yet cannot guess what he may be. And from this vague sense of being _in
via,_ the restlessness and discord of his nature proceed. In him, the
onward thrust of the world of becoming achieves self-consciousness.

The best individuals and communities of each age have felt this craving
and conviction; and obeyed, in a greater or less degree, its persistent
onward push. "The seed of the new birth," says William Law, "is not a
notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting, a magnetic
desire."[34] Over and over again, rituals have dramatized this, desire
and saints have surrendered to it. The history of religion and
philosophy is really the history of the profound human belief that we
have faculties capable of responding to orders of truth which, did we
apprehend them, would change the whole character of our universe;
showing us reality from another angle, lit by another light. And time
after time too--as we shall see, when we come to consider the testimony
of history--favourable variations have arisen within the race and proved
in their own persons that this claim is true. Often at the cost of great
pain, sacrifice, and inward conflict they have broken their attachments
to the narrow world of the senses: and this act of detachment has been
repaid by a new, more lucid vision, and a mighty inflow of power. The
principle of degrees assures us that such changed levels of
consciousness and angles of approach may well involve introduction into
a universe of new relations, which we are not competent to
criticize.[35] This is a truth which should make us humble in our
efforts to understand the difficult and too often paradoxical utterances
of religious genius. It suggests the puzzlings of philosophers and
theologians--and, I may add, of psychologists too--over experiences
which they have not shared, are not of great authority for those whose
object is to find the secret of the Spirit, and make it useful for life.
Here, the only witnesses we can receive are, on the one part, the