment for a baby is the same as that between healthy and unhealthy vegetable environment for a f young plant . An in ant abandoned by its

mother to the care of nurses and servants , be the provision for its animal comfort and

safety what it may, begins life with a min n t imum of Opportu i y . Man is not born 38 Th e Six th S ense

mere animal but man from the first breath . Therefore from the first breath he needs ’ In hi man s surroundings . order that s latent character may have its best chance, he ought to be given the most congenial human environment available . If there is no conscious self, at any rate there is a subconscious self, struggling at a very early moment by baby smiles and frets, gropings o h and babblings t utter itself . Psyc ology seem s to have reached at least this conclu — is sion that the subconscious is , that it his the fundamental part of man , that it is n most se sitive self, never relinquishing that which it grasps and grasping every thing that touches it. Psychic forces may influence mightily of the , subconscious life an infant and pro mote healthy character , but have they any effect on physical well being ' The reply in would seem to be that, if at any time the span of a lifetime they work b enefi centl y in this direction, it is probable that they do so from the outset . It would be sheer waste of time to adduce arguments to prove that healthy minds conduce di rectl The diflic lt y to healthy physique . u y is find to the limit of such influence , so vast i - i s . s it Physical well being, however , not

40 Th e Six th Sense with physical splendor or count muscle su f ficient in itself . Man by virtue of his man hood can never live according to merely animal l aws . His animal nature itself is u ltimately weakened if he does . In pro portion as he has fine physique he must de v o o fine l p a mind and character . If not, u n restrained passion and ruin stare him in th e face . The body finds its full meaning e and so its possibiliti s , only when the soul has discovered itself and claimed its lib ert is y. It then alone that a whole army x of an ieties and fears is scattered, leaving the body free and joyously adventurous , ready to identify its movements with those illo i of the soul . Consequently it is not g cal or untru e to say that the first requisite for physical efliciency of a child is to in sure that whatever its subconscious life is to able drink in Should be sweet , whole some , and strong . The tone of domestic ’ life , the character of the child s attendants , the whole expanse of human bosom on which it lies and from which it receives nourishment , ought to be as near what one would wish it to be if from the first the little babe had a conscious as well as a sub conscious self, and were a morally responsi

- ble and not a mere non moral agent . Th e Sixth Sense There can be a healthy domestic environ

- - ment for the keen eyed , deep seeing child only when it has been preceded by a simi lar environment for the baby . What the tone was for the purely subconscious , it will be for the conscious life when it awakes . Therefore even though parents are skeptical of their influence upon infant h subconsciousness , they cannot dispense wit attention to its character if they hope to bring beneficial pressure to bear on the ’ r child s conscious life . From the fi st they must learn to deal with a baby as a moral e being, impressionable beyond obs rvation . ’ When we turn to man s conscious life and the relation between health of body and a healthy consciousness we are on more x h demonstrable ground . E perience as proved that our external and internal fac ie u lt s work in sympathy with one another .

If the body is distressed , the inner con sciou sness droops ; if the inner conscious ness becomes morbid or out of sorts , the body , though not always actually falling ill , ffi Y s . et lo es in e ciency , let it be added , the body is less able to bear psychic illness e to than the inner s lf bear physical illness . The body can never tu rn psychic suffering a into nerve nd muscle , but the psychic na 42 The Sixth Sense ture can weave malady into genius through o the powerful peration of the Mystic Sense . To be healthy is a commendable ambi in h ou r is tion . Being good ealth, desire o as to bec me as immune may be to disease , or being ill to give ourselves the best chance of recovery . Health is preserved by keep ing body and mind in close relation to

- s health giving processe . It is not our con cern to discuss in this connection questions e ex of diet, sanitation , hygien , ercise and similar aids to the promotion of health . Their value is of the first order and may not be ignored or discounted . But just now we are concerned with another part of human nature which has much to do in determining ou r condition of body the sense which furnishes u s with ideals . The objective of an ideal is found in the idea flowing from the mind of God . It is as real to the Mystic Sense as a flower re is to sight and smell . An ideal is the ’ fl ection of God s idea and is distorted or true according as the sense which perceives ideas is healthy or diseased . The Mystic to Sense relates us to ideas , and enables us touch , test , see and hear them , as truly as our b odily senses enable us to touch , test , see and hear the world of matter, form and Th e Sixth S ense

' sound. A healthy ideal is a italizing an o to force , unhealthy ideal is an invitati n su b ec ified t . disease . Ideals are j ideas In the course of the development of that x of e most e perimental all sci nces , medicine , not only has dosing been reduced to a min imum , but also the natural recuperative powers of the patient have been discovered n and are relied upon . The physicia tries ’ t to open , for the sick, doors into na ure s healthiest rooms . The patient being placed in a ' italizing environment is ex p ected by the use of his will and Mystic o Sense to respond t it . The physician he t . alone can do but half work The will , and not only the willingness , to live , a mys tical laying hold of the idea of health , is e in all cases a valuabl , in some an indis the o pensable , factor in process of r cov of ery . The suggestion health predisposes to health ; the suggestion of disease is o provocative f disease . Medicine may be both a material curative and a sacrament of health . The habit of our day has been such as to create in u s a marked pathological con iou sne sc ss. v The ery process which , by . slow degrees , has been driving disease to the wall , has produced in us a sensitiveness Th e Sixth S ense to the idea of disease that is inimical to health . The discovery of the causes of disease has peopled the imagination, ev en of those who have never looked through a microscope , with an army of hostile germs to the obscuration of those superior influ e e - n nc s which conduce to well being , u til we have become chronically nervous of the

t Inc hidden perils which beset our pa h . significant pains are construed into the symptoms of the last disease discussed in the papers or the advertisement of a pro rietar u flu ctu a p y nostr m . Momentary tions in health send us tripping with anx ious brow to the doctor . Dabbling in p a holo es t gy is an undesirable occupation , ci l p e a ly for the young . The wrappers of s patent medicine , let alone the medicines h t emselves , have caused more agony than peace of mind and have been more provoca O tive of disease than f health . Happily we are emerging from the patent medicine stage . A therapeutic consciousness ought to be the n n ormal conscious ess . The forces which make for life are in excess of those h whic make for death . The universe would go into steady decline were not the s dominant force salutary, and life would The Sixth Sense 45

flicker out like the wick of a candle gut tere d in its socket . There is an inexhau sti ble fund of vitality open to man and we are competent to draw upon it so that we shall receive a maximum rather than a min of imum . Part the function of science is to put man into such a relation to the nature outside of him as to place the whole his some and remedial at disposal, pre n venting disease by immunizi g him from it . It is the common laws of health which are h i the most important. Wit the curious n consistency which characterizes many hu man ee me e beings , we frequently s n adh r ing to some vigorous regimen of secondary or n doubtful importa ce , while all the time they are flagrantly disobeying some pri a o h The t n mary l w f healt . uni y betwee the outer and the inner necessitates not only an intelligent and scientific treatment but also that which is mystical and more or less mysterious . Prayer, which is at once an appeal to the Source of Life to let loose saving health in our direction and an Open ing up of our being for the reception Of e n hidd n and unk own aid, is a higher form of psychic effort than either suggestion or

- in u auto suggestion that it incl des both , though not precluding the concurrent u se Th e Sixth Sense

