path. The scheme of life therein set forth was no doubt determined
empirically, and there is nothing to prevent the simplest and most
unlettered saint from framing his conduct on these principles. Many of
the mediæval mystics had no taste for speculation or philosophy;[34]
they accepted on authority the entire body of Church dogma, and
devoted their whole attention to the perfecting of the spiritual life
in the knowledge and love of God. But this cannot be said of the
leaders. Christian Mysticism appears in history largely as an
intellectual movement, the foster-child of Platonic idealism; and if
ever, for a time, it forgot its early history, men were soon found to
bring it back to "its old loving nurse the Platonic philosophy." It
will be my task, in the third and fourth Lectures of this course, to
show how speculative Christian Mysticism grew out of Neoplatonism; but
we shall not be allowed to forget the Platonists even in the later
Lectures. "The fire still burns on the altars of Plotinus," as
Eunapius said.

Mysticism is not itself a philosophy, any more than it is itself a
religion. On its intellectual side it has been called "formless
speculation.[35]" But until speculations or intuitions have entered
into the forms of our thought, they are not current coin even for the
thinker. The part played by Mysticism in philosophy is parallel to the
part played by it in religion. As in religion it appears in revolt
against dry formalism and cold rationalism, so in philosophy it takes
the field against materialism and scepticism.[36] It is thus possible
to speak of speculative Mysticism, and even to indicate certain
idealistic lines of thought, which may without entire falsity be
called the philosophy of Mysticism. In this introductory Lecture I
can, of course, only hint at these in the barest and most summary
manner. And it must be remembered that I have undertaken to-day to