and Mysticism. The first makes the senses the exclusive or pre- dominant source of our knowledge ; the second, the self, in its constitution and laws, as understood and apprehended by the intel- lect ; and Mysticism, the feelings. The Mystic assumes that the senses and reason are alike untrustworthy and inadequate, as sources of knowledge ; that nothing can be received with confi- dence as truth, at least in the higher departments of knowledge, in all that relates to our own nature, to God, and our relation to Him, except what is revealed either naturally or supernaturally in the feelings. There are two forms of Mysticism, therefore : the one which assumes the feelings themselves to be the sources of this knowledge ; the other that it is through the feelings that God makes the truth known to the soul.^ " Reason is no longer viewed as the great organ of truth ; its decisions are enstamped as uncertain, faulty, and well-nigh valueless, while the inAvard impulses of our sensibility, developing themselves in the form of faith or of inspira- tion, are held up as the true and infallible source of human knowl- edge. The ftmdamental process, therefore, of all Mysticism, is to reverse the true order of natuj-e, and give the precedence to the emotional instead of the intellectual element of the human mind." ^ This is declared to be " the common ground of all Mysticism."
Schleiermacher^ s Theory. If this be a correct view of the nature of -Mysticism ; if it con- sists in giving predominant authority to the feelings in matters of religion ; and if their impulses, developing themselves in the form of faith, are the true and infallible source of knowledge, then Schleiermacher's system, adopted and expounded by Morell him- self in his " Philosophy of Religion," is the most elaborate system of theology ever presented to the Church. It is the fundamental principle of Schleiermacher's theory, that religion resides not in the intelligence, or the will or active powers, but in the sensibility. It is a form of feeling, a sense of absolute dependence. Instead of being, as we seem to be, individual, separate free agents, origi- nating our own acts, we recognize ourselves as a part of a great whole, determined in all things by the great whole, of which we are a part. We find ourselves as finite creatures over against an infinite Being, in relation to whom we are as nothing. The Infi- nite is everything; and everything is only a manifestation of the
1 See Cousin's Cours de tEiitoire de la Philotophie, and Morell's Eistory of Modern Phi* togophy, p. 556 ff.
2 Morell, p. 560.