- o of either . Auto suggestion looks only f r

self- induced benefit to the patient by ap plication to an impersonal ideal ; prayer does not think merely to apprehend a pas ff sive or indi erent remedy, but also to be

apprehended by healthful , forceful Person

ality , like but superior to our own . A prayer to the ether would have in its reflex effect a totally different influence on the petitioner from a prayer to what was con c eived to be a personal God . Similarly the quality of the virtue which is the result of mere ethical culture is as different from that which is the product of correspond ’ ence with the Christian s God as cotton i is from linen . Nor is it that God s inac

tive until we pray . He is operating to the uttermost that ou r listless or passive or

antagonistic personality will allow . The highest personality can do his best to

the object O f his love only when the . latter

adopts a responsive and co- operative atti ‘ tude . The feeble spot in much , if not

most , prayer , is that it asks without impor t nit a ro ria u y , or importunes without pp p t

ing . The Mystic Sense must reach up until

it feels the hand containing the gift, and

- take the gift as its own . Auto suggestion is a lame term indicating the application of

Th e Sixth Sense

by being cheerful, hope by being hopeful, h ealth mindedne calmness by being calm , y ss alth min e by being he y d d. This is the work of the Mystic Sense living in the realm of vigor even when the body is in distress . When the Mystic Sense goes exploring in high altitudes it never comes back empty handed . Even when it fails to return with its health of body, it holds in grasp health of mind . A blithe spirit in a feeble body can accomplish more than a sluggish spirit in a robust body . There are two kinds of healthymindedness temperamental and acquired . The latter is the most pow erfu l and may be had by anyone who culti vates his Mystic Sense . The extent to which th e Mystic Sense n works toward a cure can ot be formulated .

It varies with conditions . Of this we can fre be assured . It is always salutary , quently indispensable Diseases caused or induced by an abuse or morbid use of the imagination cannot be banished without the aid of the Mystic Sense as the chief u agent . The imagination must be c red n before the sick ess can be cured , and there are instances when the cure of the imagina e is timif the cure of the diseas . That Th e Sixth Sense 49 n one the less a disease , the seat of which is in the psychic , rather than in the physical part of self.

n . Two things remai to be said First , our day is laying a dangerous accent on f the value of mere physical li e in man . It tends to foster physical self- consciousness and is an aspect of degrading materialism . All the efforts being put forth in the direc tion of making it possible for the physic a to u m lly feeble survive , are dangerous , less followed u p by commensurate efforts fit ex to make them as characters . Mere istence t and mere longevi y are false gods . It is haply justifiable for men of low the breed, who honestly think this life only

one , to grasp at all its available gifts, and struggle to retain it on any terms for as

long a period as may be . But not so among those who have risen to a knowl

edge of the meaning of immortality , even

in its lesser aspects , of the perpetuation of

the nation and the race , and the persistence ’ of a man s work and influence among men

after he himself has vanished . For such f e there is a higher good than mere li e , besid which mere s u rvival looks cheap and worth

less . 50 Th e Six th Sense

t A man mus live, we j ustify

Low shift and trick to treason high, A little vote for a little gold

To a whole senate bought and sold,

- By that self evident reply.

B u t is it so ' Pray tell me why Life at such cost you have to buy ' In what religion were you told A man must live '

There are times when a man must die,

- Imagine, for a battle cry, F rom soldiers, with a sword to hold, F fl rom soldiers, with the ag unrolled, ’ ’ This coward s whine, this liar s lie, A man must live ' 1

There is , however, a type of heroism which is not as uncommon as it seems to be for it is hidden the type to which ' ip ling refers when he says : If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone, is And so hold on, when there nothing in you Except the will which says to them : Hold on 'i and once more we quote from another writer

Let us , for one thing, never forget that

’ 1 H T N o o C ARLOTrE PER' INS S ETSO S In this u r W rld. Th e Six th Sense 5 1 physical health is not the true end of hu f r man li e , but only one of its most impo tant means and conditions . Death may and should be risked, the slow but certain undermining of the physical health may be laudably embarked on , if only the mind if and character are not damaged, and the end to be attained is found to be necessary or seriously helpful , and unattainable by ” 1 other means .

Secondly, special and mystical means of promoting or regaining health must have as a background the accumulated knowl fi edge and scienti c skill of the day . If there are individual exceptions here and there , they go to prove the rule . We can no more ignore the history of medical and fi chemical science , the ndings of the micro scope and laboratory , without disaster , than we can cut our country O ff from the tradi o f s tions , laws and customs ye terday with the out similar results . On other hand, it is at least equal folly to flout or dis o credit the mystical experience f the ages .

Human life , individually and corporately, is a unity, and due recognition must be t oe a u given o all that g s to m ke it p .

1 M stical Element o R li ion Th e e . 11 . y f g , vol , pp 5 7, CHAPTER III

IN RELATION To THOUG HT

TH E mind includes the Mystic Sense in somewhat a similar way to the manner in which the body includes the physical senses .

But the Mystic Sense can be , indeed must f be , considered as a distinct aculty having a peculiar function in the formation of that

product of the mind called thought, which “ ff t to is the e ort o win over facts ideas , ” 1 or to adjust ideas to facts . The Mys tic Sense can and does operate when the c l rationalizing fa ulty is reverent y silent, and by its operation prepares new material e for pure r ason to consider . There is no specifically intellectual or a re gan . It is the whole man which pp hends knowledge just as it is the whole man and not an exclusively religious part a re of him, which apprehends and is pp infi i i hended by eternities and n t es. It is popularly supposed that science and math

’ 1 ROY o In iv u F CE S Th e W rld and the d id al . irst S eries, p. 5 8. Th e Six th Sense 5 3 ematics call for the exercise of one set of n faculties , and philosophy and religion a t other . Whereas the truth is hat the same faculties are used for all alike in pretty much the same relation to one another . The Mystic Sense is as indispensable to sci t of ence as it is to piety . Its me hod opera tion is precisely the same in the one sphere as in the other. We can best appreciate the important part the Mystic Sense plays in science by a survey of the foundations of accepted sci entifi o c fact . The whole b dy of our knowledge concerning the material uni a verse is constructed upon few ultimates , chief among them being the ether and the

. in atom The physical senses , so busy that workshop of science , the laboratory, cease to be important when we deal with these f undamentals . The discoverer of ether never perceived it by touch , taste , smell, sight or hearing . Newton postulated it b e it n x as cause he said was a ecessity , e actly x we postulate the e istence of God . How could there be attraction across the meas u reless spaces which separate worlds if there were not some intangible substance ' The ether was therefore discovered to or der by the Mystic Sense and accepted be Th e th e se 54. Six S n

o h cause it proved a g od working ypothesis . We are solemnly told by physicists that it is “ ” “ ” an elastic solid, a pervasive fluid, a “ ” A d tenuous substance . n yet when we chase this elusive something into a corner fi d ’ ” we n it to be that which undulates, a fi ' form of motion well , so is a eld mouse fi Again the atomic theory, rst conceived s on by the Greeks, was re tated by Dalt more ho h than years later, w broug t it down from the clouds to the laboratory ” and factory . But neither Dalton nor a anyone else ever touched an atom , s w an atom , heard an atom , smelt an atom , or tasted an atom , ultimate of matter that it l is . The physicist c aims , however, that see though he cannot handle or them , the atoms and molecules are as real as the ice crystals in the cirrhus clouds that he cannot reach as real as th e unseen members of a meteoric swarm whose death glow is lost r us in the sunshine, o which sweep past unentangled in the night that the atoms are in fact not merely helps to puzzled ” 1 mathematicians, but physical realities . so All this may be . Nevertheless both the ether and the atom are so little material

1 ‘ ’ See MACI- IE S Science Matter and Immortalit , y, an admirable volume on this entire topic.

