but an intuition yearning to express itself that life's burden
would be lightened if the secret of the gushing waters could be
read.

And it is thus that we arrive at the fundamental intuition
common to the various modes of experience just reviewed. The
subterranean waters spring from an unknown source, or fall into
an unknown abyss. In both cases there is a sense of having
reached the limits of the knowable, combined with a sense of
inexhaustible power. The beyond is vague and insubstantial, but
it is instinct with life and purpose. Man's spirit may shrink
before the unknown--but he fills the empty regions with forms
and objects which rob them of much of their strangeness and
aloofness, and bring them within the range of his hopes and
fears. There, as here (he feels), there must be interpenetration
of spirit by spirit.



CHAPTER XVIII

SPRINGS AND WELLS

Milton, in his noble "Ode on the Nativity," sings that, with the
advent of the Saviour,

"From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplars pale,
The parting genius is with sighing sent."