We have a Critical Faculty. It is above Reason, because it sifts and judges the findings of Reason, throwing out or retaining what Reason has deduced. This is a Higher-Soul faculty: it concerns itself solely with knowing Perfection. Reason is not occupied with knowing Perfection, but in analysing and digesting all alike that is brought to it.
It is to the Critical Faculty that art, poetry, and music appeal, and make their thought-suggestions. We do not enjoy music because of the noise, but because of the thoughts suggested by it—we float upon these emotion-thoughts (we may float low, we may float high, and do not know to where; but it is somewhere where we cannot get without the music), so we say we love the music; but it is the emotion-thoughts we love. The sound and the thoughts suggested by it appeal to the Critical Faculty of the Soul, and, if it is perfect enough to be accepted by this faculty, we may pass, for the time being, into soul-living, but only very delicately, tentatively, and nothing to be compared to the soul-living, produced by the Touch of God. When God communicates Himself to the soul, she lives in a manner never previously conceived of, reaching an experience of living in which every perfection is present to her as Being there in such unlimited abundance that the soul is overwhelmed by it and must fall back to less, because of insupportable excess of Perfections. This perfection of living is given, and is withdrawn, outside of her own will. Which is the more sane and reasonable—for the soul to think, I have invented and originated a new and perfectly satisfying form of living; or for the soul to conclude that she has been admitted to the re-encounter of perfect- or Celestial-living? In this living are happenings which cannot be communicated, or even indicated to others, because they reach beyond words, beyond all or any other experience, beyond any possible previous imagination or expression of mind, beyond all particularisation; it is these occasions of experience which the Critical Faculty regards as being encounters with the Supreme Spirit, because they are complete; nothing is wanting; they afford life at its perfection point—a stupendous Felicity, and that Repose in bliss for which all souls secretly long. It is the meeting of the Wisher with the Wished, of Desire with the Desired: and yet, being that which it is—unthinkable Fulfilment—it is above all, or any, Wishes, and beyond Desire; it can be known, but not named.
By these experiences the knowledge of the soul becomes enlightened two ways: she knows what bliss is; she knows the full calamity of life away from God—in flesh, in this world: not that flesh is not a wonderful Idea, not that the world is not greatly to be admired for its beauties, but the reawakened spirit desires spirit-living, cannot be pleased with earth-living, cannot be satisfied with less than God Himself. So, then, the logical consequence is that this world becomes a place we desire to take leave of as soon as may be. Life here becomes a punishment: not that Perfect Love desires to punish, but that the soul now knows that any form of life in which she is restricted from continual access to Him is a disaster, a profound grief.
XV
If the soul looks to God to comfort her, asks for His help, and gets it—and since communication with God is dependent upon some degree of like to like,—it follows that the soul must maintain a readiness to "give" to fellow-souls: to fail in this is to fail in any sort of resemblance to God. Hence we see how carefully Christ enjoined upon us to "Give to them that ask": and in no niggardly way either, but wholeheartedly, for "God loveth the cheerful giver."
If we say that we apprehend God by that which is not Mind, what reason have we for saying that it is not Reason which receives Him? Because for this living which God's touch causes us to share with Himself we find that Space, Infinity, and Eternity are required and Reason stands, and remains, uncomprehending and dumbfounded before all three. It is Spirit, the flash-point of the soul, which receives and transmits and which lives this living. As we have an heredity of flesh so we have also an heredity of Spirit which of its own nature comprehends the ways of God and the mode of God's living. In High Contemplation we find that if Reason attempts activity, nothing is consummated: she must submerge herself and wait: soon Reason discovers the wherefore of this—her activity is not the activity of That Other. Only by that which is like in activity can That Other be received: this "like" is not herself: finally she comes to know this "like" as a higher part of the soul—Spirit. When Spirit has received and given it to the soul, then it is afterwards the part of Reason to attack from every side that which has been received, to digest it, absorb it, and share it, in fact though not in act. According to the health and strength of Reason so we shall successfully deal with and use that with which the Spirit presents us. By comparison with the magnificent Spirit-Activity or Spirit-Intelligence the Reason is limited and frail as a new-born babe: this is no humiliation to Reason, since she should not be expected to accomplish that which is not her part.
Why do not all men apprehend God? It is very questionable if all men desire to do so, because in the recesses of each man's soul lies the consciousness that there will be some great price to pay.
But beyond this there arises the question, Is it desirable, price or no price, that all souls should come while still in flesh to immediate knowledge of, and contact with, God; and after long and close thinking the experienced soul will answer No, and Yes. No, in so far as the apprehension of the Godhead is concerned; Yes, and most vitally Yes, for Christians, in so far as Communion and Contact with Christ is concerned. Why this distinction? Because the apprehension of the Godhead is beyond the requirements of salvation and redemption, and the world and flesh were created for those purposes. Though there is no limit to the heights to which the soul may aspire, and all souls are invited eventually to behold the Face of God, if so be they shall be able to prepare themselves to endure Him, there are to a soul still in flesh the most terrible dangers in knowing the Fullness of God even so far as His Fullness may be Known to Flesh: never perhaps in all her history is the soul in such danger as she is after coming (in flesh) to the apprehension of the Godhead: and this danger may extend in an acute degree over a period of many years and can never be said to cease altogether. The Soul Knows and feels, when in its acute stage, this horrible danger without comprehending its exact cause and nature, but it has about it the feeling that a man might have standing balanced on a narrow pinnacle. Unapproachable, untouchable only so long as he remains upon the summit, the eyes of a thousand enemies watch for his smallest descent: they watch day and night. What alone can enable the Soul to maintain such a position? Hourly, often momently, Communion with Jesus Christ. What makes such perseverance likely or even possible on the soul's part? Only love can make it so.
If we say Communion with Christ is for the Christian vital to a full redemption, and therefore the Apprehension of Him is essential, to what degree should we experience this Apprehension of Him? The degree at which, perceiving in Him and His ways our Ideal, we become willing to modify and change our manner of thinking and doing in order to meet the requirements of this Ideal. Having gone so far, the soul is likely to become enamoured of Him Personally: then all is indeed well for her.
So then we find that we can apprehend God by an ever-ascending scale of degrees. We can apprehend Him with the Reason and the heart at all hours of the day. We can seek and approach Him with the holy white passion of the Mind. Yet this is not the Apprehension of Him which alone can be termed Contact, and which alone satisfies the soul or gives us the full feeling that we Know God. We cannot "Know" God as fully as He can be known by flesh without we enter ecstasy; but it is not ecstasy which produces the meeting with God, but the meeting with God which produces the ecstasy. Though we are able to enjoy a continual apprehension of Him with heart and Reason, no man could endure an unremitting ecstasy.