56 Th e Sixth Sense

r x n philosophe s , e ploring the u seen , which first descried it on the horizon as the sailor

at the masthead spies the distant land. Darwin was the helmsman who steered the a ship to port . He rationalized it and p i plied it as a working hypothesis . It is n structive to note that Darwin began his career with a rather acute sense of the mys n tical . He had a kee appetite for poetry, ' ’ and pictures , and the music in ing s Col “ lege Chapel gave him intense pleasure, so that his backbone would sometimes ” 1 shiver . He even began preparation for

Holy Orders . In later life the interests that meant so much to him in youth died . ” “ be My mind, he says , seems to have come a kind of machine for finding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy h of that part of the brain alone , on whic the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive . A man with a mind more highly organized u or better constit ted than mine , would not, ff I suppose , have thus su ered ; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week ; for per

’ 1 DARWIN S Au o io h t b grap y . Th e Sixth Sense 57 haps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use . The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness , and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character , by enfeebling the emo ” tional part of our nature . It would be x more accurate , perhaps , to e plain this loss , not by atrophy but by too narrow special iz ion f at . His Mystic Sense and power ul imagination were not dead. They were centred on a single object . Having de veloped his Mystic Sense in one or all the ways open to him , a man may abandon its use in every direction but one . Christian t the worship , poe ry, music prepare Mystic Sense for that daring creation of hypoth eses characteristic of Darwin . Without his power of hypothesis he could never have become more than a mere collector of the jackdaw order . He is his own best wit ness to the truth of this assertion . He to says , I have steadily endeavored keep my mind free so as to give up any hy othesis p , however much beloved ( and I cannot resist forming one on every sub ect j ) , as soon as facts are shown to be ” opposite to it , adding that he could not 5 8 Th e Sixth Sense remember a single first formed hypoth esis which had not after a time to be given ” up or modified . It is one of the chief functions of the

Mystic Sense to present hypotheses . With out hypothesis the reason is a shorn Sam

on . s A goal must be postulated, otherwise n for the wood could not be see the trees , and the intellect would be hopelessly lost in a tangle of underbrush and smothered by the weight Of its own learning . While theory is aimless and impotent without ex erimental x i p check , e per ment is dead with out some theory passing beyond the limits '

of ascertained knowledge to control it . i

Here , as in all parts of natural knowledge , the immediate presumption is strongly in favor of the simplest hypothesis ; the main s upport, the unfailing clue , of physical sci n ence is the principle that, ature being a cosmos rational , phenomena are related on the whole in the manner that conceptual ” 1 reason would anticipate . Generalization of a tentative character precedes and

gives a starting point for induction . H y p othesis is more often the child of intuitive

1 Sir 'OSEPH LARMOR in his Wilde Lecture ( 1 908)

Sir OLI' LODG Reason and B elie . quoted by ER E in f, p

1 72 . Th e Six th Sense 59 p rocesses which capture thought by quick assault than of slower and more analyzable f e orc s . First comes hypothesis , then the fi accumulation of data , nally , when all available evidence is in , rejection and the o f modifi adoption fresh hypothesis , or ca fi “ . is tion , or veri cation A bundle of d connected facts is only the raw material for an investigation : their mere collection is the very earliest stage in the process ; and even while collecting them there is nearly always some system , some place , some idea ” 1 under trial . The spiritual contents of r the physical unive se are , in part , evolution, the ether, the atom and such like . They bear material names , but they are ideas , out o f reach of our sensory nerves , and capable fi n of being perceived , rst dimly and the clearly, only through the Mystic Sense . They form the allegorical department of fi scienti c thought , and are to the reality as the Apocalypse is to the ' ingdom of

Heaven .

It would be without special gain , how s o ever ea y , to multiply illustrations f the p rincely place which the Mystic Sense holds fi in scienti c research . Let us , therefore , turn for a moment to mathematics with its

1 R so e an B i . a n d el ef, p 1 8 1 . 60 Th e Sixth Sense array of imperturbable digits and prosaic N facts . o sooner does the mathematician o fi begin t move , than he nds it necessary

f- f to call to his aid the sel same aculty, which furnishes the physicist with his ether e and atoms , and enables the worshipp r to how ex e f pray . Else could he lor the ourth fi inc dimension , and de ne a as having e s length without br adth , or a plane u rfici s t p e e as having only leng h and breadth , or a point as h aving no parts ' It is not astonishing that the mathemati ” cian th e , Lewis Carroll , was author of those most delicious imaginative works f “ of immortal ame , Alice in Won “ derland and Through the Looking ” Glass . His vocation prepared and trained him for his avocation , and his avo cation gave him new efficiency in his voca tion . That which made him able to write the story of dreamland equipped him as an able scholar — the use in proper relation to his other mental gifts of the Mystic r Sense . Simila ly it is not surprising, but x to be e pected that Bacon , Pasteur, and ' elvin were , each in his own degree , re li io s g u men . They are the normal men of La x n science, Place , Hu ley, a d Haeckel Th e Sixth Sense 6 1 being eccentrics and developed in a lop sided way . n of Invention , to turn to the departme t practical science , relates the same story . a Long before men s w , they dreamed . The locomotive was a vision before it was a e n fact ; the aeroplan bega as an idea , sting x be ing men into adventurous e periment, fore it spread its wings above the earth men talked across vast spaces in thought before the earliest cable ticked its message , or the wireless system enthralled us by its is wizardry . The Mystic Sense prophetic ' and sees to- morrow as though it were to fi day, dimly rst and then with increasing a re clearness . Without much dim pp hensio no n n n, clear perceptio ; nothi g is ” 1 more certain than this . to Still once more , when we turn litera

- ture the Mystic Sense is a pole star . His cu tory is a museum of the rios of yesterday ,

1 Th M ti a E emn li io 11 . e s c l l e t o Re n . . 2 6 y f g , vol , p 5 The author quotes ' ANT we can be mediately conscious of an apprehension as to which we have no i ” “ distinct consc ousness . The field of our obscure - is i apprehensions, that , apprehensions and mpres h not h sions of whic we are directly conscious, althoug we can conclude without doubt that we have them immeasu reable h h is , w ereas clear appre ensions con stitu te b u t a very few points within th e complete ex ” t of l1f ent our mental e. ' 62 Th e Sixth Sense

n a a pile Of bo es , a series of occurrences , collection of bald facts as cold and bare f e as a heap o pebbles , until the Mystic Sens enters the sterile valley and brings with it of the breath life . An idiot with a mem ory can collect past facts as easily as a wee toddler can collect shells on the sea shore n s and to as good purpose . But it eed a man infor who , however vast his stock of mation , possesses a developed Mystic Sense f to classi y facts and reveal their insides . Facts never tell the truth to an u nimag inative mind . There is a higher form of accuracy and a deeper presentation of real ity than a bare statement . Figures and prose , taken alone , are blind guides . In normal childhood the Mystic Sense gets admirable training through the poetry and imaginative literature that belongs to in the nursery every nation . It is justly considered improper to confine a child’s n i educatio to the multiplication table , sc entific statement , religious dogma , and the memorizing of historic fact . The kinder f garten , be its merits or de ects what they n o may, is an e deavor t rouse the young mind to accurate observation and calcula tion through the imagin ative faculty Al le or g y , fable , and multiplied illustration

