I t is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. And for the rest of these pages we have to try and discover what is the right end. By the end of this book I hope to give a definite, some will think a far too definite, answer. But for the moment it is possible in the same solely practical manner to give a g eneral answer touching what in actual human history keeps men sane.
Mysticism keeps men sane.
The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has al ways been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them.