Contemporary Mind - Some Modern Answers. J. W. N. Sullivan

      THE NECESSITY OF MYSTICISM

      WE see that a belief in the validity of the mystic vision is a necessary presupposition if we wish to rationalize some of the most deep-seated elements of our general attitude towards life. But, perhaps, in using the phrase “mystic vision,” I am being too definite. The mystic vision appears to be a quite definite clear-cut experience. It is incommunicable, but not vague. It is also, in its most indubitable form, very rare. But there is a state of mind which is perhaps not altogether unlike it, and which appears to be relatively common. I refer to the feeling, which perhaps occurs only rarely with certain men, that many of the things we normally accept as realities are somehow illusory. At such times we become aware, vaguely and transitorily, of our normal consciousness as being a limited thing. We are ready to admit the possibility that some of these limitations could conceivably be removed. Such a state can readily be induced by, for instance, pondering over the mystery of time. That the only existing thing is the ever-moving present, and that both the future and the past are non-existent, seems to be quite incredible. And yet the notion that time is unreal disturbs all the rest of our assumptions. There can be few men who have thought over this problem who do not feel that time is somehow incomprehensible. And yet there is nothing more fundamental in our consciousness than our awareness of time. Many, perhaps most, of the problems of metaphysics seem equally insoluble—they seem, in their essence, ungraspable. One becomes painfully aware of the fact that consciousness, in the form it has assumed in us, is limited. And this feeling makes the claims of the mystics less incredible. One becomes more ready to admit that the human consciousness may be capable of some radically new development and that, temporarily at any rate, some of the limitations that hem us in may be transcended.

      Even if it does no more, this state of mind makes us regard certain arguments with a curious scepticism. We are often told, for example, that the immense spaces and times dealt with by modern astronomy make man “insignificant” in the universe. The earth, as a home for man is, in extent and duration, a mere speck in these immensities. Is it likely, we are asked, that man is part of a cosmic scheme when the cosmic scheme must be on so great a scale? It looks as if the whole history of man can be nothing but a negligible episode.

      This argument certainly produces an effect, although the estimate of probability that is being appealed to is somewhat obscure. For in what way, precisely, is man’s significance in the universe dependent on his physical dimensions and on the duration of his life? Yet that there is some connection is a very common impression. It was quite generally felt that a blow had been struck at man’s dignity when Copernicus showed that the earth is not at the physical centre of the universe. The efforts that have been made since to show that the sun is, after all, at the centre of the Milky Way, springs from the same feeling. It is evident that man’s significance is generally felt to be connected, in some way, with his physical size, duration, and position. Of these factors perhaps that of physical size is felt to be the least important, although Voltaire seems to have thought that men would be more admirable creatures if they were sixty feet high instead of six. The geometrical position of the earth is also a matter which has lost its old importance, especially now that the theory of a reentrant space has been accepted. But the limited duration of man’s life is still felt to be a serious obstacle to attributing cosmic importance to him. From the time of the Old Testament prophets the brevity of man’s days has been regarded as an argument for his insignificance.

      Yet the feeling persists that these arguments are all somehow irrelevant to the question of man’s significance. This feeling is not due merely to the mind’s stunned withdrawal from the contemplation of stellar distances and times—their millions of light-years and their millions of millions of years. It is due rather to an obscure awareness that the mind is, in some way, independent of space and time. This awareness has, of course, been made explicit in certain philosophies but, as a half-conscious assumption, it is very common. Most people, for instance, would find it very difficult to say what they mean by the past existence of the earth, before consciousness appeared. By the phrase “the universe, present, past and future,” we mean what it is for consciousness, and any attempt to get outside consciousness seems to be an attempt to think thoughts that are not thinkable. Whether or not this feeling is justified is not now in dispute. It is, more or less consciously, shared by many people, and is one of the deep-seated but little recognised factors that condition a man’s attitude towards the question of whether life has a meaning. This question is, indeed, associated with a complex of questions that very probably cannot be answered within the limitations of the normal consciousness. But the fact that these questions do not strike us as entirely meaningless is surely significant. If we accept the evolutionary theory of consciousness we must regard the mind as a sort of multiple plant, here in full flower, and there still in the bud. We have premonitions of developments that have not yet taken place. It is not unreasonable to assume that there are kinds of awareness which are still, as it were, in embryo within us. And the curiously elusive character of these questions, our feeling that they are at once important and ungraspable, suggests that their full understanding depends on a further growth of consciousness. People to whom this state of mind is familiar will not lightly dismiss the claims of the mystics. The assumption behind such claims will not be felt as a priori incredible.