_Other-worldliness_ is the Christian modification of the Oriental philosophy of illusion. Heaven is a world beyond, to be exchanged for this. It is not constituted by the denial of this world, as is Nirvana, but access to it is conditioned by such denial. It is goodness and happiness hypostasized, and offered as compensation for martyrdom. But since every natural impulse and source {244} of satisfaction must be repudiated, it remains a purely formal conception, except in so far as the worldly imagination unlawfully prefigures it. Rigorously construed, it consists only in obedience, a willing of God's will, whatever that may be. _Mysticism_,[13] which appears as a motive in all religions of this type, defines the all-real-and-all-good in terms of the consummation of a progression, certain intermediate stages of which constitute man's present activities. In Brahmanism, God is the perfect unity, which may be approximated by dwelling on identities and ignoring differences; in Platonism, God is the good-for-all, which may be approximated by dwelling exclusively upon the utilities and fitness of things. The absolute world still remains beyond this world and excludes it, although a hint of its actual nature may now be obtained. But there at once appears a formidable difficulty. So long as the absolute world is wholly separated from this world, and therefore purely formal, evil need not be imputed to it; but at the moment when it is conceived by completing and perfecting certain processes belonging to this world, it is committed to these processes with all their implications, and tends to be usurped by them. In other words, heaven, in so far as it obtains meaning, grows worldly.