fresh ground; for he has taken from the traditional doctrine
everything which he can re-animate. The remainder is dead as far as he
is concerned. To accuse him of heresy appears to him as a monstrous
misunderstanding.

Thus mystic and reformer drink from the same well of direct religious
consciousness. But while in the case of the mystic the well is
fathomless, it is much more shallow in the case of the reformer. Certain
of himself, he directs his energy to the conversion and reformation of
the world. He resembles in some respects the public orator and
agitator; he has a grasp of social conditions, strives to influence his
surroundings by word and deed, and is ready to sacrifice his life to his
convictions. The mystic remains solitary and misunderstood. Luther, who
was to some extent influenced by German mysticism, fought, at his best,
against the dogma of historical salvation.

It is the tragic fate of all religions that they must crystallise into a
system. A reflection of the enthusiasm which animated their founders
still falls on their disciples: Follow me! But the second generation
already demands proofs, tradition and clumsy miracles; reports are drawn
up and looked upon as sacred--religion has become a glimpse into the
past. Most people never have any direct religious experience, their
salvation lies in the dogmas, the universally accepted doctrines. The
founder of a new religion is always regarded by his contemporaries as
abnormal, and is persecuted accordingly; not in malice, but of
necessity. Arnold of Brescia died at the stake; St. Francis was no more
than a heretic tolerated by the Church, and Eckhart escaped the tribunal
of the Inquisition only through his death.

I have attempted to show in diverse domains of the higher spiritual and
psychical life, how powerfully _the Christian principle of the
individual soul, the real fundamental value of the European
civilisation_, manifested itself at the time of the Crusades, and
everywhere became the germ of new things. The deepest thinkers teach the
deification of man as the culmination of existence, the ultimate purpose
of this earthly life, and claim immortality for the soul. This position,
which may roughly be conceived as the raising of the individual into the
ideal, has determined the European ideal of culture and differentiated
it from all Orientalism, including even the loftiest Indian philosophy.
Every attempt to substitute for this fundamental concept and