We have as yet no recognised name for this faculty, and it has
been variously called "transcendental feeling," "imagination," "mystic
reason," "cosmic consciousness," "divine sagacity," "ecstasy," or
"vision," all these meaning the same thing. But although it lacks a
common name, we have ample testimony to its existence, the testimony of
the greatest teachers, philosophers, and poets of the world, who
describe to us in strangely similar language--
That serene and blessed mood
In which ... the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood,
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
_Tintern Abbey._
"Harmony" and "Joy," it may be noted, are the two words used most
constantly by those who have experienced this vision.
The mystic reverses the ordinary methods of reasoning: he must believe
before he can know. As it is put in the _Theologia Germanica_, "He who
would know before he believeth cometh never to true knowledge.
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