I have endeavored to show that the highest good is the greatest good; that it may not only be inferred from the present good, but that it actually _consists_ of the present good, with more like it, and with the present evil eliminated. By _mysticism_ I mean that species of formalism in which the highest good, out of respect for its exaltation, is divorced from the present good, and so emptied of content. Professor James has said that it is {117} characteristic of rationalists and sentimentalists, to "extract a quality from the muddy particulars of experience, and find it so pure when extracted that they contrast it with each and all its muddy instances as an opposite and higher, nature." [29] There is a peculiar liability to such abstraction in religion, for religion involves a judgment of insufficiency against every limited achievement. A longing after unqualified good is the very breath of enlightened religion; and in order that that ideal may be kept pure, it must not be identified with any partial good. Indeed, the office of religion requires it to condemn as only partial, good that is commonly taken to be sufficient. Now there is only one way of defining a good that shall be universal without being merely formal, and that is by defining perfection quantitatively rather than qualitatively; substituting for the Platonic Absolute Good, in which the present good is refined away into a phrase or symbol, the maximum good, in which the present good is saved and multiplied. He who believes that he conceives goodness otherwise than as the good which he already possesses, deceives himself; as does the author of the _Religio Medici_, when he says: That wherein God Himself is happy, the holy Angels are happy, in whose defect the Devils are unhappy, that dare I call happiness; whatsoever {118} conduceth unto this may with an easy Metaphor deserve that name; whatsoever else the World terms Happiness, is to me a story out of Pliny, a tale of Boccace or Malizspini, an apparition, or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of Happiness than the name. Bless me in this life with but peace of my Conscience, command of my affections, the love of Thyself and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar.[30] Now it is safe to say that Sir Thomas Browne was in fact unable to attribute to God and the angels any other happiness than these same blessings which he covets for himself, saving only that they shall be without stint, and joined with others like them.