Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank WallKlein, Sydney T. (Sydney Turner)
Religion
Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank Wall
Klein, Sydney T. (Sydney Turner)
Religion and science
How few of us who are now drawing towards the end of our sojourn here,
have not, at certain times during our lives, experienced something
akin to what I have tried to put before you in the above! Does not a
particular scent, a beautiful country scene, a phrase in music, the
beauty or pathos in a picture, symbolic sculpture in a grand
cathedral, or even a chance word spoken in our hearing, every now and
then waken in our innermost consciousness an enchanting memory of some
wonderful happy moment of the past when the sun seemed to have been
shining more brightly, the birds singing more merrily, when everything
in nature seemed more alive, and our very beings seemed wrapped up in
an intense love of our surroundings? On those occasions we were not
far from seeing behind the veil, though we did not recognise it at the
time; but when we now look back, with experience gained by advancing
years, and consider those visions of the past, we cannot help seeing
that the physical film was to our eyes more transparent at those
times, and the very joy of their remembrance seems to be giving us a
prescience of that which we shall experience, when for each one of us
the physical film is pricked and passes away like a scroll.
VIEW THREE
MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM
"Who can doubt that the Mystics know more than the Theologians, and
that the Poets know more than the Scientists? for this inner
apprehension is surely the highest and truest kind of Knowledge." Such
were the words written to me lately by a clergyman of great learning
and of unimpeachable orthodoxy, whose mature knowledge of the Higher
Mysteries has been gained by a life-long study of the Divine. In View
No. 1 we saw that the first step towards opening our Window, was to
grasp the fact that it is not we who are _looking out_ upon Nature,
but that it is the Reality which is ever trying to enter and to _come
into_ touch with us, through our senses, and is persistently trying to
wake within us a knowledge of the sublimest truths: but this has not
yet been appreciated by the Theologian; he is looking _outwards_
instead of _inwards_, and asks the question, based on _intellectual_
conception, in the form "Can I find out the Absolute so that I may
possess Him?" and the answer ever comes back, "_No_, because I am
trying to storm the _Sanctuary_ of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, by
means of a Ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite conceptions,
and can deal therefore only with the shadows, cast by the outlying
ramparts, upon our physical plane." An example of this is surely seen
in the lecture lately delivered by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) to
the University of Oxford (13th February 1912, reported in the
_Guardian_ of 16th February), when he made the statement that the
greatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God
of Love. His exact words were: "I believe that there are a great many
of us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account