Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I am not so ignorant of the temper and tendency of the age in which I live, as either to be unprepared for the sort of remarks which the literal interpretation of the Evangelist will call forth, or to attempt an answer to them. Visionary ravings, obsolete whimsies, transcendental trash, and the like, I leave to pass at the price current among those who are willing to receive abusive phrases as substitutes for argument. Should any suborner of anonymous criticism have engaged some literary bravo or buffoon beforehand, to vilify this work, as in former instances, I would give a friendly hint to the operative critic that he may compile an excellent article for the occasion, and with very little trouble, out of Warburton's tract on Grace and the Spirit, and the Preface to the same. There is, however, one objection which will so often be heard from men, whose talents and reputed moderation must give a weight to their words, that I owe it both to my own character and to the interests of my readers, not to leave it unnoticed. The charge will probably be worded in this way:—There is nothing new in all this! (as if novelty were any merit in questions of Revealed Religion!) It is Mysticism, all taken out of William Law, after he had lost his senses, poor man! in brooding over the visions of a delirious German cobbler, Jacob Behmen.

Of poor Jacob Behmen I have delivered my sentiments at large in another work. Those who have condescended to look into his writings must know, that his characteristic errors are; first, the mistaking the accidents and peculiarities of his own over-wrought mind for realities and modes of thinking common to all minds: and secondly, the confusion of nature, that is, the active powers communicated to matter, with God the Creator. And if the same persons have done more than merely looked into the present volume, they must have seen, that to eradicate, and, if possible, to preclude both the one and the other stands prominent among its avowed objects.[156]

Of William Law's works I am acquainted with the "Serious Call;" and besides this I remember to have read a small tract on Prayer, if I mistake not, as I easily may, it being at least six-and-twenty years[157] since I saw it. He may in this or in other tracts have quoted the same passages from the fourth Gospel as I have done. But surely this affords no presumption that my conclusions are the same with his; still less, that they are drawn from the same premisses: and least of all, that they were adopted from his writings. Whether Law has used the phrase, assimilation by faith, I know not; but I know that I should expose myself to a just charge of an idle parade of my reading, if I recapitulated the tenth part of the authors, ancient, and modern, Romish and Reformed, from Law to Clemens Alexandrinus and Irenæus, in whose works the same phrase occurs in the same sense. And after all, on such a subject how worse than childish is the whole dispute!

Is the fourth Gospel authentic? And is the interpretation I have given, true or false? These are the only questions which a wise man would put, or a Christian be anxious to answer. I not only believe it to be the true sense of the texts; but I assert that it is the only true, rational, and even tolerable sense. And this position alone I conceive myself interested in defending. I have studied with an open and fearless spirit the attempts of sundry learned critics of the Continent, to invalidate the authenticity of this Gospel, before and since Eichhorn's Vindication. The result has been a clearer assurance and (as far as this was possible) a yet deeper conviction of the genuineness of all the writings, which the Church has attributed to this Apostle. That those, who have formed an opposite conclusion, should object to the use of expressions which they had ranked among the most obvious marks of spuriousness, follows as a matter of course. But that men, who with a clear and cloudless assent receive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, nay, inspired record of an actual discourse, should take offence at the repetition of words which the Redeemer himself, in the perfect foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbelieving, alienate the unsteadfast, and transcend the present capacity even of his own Elect, had chosen as the most appropriate; and which, after the most decisive proofs, that they were misinterpreted by the greater number of his hearers, and not understood by any, he nevertheless repeated with stronger emphasis and without comment as the only appropriate symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to realize which εγενετο σαρξ;[158] —that in their own discourses these men should hang back from all express reference to these words, as if they were afraid or ashamed of them, though the earliest recorded ceremonies and liturgical forms of the primitive Church are absolutely inexplicable, except in connexion with this discourse, and with the mysterious and spiritual, not allegorical and merely ethical, import of the same; and though this import is solemnly and in the most unequivocal terms asserted and taught by their own Church, even in her Catechism, or compendium of doctrines necessary for all her members;—this I may, perhaps, understand; but this I am not able to vindicate or excuse.

There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which it may be profitable for my younger readers that I should explain, namely, Mysticism. And for this purpose I will quote a sentence or two from a Dialogue which, had my prescribed limits permitted, I should have attached to the present work; but which with an Essay on the Church, as instituted by Christ, and as an establishment of the State, and a series of letters on the right and the superstitious use and estimation of the Bible, will appear in a small volume by themselves, should the reception given to the present volume encourage or permit the publication.[159]

MYSTICS AND MYSTICISM.

Antinöus.—"What do you call Mysticism? And do you use the word in a good or a bad sense?"

