Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/147

M Y T M Y T 135 influence of the Kabbalah is combined with a species of Christianized Neo-Platonism. Pierre Poiret (1646-1719) exhibits a violent reaction against the mechanical philo sophy of Descartes, and especially against its consequences in Spinoza. He was an ardent student of Tauler and Thomas a Kempis, and became an adherent of the quiet- istic doctrines of Madame Bourignon. His philosophical works emphasize the passivity of the reason. The first influence of Boehme was in the direction of an obscure religious mysticism. J. G. Gichtel (1638-1710), the first editor of his complete works, became the founder of a sect called the Angel-Brethren. All Boehme s works were translated into English in the time of the Commonwealth, and regular societies of Behmenists were formed in England and Holland. Later in the century he was much studied by the members of the Philadelphian Society, John Pordage, Thomas Bromley, Jane Lead, and others. The mysticism of William Law (1686-1761) and of St Martin in France (1743-1803), who were also students of Boehme, is of a much more elevated and spiritual type. The " Cherubic Wanderer," and other poems, of Johann Scheffler (1624- 77), known as Angelus Silesius, are more closely related in style and thought to Eckhart than to Boehme. The religiosity of the Quakers, with their doctrines of the " inner light " and the influence of the Spirit, has decided affinities with mysticism ; and the quaint auto biography of George Fox (1624-91), the founder of the sect, proceeds throughout on the assumption of supernatural guidance. Stripped of its definitely miraculous character, the doctrine of the inner light may be regarded as the familiar mystical protest against formalism, literalism, and scripture- worship. Swedenborg, though selected by Emer son in his Representative Men as the typical mystic, be longs rather to the history of spiritualism than to that of mysticism as understood in this article. He possesses the cool temperament of the man of science rather than the fervid Godward aspiration of the mystic proper ; and the speculative impulse which lies at the root of this form of thought is almost entirely absent from his writings. Accordingly, his supernatural revelations resemble a course of lessons in celestial geography more than a description of the beatific vision. Philosophy since the end of the last century has fre quently shown a tendency to diverge into mysticism. This has been especially so in Germany. The term mysticism is, indeed, often extended by popular usage and philo sophical partisanship to the whole activity of the post- Kantian idealists. In this usage the word would be equi valent to the more recent and scarcely less abused term, transcendentalism, and as such it is used even by a sym pathetic writer like Carlyle ; but this looseness of phrase ology only serves to blur important distinctions. How ever absolute a philosopher s idealism may be, he is errone ously styled a mystic if he moves towards his conclusions only by the patient labour of the reason. Hegel there fore, to take an instance, can no more fitly be classed as a mystic than Spinoza can. It would be much nearer the truth to take both as types of a thoroughgoing rationalism. In either case it is of course open to any one to maintain that the apparent completeness of synthesis really rests on the subtle intrusion of elements of feeling into the rational process. But in that case it might be difficult to find a systematic philosopher who would escape the charge of mysticism ; and it is better to remain by long-estab lished and serviceable distinctions. Where philosophy despairs of itself, exults in its own overthrow, and yet revels in the " mysteries " of a speculative Christianity, as in J. G. Hamann (1730-88), the term mysticism may be fitly applied. So, again, it is in place where the move ment of revulsion from a mechanical philosophy takes the form rather of immediate assertion than of reasoned demon stration, and where the writers, after insisting generally on the spiritual basis of phenomena, either leave the posi tion without further definition, or expressly declare that the ultimate problems of philosophy cannot be reduced to articulate formulas. Examples of this are men like Novalis, Carlyle, and Emerson, in whom philosophy may be said to be impatient of its own task. Schelling s explicit appeal in the " Identitats-philosoplde " to an intellectual intuition of the Absolute, is of the essence of mysticism, both as an appeal to a supra-rational faculty and as a claim not merely to know but to realize God. The opposition of the reason to the understanding, as used by Coleridge, is not free from the first of these faults. The later philosophy of Schelling and the philosophy of Franz von Baader, both largely founded upon Boehme, belong rather to theosophy than to mysticism proper. Authorities. The authorities for the teaching of individual mystics will be found under their names. Besides the sections on mysticism in the general histories of philosophy by Erdmann and Ueberweg, and in works on church history and the history of dogma, reference may be made for the mediaeval period to Heinrich Schmid, Dcr My sticismus in seiner Entstehungsperiodc, Jena, 1824 ; HelfFerich, Die christlicke Mystik, Hamburg, 1842 ; Noack, Die christliche Mystik des Mittelalters, Konigsberg, 1853. On the German mystics the works are very numerous, but decidedly the best is the Geschichtc der deutschcn Mystik, in course of publication by W. Preger. The first volume, published at Leipsic in 1874, deals with Meister Eckhart and his precursors ; the second, which appeared in 1881, deals with Suso and the general development of mysticism in Eckhart s school, but without including Tauler. The works of Eckhart and his precursors are contained in Pfeiffer s Deutsche Mystiker des iten Jahrhunderts, vol. i. (1845), vol. ii. (1857). The Theologia Germanica and a selection from Tauler s Sermons have been translated into English by Miss Susannah Winkworth. (A. SE.) MYTHOLOGY ~| /TYTHOLOGY (^vOoXoyia) is the science which ex- _LY_L amines pvOoi, or legends of cosmogony and of gods and heroes. Mythology is also used as a term for these legends themselves. Thus when we speak of " the mytho logy of Greece " we mean the whole body of Greek divine and heroic and cosmogonic legends. When we speak of the "science of mythology" we refer to the various attempts which have been made to explain these ancient narratives. Very early indeed in the history of human thought men awoke to the consciousness that their religious stories were much in want of explanation. The myths of civilized peoples, as of Greeks and the Aryans of India, contain two elements, the rational and the irrational. The rational myths are those which represent the gods as beautiful and wise beings. The Artemis of the Odyssey " taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer, while with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, and high over them all she rears her brow, and is easily to be known where all are fair," is a perfectly rational mythic representation of a divine being. We feel, even now, that the conception of a "queen and huntress, chaste and fair," the lady warden of the woodlands, is a beautiful and natural fancy which requires no explanation. On the other hand, the Artemis of Arcadia, who is confused with the nymph Callisto, who, again, is said to have become a she-bear, and later a star, and the Brauronian Artemis, whose maiden ministers danced a bear-dance (apKrevew compare Harpo- cration on this word), are goddesses whose legend seems unnatural, and is felt to need explanation. Or, again, there is nothing not explicable and natural in the con-