rely dependent on the wisdom of the Mysteries. We will afterwards
prove this in detail, beginning with Heraclitus. What Xenophanes says
may at once be taken as the conviction of a Mystic. It runs thus:

"Men who picture the gods as created in their own human forms, give
them human senses, voices, and bodies. But if cattle and lions had
hands, and knew how to use them, like men, in painting and working,
they would paint the forms of the gods and shape their bodies as
their own bodies were constituted. Horses would create gods in
horse-form, and cattle would make gods like bulls."

Through insight of this kind, man may begin to doubt the existence of
anything divine. He may reject all mythology, and only recognise as
reality what is forced upon him by his sense-perception. But the
Mystic did not become a doubter of this kind. He saw that the doubter
would be like a plant were it to say: "My crimson flowers are null and
futile, because I am complete within my green leaves. What I may add
to them is only adding illusive appearance." Just as little could the
Mystic rest content with gods thus created, the gods of the people. If
the plant could think, it would understand that the forces which
created its green leaves are also destined to create crimson flowers,
and it would not rest till it had investigated those forces and come
face to face with them. This was the attitude of the Mystic towards
the gods of the people. He did not deny them, or say they were
illusion; but he knew they had been created by man. The same forces,
the same divine element, which are at work in nature, are at work in
the Mystic. They create within him images of the gods. He wishes to
see the force that creates the gods; it comes from a higher source
than these gods. Xenophanes alludes to it thus: "There is one god
greater than all gods and men. His form is not like that of mortals,
his thoughts are not their thoughts."

This god was also the God of the Mysteries. He might have been called a
"hidden God," for man could never find him with his senses only. Look
at outer things around you, you will find nothing divine. Exert your
reason, you may be able to detect the laws by which things appear and
disappear, but even your reason will not show you anything divine.
Saturate your imagination with religious feeling, and you may be able
to create images which you may take to be gods, but your reason will
pull them to pieces, for it will prove to you that