64 Th e Sixth Sense

he of t Mystic Sense , which runs wild unless disciplined, was born earlier than more of sober offspring the mind . Poetry is the of o f parent prose . The habit the nursery or schoolroom is the reproduction on a small scale of the method o f history fir u st poetry, then prose . He r les a na f tion who urnishes it with songs . There is no firmer foundation for national life than a great legendary epic or a garland of folk songs . The better , if not the larger, part of the Old Testament is poetic . Even the historical books do not pretend to be history as Gibbon and Green are his tory . Legend and history had not been distinguished from one another in those n days . Lege d is usually elaborately col ored interpretation of fact where the ac tual occurrence has been lost in the interp re ation an x n t , to such e te t that it can never be can u recovered or only be g essed at . By o e e subjective process, somewhat akin t r fl c s n tion or dige tion , the objective gai s a new and transfigu red self apart from and in i O f oh dependent, t may be , the original

e - sub ectifie j ct. Thus legend is over j d his tory . The outside is ignored for the sake of the inside . Poetry and wholesome fiction must find Th e Sixth Sense 65 permanent place in the life of a normal man . Do not delude yourself into think ing that your chief or only guides in life

are logic and sense perception . They are not. Intuition and sentiment lead you h twice for every once these ot ers do . It is so sa ho much more comfortable , not to y n n f est and reasonable, to ack owledge rankly the primacy of your leaders , than to follow them and pretend all the while that you are

following other guides , which is a species n of disloyalty . Scientist, inve tor, mathe matician , man of letters , alike are not quite true to fact when they claim that pure rea son and an exclusive process of induction t control heir mental Operations . I would raise the question whether there is any such x thing as the e clusively inductive method . Is it not truer to speak of the deductive inductive than of the inductive ' The M n ystic Se se , with its adventurous and n so im sometimes blu dering progress, holds portant a place that without it logic and a induction would be s grist without a mill . “ ” To reach knowledge by pure reason is as impossible as to reach the sun with a n stepladder . Even supposi g it were pos sible to bring bare reason over against bald

fact, the result would reach only a degree 56 The Sixth Sense beyond the achievement of a pig that n cou ts, or a jackdaw that gathers a store of glittering objects . I have heard scrupulous people complain ff f of the e ect of fairy lore , nursery ables , and imaginative traditions like that of

Santa Claus, upon child life . It may be a n questio to consider , but it is dealing with a mote rather than with a beam . Cheap current literature , and the psychologically h h false story, whic is c aracteristic of many in of our magazines , are far more of an jury to heart and mind than the imag in e x h ativ e cesses of the nursery . The O ectio he j n to t latter is not in the substance , but in the unnecessary attempts to deceive and to confuse objective and subjective in the child mind. Santa Claus is a harmless hris creature viewed as the Spirit of C trn as. When he is turned into a chimney god to whom written or spoken prayers are Of

ere n . f d, it is a other matter Who can with ’ t stand the pathos Of the little sister s dea h , resulting from her petition before the fire place for a new toy for her baby brother ' The flames took her and turned her into a burnt sacrifice to Santa Claus . Supply is usually responsive to demand and the amount of imaginative literature Th e Sixth Sense 67 and versifying in the journals of the day is a fair indication of the appetite for that which stimulates the Mystic Sense in let

ters . Also its hectic character is indica tive of the wild state o f the psychic life

of the readers. The normal is counted he uninteresting, and t abnormal, in inci i dent and character, s portrayed . A steady diet of such reading leaves unhealthy n and hu blotches , i delible disfiguring, on man life . Even in more serious literature the story of the abnormal may be given oo n e ' t great promine c . aluable as the ’ late Professor James s ' arieties of Reli io s Ex erience g n p may be , it has the fault of studying the abnormal as though it were he r t ordina y, leaving the great stretches o f healthy religious experience practically h u ntouched . If a p ysiologist were to give his main attention to men with one green

and one brown eye, or with the heart on the right instead of the left side , or some kindred peculiarities, the sum total of his research would not contribute much to our knowledge of the normal man. To conclude : every man who respects his mind , be his vocation what it may, has need to guard his Mystic Sense from de mt ff for file en , and a ord it opportunity de 68 Th e Sixth Sense

elo en hn n n v pmt. In what is tec ically k ow as education great stress is laid on pro h i portion and subject matter. T is s no less a necessity in maturer life than it is h n in yout . The same result e sues upon n h h t o n reading a yt ing t a c mes to ha d, that ensues upon eating anything that comes n SO n i i no to ha d. important a thi g s t, t only that we should be able to create hy otheses o r p , but also that u hypotheses should be sound, that we must furnish our Mystic Sense with the same safegu ards and stimulus that we afford our physical senses . IN RELATION TO C HARACTER

G OOD character is the reaction upon the whole self caused by the Mystic Sense ' a as a habit isioning , and the will cl im x i ing , the e cellent . It s the result on per sonality of a sustained effort to transcend the existing relation to life and its condi h tions , a state of chronic dissatisfaction wit the progress and achievement of the mo

ment, which makes the good mediocre by contrasting it with the superior and cov ’ eting the best conceivable as man s right and heritage . The Mystic Sense is always finding a x x n more e cellent way . E cepting whe taught to play casuistical tricks, it does not for look the conventionally proper, or rest it 1 n comfortably in . It lau ches out into

“ 1 Th e wealthy class in Rome and all over Italy be an to conform to th at conventional code of pro g O rtet wh 1ch r1ch dest1ned p y by the seem always , in the z progress of civili ation, to become more and more

enslaved, till finally they lost all feeling for what is serious and genuine in life . The new generation fol 69 70 Th e Sixth Sense

that noble freedom which, from a group a h is of prob bilities , selects that whic farthest removed from suspicion of self ish considerations and promises ulti be ia e mately the st soc l r su lts . On the other hand it is not disregardful of the ac ce te as p d code Of morals . This it takes its n n al fou datio , individu izing it for per se sonal u , and boldly submitting proposi tions for improvement to the social con science for approval , modification , or r n n ejectio . Such approval, modificatio , or rejection is never a purely formal matter registered in the dictum of a tribunal but r h at er the culmination of a process akin, , o h is in the moral sphere, t that whic termed natural selection in the physical sphere .

h i i it lowed t e r example w th alacr y , and preached the new conventions with a passionate vehemence which must have been high' exasperating to those of their seniors who were still attached to the simplicity of primitive manners . Amongst those who protested h against this development there was, owever, one M P prominent figure of the younger age, arcus orcius C h ato, a man of ric and noble family, and a de a r scend nt of Cato the Censor . His puritan spirit e v olted against the tyranny of fashion to which the golden ou th of Rome wished to make him conform ; w on he d walk in the streets without shoes or tunic, to accustom himself, as he said, only to blush at thin s h w ich were shameful in themselves, and not mere y ’ — O S atn s an D clin o by convention . FERRER G re e s d e e f om 1 R e . . 1 6 . , vol i, pp 35 , 3

72 Th e Sixth Sense acter is thus bound up closely with individ n ual personality and is ever abstract, as morality is in the science of ethics . Char acter is created and disclosed by that phase of experience in which the Mystic Sense is busied in photographing ideals on the film monopolized by the actual to the discom fi re tu and obliteration of the latter .