Nöus.—"In the latter only; as far, at least, as we are now concerned with it. When a man refers to inward feelings and experiences, of which mankind at large are not conscious, as evidences of the truth of any opinion—such a man I call a Mystic: and the grounding of any theory or belief on accidents and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the use of peculiar terms invented, or perverted from their ordinary significations, for the purpose of expressing these idiosyncrasies and pretended facts of interior consciousness, I name Mysticism. Where the error consists simply in the Mystic's attaching to these anomalies of his individual temperament the character of reality, and in receiving them as permanent truths, having a subsistence in the Divine Mind, though revealed to himself alone; but entertains this persuasion without demanding or expecting the same faith in his neighbours—I should regard it as a species of enthusiasm, always indeed to be deprecated, but yet capable of co-existing with many excellent qualities both of head and heart. But when the Mystic by ambition or still meaner passions, or (as sometimes is the case) by an uneasy and self-doubting state of mind which seeks confirmation in outward sympathy, is led to impose his faith, as a duty, on mankind generally: and when with such views he asserts that the same experiences would be vouchsafed, the same truths revealed, to every man but for his secret wickedness and unholy will—such a Mystic is a Fanatic, and in certain states of the public mind a dangerous member of society. And most so in those ages and countries in which Fanatics of elder standing are allowed to persecute the fresh competitor. For under these predicaments, Mysticism, though originating in the singularities of an individual nature, and therefore essentially anomalous, is nevertheless highly contagious. It is apt to collect a swarm and cluster circum fana, around the new fane: and therefore merits the name of Fanaticism, or as the Germans say, Schwärmerey, that is, swarm-making."

We will return to the harmless species—the enthusiastic Mystics;—a species that may again be subdivided into two ranks. And it will not be other than germane to the subject, if I endeavour to describe them in a sort of allegory, or parable. Let us imagine a poor pilgrim benighted in a wilderness or desert, and pursuing his way in the starless dark with a lantern in his hand. Chance or his happy genius leads him to an Oasis or natural Garden, such as in the creations of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos[160] the Child of Cain to have found. And here, hungry and thirsty, the way-wearied man rests at a fountain; and the taper of his lantern throws its light on an over-shadowing tree, a boss of snow-white blossoms, through which the green and growing fruits peeped, and the ripe golden fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, and faithful are the impressions, which the lovely Imagery comprised within the scanty circle of light, makes and leaves on his memory! But scarcely has he eaten of the fruits and drunk of the fountain, ere scared by the roar and howl from the desart he hurries forward: and as he passes with hasty steps through grove and glade, shadows and imperfect beholdings and vivid fragments of things distinctly seen blend with the past and present shapings of his brain. Fancy modifies sight. His dreams transfer their forms to real objects; and these lend a substance and an outness to his dreams. Apparitions greet him; and when at a distance from this enchanted land, and on a different track, the dawn of day discloses to him a caravan, a troop of his fellow-men, his memory, which is itself half fancy, is interpolated afresh by every attempt to recall, connect, and piece out his recollections. His narration is received as a madman's tale. He shrinks from the rude laugh and contemptuous sneer, and retires into himself. Yet the craving for sympathy, strong in proportion to the intensity of his convictions, impels him to unbosom himself to abstract auditors; and the poor Quietist becomes a Penman, and, all too poorly stocked for the writer's trade, he borrows his phrases and figures from the only writings to which he has had access, the sacred books of his religion. And thus I shadow out the enthusiast Mystic of the first sort; at the head of which stands the illuminated Teutonic theosopher and shoemaker, honest Jacob Behmen, born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, in the 17th of our Elizabeth's reign, and who died in the 22nd of her successor's.

To delineate a Mystic of the second and higher order, we need only endow our pilgrim with equal gifts of nature, but these developed and displayed by all the aids and arts of education and favourable fortune. He is on his way to the Mecca of his ancestral and national faith, with a well-guarded and numerous procession of merchants and fellow-pilgrims, on the established track. At the close of day the caravan has halted: the full moon rises on the desert: and he strays forth alone, out of sight but to no unsafe distance; and chance leads him too, to the same oasis or Islet of Verdure on the Sea of Sand. He wanders at leisure in its maze of beauty and sweetness, and thrids his way through the odorous and flowering thickets into open spots of greenery, and discovers statues and memorial characters, grottos, and refreshing caves. But the moonshine, the imaginative poesy of nature, spreads its soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, and magnifies heights, and modifies relations: and fills up vacuities with its own whiteness, counterfeiting substance; and where the dense shadows lie, makes solidity imitate hollowness; and gives to all objects a tender visionary hue and softening. Interpret the moonlight and the shadows as the peculiar genius and sensibility of the individual's own spirit: and here you have the other sort: a Mystic, an Enthusiast of a nobler breed—a Fenelon. But the residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the favoured spot, who has scanned its beauties by steady day-light, and mastered its true proportions and lineaments, he will discover that both pilgrims have indeed been there. He will know, that the delightful dream, which the latter tells, is a dream of truth; and that even in the bewildered tale of the former there is truth mingled with the dream.