These are the main lines along which, I conceive, the study of the pathologic elements that enter into the history of religion must be studied. And so long as we restrict our study to the lower culture stages the evidence is clear and unmistakable. It is when we reach the higher stages of civilisation that the problem becomes more difficult. For although it is possible to detect the same factors at work they are expressed in a different way, and affiliated to current philosophic and even scientific ideas. Thus, it would be readily admitted by most people nowadays that visions seen by a fasting man, or by a taker of drugs, or by one suffering from some nervous disorder, were wholly inadmissible as evidence. So far we have advanced beyond the point of view of primitive races. But the testimony of one who by constantly dwelling upon a single idea, and by excluding rational and corrective influences, has brought about a quite abnormal state of mind, is still counted of value by theologians. Much of the current cant concerning 'mysticism' may be cited in illustration of this. Exactly what mysticism is no one appears to know. Definitions are numerous and varied. So far as most mystics are concerned the definition of Harnack--"Mysticism is rationalism applied to a sphere beyond reason"--appears to hit the mark, although how reason can be used in a sphere to which it does not apply is precisely one of those unintelligible statements that so delights those with yearnings after the ineffable. The normal mind will probably find more satisfaction in John Stuart Mill's description of mysticism as being "neither more nor less than ascribing objective existence to the subjective creations of the mind, and believing that by watching and contemplating these ideas of its own making, it can read what takes place in the world without." But the general claim of 'mystics,' and, indeed, of supernaturalists generally, is that they are, in virtue of the exercise of certain qualities or 'faculties,' either inoperative at certain times, or absent in the case of normal folk, able to perceive a truth not perceptible to people less fortunately endowed. And these claims, I have no hesitation in saying, are wholly false. There are all degrees of development of human faculty, but it is substantially the same with all. There is no royal road to truth in this direction more than in others. Truth is reached in the same way by all, and although an induction may in the case of certain well-dowered individuals be so rapid as to rank as an 'intuition,' a careful analysis destroys the illusion.