Better to- morrows are obtruded on poor

- to days , partly by virtue of the fact that the Mystic Sense is naturally in constant e contact with the ideally best, s nsing and appropriating it just as the body, without ff a conscious e ort on our part, senses and p ro riates be p p light and air, and partly s s cau e , either feebly or vigorously , mo t men claim for themselves by deliberate h i volition a larger life than t at which s. The possession of character is the sole

fi - - justi cation of self respect . Self respect n ensues upo the growth of character , and is to character what perfume is to the

flower. It is due to the consciousness of having within ourselves that which is worthy not mere moral acquiescence but something we have made pecu liarly our ff is own by active e ort. It a high form of th e consciousness which inspires an in ventor when he has constructed a piece Th e Sixth Sense 73

of - mechanism . Self respect is a witness to our having' been individualized and is indifferent to external possessions or aught that is our own by virtue of favor and

- chance rather than by merit . Self respect

runs into self- conceit and stagnation when w i it rests content with that h ch is . It never dawdles in its movements nor loafs

f- b on the street corners . Sel respect e

’ comes self- contempt and self- abasement when our attention is turned from our cher ishe x d ideals and actual progress , and fi ed f upon our defects and ailures . Penitence is not a bar but a necessity to character

- efll ence t. and its fragrant u , self respec Character calls for and expects commu nal respect in the same degree that it re

- ceives self respect. Reputation should be commensurate with character. It is possible for men to have the unmerited respect of their fellows without having

- to self respect . This is due the practice

of deceit, conscious or unconscious , which enables them to simulate character and have appearance without corresponding re man of ality. To the character, it is as truly a pain to be overestimated as to be ca ff to underestimated . He n a ord lose h can is reputation , though he never be The t se 74. Six h Sen

x e empt from the keen pain involved . In

the process Of achieving character , the to great frequently, if not always , have endure the withholding of respect on the part of the community. Seldom does a man make a contribution to progress with out being temporarily at least discredited by th ose Whom most Of all he is aiming

fi - to bene t . Self respect towers at such mo ments . A man of character will trust him self when all men doubt him but make al lowance for their doubting , too ; he will wait and not be tired by waiting, or being ’ lied about , won t deal in lies , or being ’ 1 hated won t give way to hating . Ideals become tasks and tasks become x character in social e perience . A tal ” ent, says Goethe , shapes itself in still ness, but a character in the tumult of the ” “ t e world . That which would have

mained only a quality in ( our Lord) , if

He had stayed in the desert, becomes a ” life when He goes forth into the world . ’ The ultimate test of a man s worth is his character and not his degree of morality - his power of volitional reaction upon

environment, objective and subjective . Every man at some time during his ca

’ 1 ' IPLING S If The Sixth Sense 75

reer , most men for a considerable por o f tion it , and many from beginning to end, — to covets character . Those who fail claim it for themselves seldom fail to ad i mire t in others . Frequently they put as much effort into pretending they have it as would win for them the real thing . They pay the price of gold for tinsel . Character has commercial value and sometimes men are honest according to law solely because it is politic, or polite accord ing to social requirement because it pays . But the honesty and courtesy of such men are not virtues . They are hand o f maidens covetousness . They contrib

t f- ute no hing to sel respect. They have no moral content, and serve only to aid in bol sterin g up a vicious characteristic . How i ever , t is a tribute to the kingliness of for character that, either its market value it or because of s inherent worth , men clothe themselves in its appearance when they do not seek the substance . The substance may be had by every ackno l man Man not only is , but also w for edges himself to be , responsible what s he he is . He makes the confe sion when keeps his worst self from the public gaze even though it promises him no special 76 The Sixth Sense

x e gain . The e treme to which th sense of personal responsibility and accountability is goes evidenced by the fact that, though for others we find it difficult to believe in the closing of the possibility of self- im fix fi provement and ultimate loss ed and nal, in many , perhaps most of us , think and act our own case as though we at least shall be held strictly accountable for our char acter and reap as we live . If we had no responsibility for what we were and did, there would be no room for shame , were we to be publicly known to be exactly what ’ we are . Rob Henley s poem of its de fiant note and we are in the presence of sober fact

It not how t t the matters s rai gate, How charged with punishments the scroll I am the Master of my fate t I am h e Captain of my soul .

Character, like fruit, gets rich flavor th rough li v ing in a clim ate of ex tremes which give robustness by threatening very x t o f e istence . The s ory the transgression of Adam and his consort is illustrative rather than singular . The temptation set stifl est to f was the very which human li e , is — a being what it , could be subjected demand for self- discipline and obedience Th e Sixth S ense 77

to mysterious law. It is interesting that the first recorded strain put upon the hu w a man will s not to do rather than to do . Seemingly it was the limitation Of free the dom , the restriction of choice , nar

’ rowing of experience . In no other condi tions could man have had a chance to n o r fi an gai character . Had u rst human c o est rs won their day without lapse , every succeeding generation would have had to You n do the same . cannot i herit char Yo acter . u must win it . Temptation is never eliminated from human life , as we It o e r know it . s conquest in n fo m opens i the door to its appearance n another form . Our earliest human ancestors having the known the higher chose lower . But t o his did not, either in their wn case or in that of their Offspring through a thousand n ge erations , close the door to the attain n ment of character . Huma life begins in conditions which threaten character and

therefore becomes eligible f or character . The complaint that there are those in the s world who , because of hopeles environ n fi ‘ ment, never have an opportu ity , nds o sympathetic ech in every heart, but it does not absolve us from responsibility to our

own opportunity . 78 The Sixth Sense

Much is made of heredity by those who know little or nothing of the controversies which gather about the study of its opera t tion . The popular in erpretation presses hard upon its thorns and forgets even the x o of e istence f its blossoms . The sins the fathers are visited upon the children ” unto the third and fourth generation , is x the dominating thought which , by e clu r of sive conside ation , diseases the mind many a man until his whole imaginative nature is employed in the service of some congenital , or supposed congenital , weak himits ness to make victim . In this way tali fatalism is induced . Fa smis a disease of the Mystic Sense which substitutes ac quiescence for reaction It is the straw committing itself to the river, not the oars man using the current to his own advan tage . Acquiescence is too tame a virtue for b man, if indeed it e a virtue at all . Whatever credit we give to heredity for endowing us with the tendencies of our

evil forbears , we must give it equal credit for endowing us with those of our good

forbears . If you are determined to be f os fatalistic , be so airly, recognizing the p sible transmission of every kind of ten e f den y . Conscious acceptance of gifts o

80 Th e Sixth Sense

in three short sentences . When we know more certainly the mechanism by which heredity Operates we shall be better able by eugenics and physiological or mechan ical processes to combat its evils and foster its benefits . In the meantime there is no o call for us t stand idle . If man were mere animal it would be another matter , i o s n t. but he His Mystic Sense , which to links him a superior order, has steadily ff di erentiated him from all below him . It has enabled himto transcend environment . By means of it he can acquire character even if the laws of transmission Should forbid him to pass it on to his offspring fi by congenital endowment. It is a ner and stronger thing to improve steadily the tradition of family or race by a series of successive personal conquests and achieve ments than to gain exemption from evil tendencies by the more or less mechanical process of procreation . Release from fi temptation is not necessarily a bene t, and is never as productive of character as the gift of ability to defeat it . Frequently l h is on al t at needed is insmpirati , mystical and human, to enable a an to rise above his evil inheritance and habit Evil tra dition is as real and destructive a phase of Th e Sixth Sense 8I

r t k he edi y as inborn wea ness , whereas on o o the other hand n blesse blige. It is rather the tradition of the family trait of intemperance than a transmitted physical peculiarity that keeps the line of drunkards unbroken . Children must not be allowed to suppose that they can be excused from struggle . Being prepared for all tempts tions as a normal pa rt of experience they are least likely to become victims of any : x of being made e pectant all virtues , they may perchance glean some .

