[392]. Correctly so, if we are to judge of Mysticism even from its purest phases and its best representatives, e.g. the Quietism of Madame Guyon, the Spiritualism of Swedenborg, the Romanticism of F. von Hardenberg, better known as Novalis. Even on its speculative or philosophical side, it would not be difficult to cull from the writings of the Cambridge Platonists, and the Idealists of Europe and America, extracts equivalent to the aphorisms of Novalis, that “action is morbid,” “to dream is to overcome,” that “the soul must abandon the actual world if it would discover in the recesses of the mystic night the Queen of Heaven, Eternal Beauty.”—Hymns to Night, Schriften, vol. ii. p. 158.
[393]. Pâtimokkha; Pârâgikâ Dhammâ, 3; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii.
[394]. Beal, Introduction to Fa-Hian, p. 42. In an important aspect the perversion of Christianity was worse than that of Buddhism. The Buddhist ascetics, though merciless to themselves, never tortured their vanquished opponents. There is no parallel to the Romish Inquisition and some Protestant atrocities in any of the annals of Buddhism.
[395]. ἡ σωματικὴ γυμνασία, 1 Tim. iv. 8.
[396]. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 440.
[397]. “Vient enfin le mysticisme de la dernière époque, qui, de même que tous les mysticismes, finit de la manière la plus misérable, et enfante une idolâtrie grossière, ainsi que les stupides pratiques de la sorcellerie” (Laboulaye, Introd. to La Comme’s transl. of Wassilief’s Buddhism, p. xlv). This has often been verified in the religious history of the West, and the fate of many former “spiritual” aspirants to enter or to peer into the Invisible and Unutterable should be a powerful warning to all who are now aiming at surpassing the natural conditions of existence. In endeavouring to transcend humanity, we are likely to fall miserably below it.
[398]. Chinese Buddhism, pp. 370-379.
[399]. Also Seneca: “We do not love virtue because it gives us pleasure, but it gives us pleasure because we love it.”—De Vit. Beat. c. ix. “In doing good man should be like the vine, producing grapes, and asking for nothing in having done so.”—M. Aurel. v. 6 and ix. 42.
[400]. Herzog, Encyclop. (Schaff), vol. i. p. 334.
[401]. Eternal Atonement, by Dr. R. D. Hitchcock, p. 157.