was less the expression of ecstasy than the means of its
excitation. Perpetual motion, as well as eternal rest, may
bring about the engulfment of the self in the object. The
most diverse types of religious emotions, IN SO FAR AS THEY
PRESENT VARIATIONS IN THE DEGREE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, are
thus seen to be reducible to the same psychological basis.
The circle, no less than the point, is the symbol of the One,
and the "devouring unity" that lays hold on consciousness
from the loss of the feeling of transition comes in the
unrest of enthusiasm no less than in the blissful nothing of
Nirvana.

At this point, I am sure, the reader will interpose a protest.
Is, then, the mystery of self-abandonment to the highest to
be shared with the meanest of fanatics? Are the rapture of
Dante and the trance of the Omphalopsychi sprung from the
same root? There is no occasion, however, for the revolt of
sentiment because we fail to emphasize here the important
differences in the emotional character and value of the states
in question. What interests us is only one aspect which they
have in common, the surrender of the sense of personality.
That is based on formal relations of the elements of
consciousness, and the explanation of its disappearance
applies as well to the whirling dervish as to the converts
of a revivalist preacher.

The mystic, then, need only shut his senses to the world, and
contemplate the One. Subject fuses with object, and he feels
himself melt into the Infinite. But each experience is not
the exclusive property of the religious enthusiast. The