Our environment is our opportunity, particularly in those spots where it is u n T congenial and threatening . o chafe and fret is to increase the inimical possibilities ffi t To x of di cul y . think of it e cept with the intention of mastering it is weakening To i i ou r and depressing. remove t w th own hands rather than have another re i e or move t, if it be mov able , , should it be t immoveable, o weave it as material into r ou scheme of life , using its rough threads the to last strand, is to achieve character . A man must either fit his burden to his back or his back to his burden , if he de x sires to remain man . They are rare e ceptions in mankind who have not capacity o for s doing , if not by themselves , at any 82 Th e Sixth S ense

e rate in a sympathetic social s tting . A burdened life by the free u se of th e Mystic

Sense may become a privileged life . In trodu ce fearlessness and experimental curi osit y into hardship , and you get romance which keeps the wings of life moving and of mounting, and makes the world men around look up in aspiring wonder .

Th ere is no storme but this Of your ow ne Cow ardise That braves you out ; Y ou are the storme that mocks Y our selves ; you are the rocks Of your owns doubt ’ B i s t th er s es de his feare of danger, danger h ere ; h e h And t at here feares danger, does ” 1 serve his feare.

The Mystic Sense has an inner ear. Through it conscience delivers its message by means of which we come to know and understand the meaning of ought and o e ought not . Ready response t conscienc to e s is be covet d above all things , e pecially where conscience has been trained and illumined . A friend once wrote me , a few days before his death , that he had come to see that what pretended to be education

1 CRASHAW. Th e Six th S ense 83

' was no education at all unless it included o the development f conscience . But mere knowledge of right and wrong, ought and

nes . ought not , does not impart good s To be aware that vice injures and virtue e a ns ffi en bl sses is desir ble but i u ci t . There is not less vice among those who know than there is among those who do not a ex know ethics , other things being equ l , cepting where education is conceived to be something more than th e imp arting of nf i ormation . Sometimes nations and individuals covet character without being ready to pay the whole price for it . They give admirable facilities for the development Of certain phases of training essential to character , but exclude that deciding factor which de termines whether or not they may be woven into character . Influences from other sources may come in to repair wil n ful neglect, but, if not, the trai ing goes for nothing so far as character is con can cerned . Public schools never give character its best opportunity without a practical recognition of religion . Purely a rn secular education , the imp rting of lea i ng including the science of ethics , without religion in church and home to supplement 8 e e se 4. Th Sixth S n

n . it, is a doubtful blessi g at best The cur

. f is rent idea o secular education not new . During the French Revolution its leaders mapped out what appeared to be a satis factory programme of instruction . It was fir desired to have moral training , st with out religion or with the Worship of ” a Re son , then with a minimum of reli ff gion . The priests were su ered to continue as being at any rate moral policemen , but Danton planned to supplant them by of r ficie s de morale. All experiments were “ L a morale o ulaire of no avail . p p ’ ch erche encore , it was pathet “ ’ icall an oin d a ni y complained, p t pp l ” so ide. Then came freedom to worship , and later the Concordat reintroduced the be old religious order, partially, it is true , cause the people could or would not live without it, but largely for the sake of morals . If religion without morality becomes superstitious sentiment, morality without religion becomes for the average man ln operative ethics and ultimately a pitiless judge . There is no more oppressive ty a i rant than h gh ethical code with a will , re re untrained, uninspi d, and helpless to ond sp . It becomes a mocking and cruel Th e Sixth Sense 85 Nemesis viewing with indifference its s writhing victims . The Chine e Classics are preserved by the wonderful nation who in produced them , as a literary treasure stead of as a practical code of conduct the sure fate of the Bible apart from the

Christian Church . It is too late in the day to pretend that morality and religion are synonymous , i however intimate the r relationship , or that the end of religion is to make men good . w Righteousness , hich is the Christian term ' t for morali y, is to be had only in part by the practice of embracing the excellent and bathing our mystic self in the fountain of t of s s ideals . The ype righteousne s thu created can never be aught than self- con or scious , like an overdressed woman , a The gaudy painting . Mystic Sense must occupy itself in still higher altitudes . Having come from God and being partaker

f i to . o His nature , t must aspire Him the The end of life is religion , and end Of religion is to know God The pur t t of x es ype righteousness , e perienced or conceivable , is created by our having as ou r dominant ambition to know the only s God and Je us Christ whom He hath sent .

The net result is Christian Character . IN RELATION TO RELIGION

TH E operation of the Mystic Sense in re n is latio to religion commonly called faith . n i Co versely, faith under another name s that operation of the Mystic Sense which s h of ff promote ealth body, which a ords a e fi starting point for all intell ctual , scienti c, h and ot er productive pursuits, which leads S character from strength to trength . The r the subjective conditions unde which , and in e i em spheres which , th Mystic Sense s ff Bu t s ployed, di er . the faculty it elf and modas o erandi its p are always the same . Just as the sense of bodily Sight which views the dirt beneath ou r feet is the same so sense which contemplates the blue Sky, the inner sense of sight which perceives or h the an electron , an ideal , a ypothesis is a same sense which sees God . It is s possi o e ble to see God as t s e a hypothesis, and as possible ( not more and probably less) , 1 to see a hypothesis as to see God .

1 A hypothesis receives passively our quest : God o to m ves meet us .

88 Th e Sixth Sense is left behind not unlike the photograph of the flower retained on th e retina of the eye and revived by act of memory and will . But the visualizing h as nothing to

i t to those of the body, saving only the sense of s gh . Thus : i Sou l. I cannot of thy mus c rightly say

Wh t h the t . e her I ear, or touch, or taste ones How comes it then

That I am hearing still , and taste, and touch, Y et not a glimmer of that princely sense Wh ich binds ideas in one, and makes them live ' Nor h h i h t touc nor taste, nor ear ng as thou now ; in t Thou livest a world of signs and ypes, The presentation of most holy truths,

Living and strong, which now encompass

thee. h i h A disembodied soul , thou ast by r g t No converse with aught beside thyself ; B ut , lest so stern a solitude should load

And break thy being, in mercy are vouch safed S i ome lower measures of percept on, Wh h h ich seem to thee, as though t roug channels brought, h h T rough ear, or nerves, or palate, whic are gone.

How the S , even now, consummated aints See n God in heave , I may not explicate ; M h ffi eanw ile, let it su ce thee to possess S uch means of converse as are granted thee, th B eatific ' Though, till at ision, thou art ” blind . The idea underlying th e B eatific ' ision is th e com l t p e e apprehension of God by th e complete man . Th e Sixth Sense 89

h n t do with p ysical sense perceptio , and he part of the personality thus impressed is spiritual . To characterize tactual sensa tion of the body as real necessitates a like characterization of the tactual sensation of the the spirit . If it be argued that in latter relationship there is no certainty as h t to what is p antasm and what reali y, let it be remembered that th e history of sci ence is largely a series of corrections of imperfect sense records . A highly devel oped power of Observ ation with ability for

Sight is chosen to denote this bliss because it is a rtncel co- i p y ord nating sense, and our Lord spoke of the heritage of the ure in heart as being the vision let it of God, a heritage be noted, however, for now and not merely for hereafter . It seems reasonable to suppose that our powers of perception after death will be those mystic powers which we enj oy and use now, though then they will be rapidly developed as being our only perceptive powers . This suggests the investigation in progress of psychic phenomena by scientific methods . The re sult may lead to an increase of our knowledge t e B u t garding th e nature of such phenomena . I do not i t th e see how, if commun cation wi h departed be pos sible at all , we can expect to reach, and be reached M S ih by, them except through the ystic ense. The vocation of Saints seems to me more in line with what is probable than some of the experiments of the D day. isembodied spirits presumably approximate the nature of God and can approach or be ap p roach ed only after a purely sp1ritu al or mystical i in h - in fashion, except ng those rare psyc o physical stances which are themselves contingent upon a highly developed mystical character and experience. 90 Th e Sixth Sense accurate registration and correlation is the distinguishing feature of culture . The ca Mystic Sense , like the bodily senses , is pahle of increasingly accurate perception by skilful and disciplined use . It takes its beginnings in gropings like the awk f ’ ward jerks o a baby s limbs , and develops into ordered and reliable movement by x exercise and e periment, which includes mis takes and the profit accruing to the experi n e ce . Superstition bears the same relation to faith that a false scientific hypoth t t The esis bears to ascer ained fac . Mys tic Sense in its infant working catches a w distorted vie of the ideal , as when Dar win propounded his conception of heredity n by pange esis , and leads us astray in science ; in like manner in religion a

glimpse , through a mist of ignorance and r fi he e ent mo al de ciency, of t Absolute , v u h are ates in superstition . Bot necessary

stages in the training of the Mystic Sense . Similarly to the way in which the theory of pangenesis stimulated discussion and research so as to aid the Mystic Sense to a more accurate perception of the true hy othesis the h p of manner of eredity , the superstitions of the nations conceived in ru sincerity, c de and even repulsive though Th e Sixth Sense 9 1

h they be , ave contributed to the complete knowledge of God and H is character which forms our most valuable heritage . It is not hazardous to say that the ideals and hypotheses which are still waiting for the cognition of the Mystic Sense transcend e gloriously those thus far appreh nded . f This means that science is in its in ancy. o It is equally true t assert that religion , so far from having fallen into decline , is but girding itself to scale heights impatient to feel the tread of human feet . That which is good and true in itself must per sist, whatever its crudeness and blemishes . The Mystic Sense in relation to religion is only at the beginning of its history . f re Human , that is mystic, li e began at so mote a period as to be beyond the reach o f of research . The operation the Mystic Sense through many thousands Of years 1 prior to human records led the way to that ordered approach to God which we call its religion . The possibilities of growth for the race at large are indicated and em phasized by individual instances taken from he t t common crowd . The world is just a this moment engrossed in seeing that every

1 Progres sive civilization may be said to have b e B gun . c. 92 Th e Sixth Sense one Should have an opportunity of develop ing fine physique and of acqu iring informa tion . It is assumed that under proper conditions a high average may be reached. The same is to be postulated for the devel opment of the Mystic Sense in relation to he t highest and best in religion . Under a sufficient stimulus the average man will be able to apprehend what now is reached

. h only by a minority This, owever , can not come to pass until a whole world of men strain their inner eye and quicken r their inner ca in the same direction , each he contributing of his own strength to t rest, and all to each . The history of Christianity and its im mediate progenitor, Judaism , is the record of the highest development of the Mystic

Sense in religion . In the course of its progress the Absolute rises from a dim shadow to the greatest Reality. It is dis tinctively the religion of orderly and ra io na . t l mysticism At first, men , feeling the working of the Mystic Sense , used it in h a a childis way . What w s Splendid in h them would be culpable in us . Abra am could consider it a call of God to slay his son : a man of to - day could only think of it as a monstrous crime against God and so Th e Sixth Sense 93 ciet y, revolting even to contemplate . It marked a stage in the rationalizing of faith when at the last moment Abraham saw ’ mystically that it was not God s p u rpose that any human being should ever do at

His bidding an inhuman deed . The most perfect individual life of faith o f ever lived was that Jesus Christ . His

Mystic Sense never erred . He was never so exclusively Divine as not to be com le el h p t y human . He was God living t e life of man . He walked by faith , not by sight. ' isions and ecstasies found rare x and momentary place in His e perience . He reached H is goal by the use of those gifts and endowments which we have in common with Him , and proclaimed for ever to the race of men that it is the sim x c ple , steady, patient e ercise of the Mysti Sense toward a God who is revealed as x Love , which e alts human life and puts it in the way o f winning incomparable power and beauty . His reply to the query , What shall we do , that we might work the works of God , is , This is the work of God , that — ye believe believe on Him whom He hath sent . Further , He makes the as tou n in d g prophecy, Assuredly I announce that he that believeth on me , the works Th e th 94. Six Sense that I do shall he do also ; and greater ’ Th rl works than these shall he do . e ea y Christians were distinguished from their fellows as men who exhibited in high de gree the faculty Of belief so as to be in a ” e h r e u nique sense Believ rs , and t ei r ligion w as one in which faith played so prominent a part as to merit the name of

The Faith . The whole Christian era has been an era of faith or the exercise of 0 the Mystic Sense . N great work can be f ound in it, in science , literature or religion which has not been made possible by the stimulus given to faith by the influence of es J us . Miracles do not cease to be mirac u lou s h w en they cease to be mysterious , and the Christian centuri es are strewn with such miracles many of them , works of heal ing and moral restoration , as great as those of Jesus . But the greater works than His still h e before us when we have sufficiently shed materialism and committed ourselves 1 more implicitly to the life of faith . 1 Two things must be remembered in connection a with the interpret tion of 'u o. xiv ff . In the first a s a st t h pl ce, the e ch pters, bur ing as hey are wit startling promises w hich th e critic claims have not ss been made good, were addre ed to a select and For sp ecially trained group of followers . instance, W s S hat oever ye hall ask in my name, that will I do, constitutes a promi se that could not have been made

96 Th e Sixth Sense it was only to the Mystic Sense of believers that He manifested Himself, but also to their bodily senses by way of the Mystic is t to Sense . There much tha comes the cognizance o f the Mystic Sense through physical perception , and unless there is a refined and cultured nervous organism there is no mystical connotation . A Peter fi Bell could not nd the mystical in nature . A primrose by a river’s brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

The same primrose to a Linnz u s or an

Asa Gray would reveal an unseen world . h Conversely, there are some things w ich cannot affect our physical being except by he x n t way of mystical e perience . Striki g instances of this sort have been suitably

- termed by von H iigel psycho physical . They are possible only where there is ex traordinary sympathy between the mystical and physical , the latter having been made very completely the servant of the former .

Only the mystic, or the specialist in the use of the Mystic Sense , is eligible for such x e periences . The tremendously real fel lowship with the Risen Lord of the dis ciples was of an ecstatic or psycho- physical Th e Sixth S ense 97

order. It degrades the Resurrection man ifestations to overemphasize their physical reality as though this , rather than the

tu . mystical , were the important fea re i Their dominant note s spiritual . The physical perception came through the mys x s tical . The e perience of the disciple could not be reproduced in after times with h r ot er men , for the necessa y conditions were wanting . Here and there among spiritual giants there is a well authenticated

s h - x r p yc o physical e pe ience , but it is of phenomenal rather than of spiritual or moral value . And yet it is within our power to see the Christ as really and ef fec ivel h t y as the Apostles did , t ough not n wholly after the same ma ner . n his St . Paul did not begi life of faith when he had his psycho - physical experience ‘ o n the road to Damascus . He reached there a turning point in its history. He a w s converted, turning his mystic powers in a new direction . Those who were with him were not sufficiently developed to see 1 l a a l that he s w or hear all that he heard . His vision of Jesus was momentary but his life of faith was continuous . If faith was at its beginning when Abraham made

1 t 11 Ac s ix, 7 ; xx , 9 . 98 Th e Sixth Sense

his a venture , it reached n illustrative and n x i viting clima when St . Paul made his .

It was greater for St . Paul to espouse the cause of the Christ than to have a vision x of Jesus. The phenomenal or e traordi nary does not always culminate in such be courage and devotion as his . It was

cause he was a mystic that he had his vision , not because he had a vision that he became n a mystic . The Apostles who k ew Jesus in the flesh had a lesser opportunity for

faith than St . Paul who saw Him but once

- and then after psycho physical fashion , and who never apprehended Him with all his bodily senses like those who saw with ” “ ” their eyes and beheld , and whose “ ” hands handled the Word of Life . It fi was tting that St . Paul should give Chris tianity the impetus which made it a world The h religion . ighest development of faith has assigned to it the biggest under St taking . . Peter with undeveloped intel lectual gifts and faith based on Sight could o o n t d what St . Paul with highly developed f reason and singular aith could do . The Risen Jesus Himself declared that faith

dependent upon physical or psycho- physical experience is of a lower order than that in which the mystic sense is independent of Th e Six th ‘ Sense 99 phenomenal action of the bodily sense n b e Because thou hast see me , thou hast lie e v d : blessed are they that have not seen , and yet have believed . The great multitu de of mortals will al ways be outside o f psycho- physical expe riences is in the . There no religious loss fact . Rather the contrary. That which gives the soul its permanent hold upon moral and spiritual realities and regard for them in mystics is not their rare psycho x n th x physical e perie ces , but e same e ercise o f the Mystic Sense in the daily round of commonplace religious duty which is open h n w t to every uman bei g, i h like wonderful h h results upon c aracter . A p enomenal spiritual occurrence in the case of one who was not living a religious life would be a mer onder h n e e w , per aps eve productiv of 1 h x spiritual arm . Such e periences are never to be sought for . If they come t not n h heir peril is less tha t eir inspiration.

Th e t i i th e t k r v al round, common as , W i h to ask ill furn s all we need , R a oom to deny ourselves, road b i r G o To r ng us daily neare d.

1 Th mira es f M ses b f Pha a h are i us e cl o o e ore r o — ll trativ e of that which abounds in history wonders f hardening further an irreligious li e. 100 Th e Sixth Sense

It is a great barrier to religious effort the among crowd, for those living the life o f o s faith , t give the impres ion that their x i o e perience s one f a series of ecstasies . It is no more so than is that of a student o f o is science r higher mathematics . It the life of faith open to all men which forms the religious life of the best men and the best religious life of all men the constant placing of God before the Mystic Sense in a way not dissimilar from that in which the scientist approaches his h ypothesis .

Think not th e Faith by which th e j ust sh all live Is a a a t n de d creed, map correc of heave , Far i and i i less a feel ng fond fug t ve, t t as s as i A houghtless gif , withdrawn oon g ven ; It is an affi rmation and an act ” T s eternal tr s nt a t hat bid uth be pre e f c .

Though the Mystic Sense is not the sole u h religio s faculty, it olds the primacy here h as in every distinctively uman activity . Used with reason its operation becomes n f s reaso able or rational aith . Its oppo ite s is not reason but sight , that is to ay, the unaided findings of the bodily senses of s which sight , being the most princely, i ’ r . u epresentative Hence St. Pa l s con Th e Sixth Sense 1 0 1 — trast we walk by faith , not by sight . Even here it is hardly fair to say there is is antagonism . Sight the enemy of faith only when it refuses to be an ally . Sight

in- sees , faith sees and therefore fore sees . Sight has boundaries which it can not ss h re pa . Faith has horizons w ich treat as it advances . Faith has become increasingly rational as the world has grown older and exp eri x ence has been added to e perience . Its explorations in the world of ideals have been more frequent and daring with the advance of time . Consequently the man of to- day makes his flights thitherwards with a fulness of assurance on rational grounds or grounds of high probability which would have been impossible to an

Abraham . If the triumphs open to faith mti lie have u p d, so have the deterrent forces holding it back or set in battle array to com thwart or otherwise impair it . The monest injury wrought upon faith is the deflecting of it from the worthy to the ’ r unworthy or less wo thy . If a man s

Mystic Sense , acute in other directions , is s n dormant or sluggish in religion , the rea mo is usually to be found , I think , in circu stances analogous to those which make a 102 Th e Sixth Sense

belles lettres in student of , for instance , ff a c di erent to science, or philosopher are x less of the e ploits of commerce , cases of fi which are not wanting. The mind nds higher pleasure among certain persons in being exclusive and technical than in being

catholic . So the Mystic Sense can fall short of its highest employment simply be cause there is not in its possessor the will to employ it commensurately with its os a it x en p c y. The e planation why some m are not actively religious must be sought elsewhere than in the contention that they h a t The are S ort facul y . Mystic Sense, which by virtue of their humanity they i no h possess , s t employed by t em reli giou sly from whatever reason defective n a i terest, prejudice , ntagonism , environ h he ment . Nevert eless t same inner sense is pushed to its fullest activity in other

directions . The faculty which by a daring fix h leap es on the evolutionary ypothesis , or with imaginative subtlety suggests the

plot of a novel , is the selfsame one which ‘f enables us to say , Our Father , which art

in heaven . The consideration of vicious men who are irreligious does not come n Re withi the purview of this discussion . li ion are mut x g and vice ually e clusive ,

Th e i 1 04. S x th Sense

Old Church is as as Christianity . One one S r Body, pi it, one Lord, one Faith , r one Baptism , said St . Paul before Ch is tianity was fifty years Old and the use of the Mystic Sense independently of or ganized Christian experience cannot hope to reach valuable results . Reformers of religion are eccentrics and detract from their service so far as they ignore the t e ligiou s experience of the ages by assuming exclusive positions or lifting a doctrine n e out of its setti g . Our Lord nev r broke H i with the faith of His fathers . s last act was to partake of the Passover accord the who ing to the law . It was Jews not broke with Him . He came to destroy f an but to ulfill . The only setting for y one part of the truth is all the rest of the en truth . The only relationship big ough for any one man is all the rest of man at a kind . When l st the disturbed and broken Christian Church comes to rest in the large scheme of unity planned by its

Founder , then the mystical life of man will gain a power and splendor which now is but a vision and a hope .

This concludes my endeavor to credit the Mystic Sense with that dignity and Th e Sixth Sense 105 position of importance which belongs to he it by right . The attempt is crude and t brilliant vision which I had at the begin ning of my task has become dimmer under i the process of putting t into words . Whatever has been written stands as a contribution of thought and experience which cannot be of much value until it has been purified from the dross of individual ism through the findings of religion and s th science , and lo t in e great volume of truth to which I submit it with reverence a and loy lty .