m of the ideas, the heart's true
home. Both may find in the real Plato much congenial teaching--that
the highest good is the greatest likeness to God--that the greatest
happiness is the vision of God--that we should seek holiness not for
the sake of external reward, but because it is the health of the soul,
while vice is its disease--that goodness is unity and harmony, while
evil is discord and disintegration--that it is our duty and happiness
to rise above the visible and transitory to the invisible and
permanent. It may also be a pleasure to some to trace the fortunes of
the positive and negative elements in Plato's teaching--of the
humanist and the ascetic who dwelt together in that large mind; to
observe how the world-renouncing element had to grow at the expense of
the other, until full justice had been done to its claims; and then
how the brighter, more truly Hellenic side was able to assert itself
under due safeguards, as a precious thing dearly purchased, a treasure
reserved for the pure and humble, and still only to be tasted
carefully, with reverence and godly fear. There is, of course, no
necessity for connecting this development with the name of Plato. The
way towards a reconciliation of this and other differences is more
clearly indicated in the New Testament; indeed, nothing can
strengthen our belief in inspiration so much as to observe how the
whole history of thought only helps us to _understand_ St. Paul and
St. John better, never to pass beyond their teaching. Still, the
traditional connexion between Plato and Mysticism is so close that we
may, I think, be pardoned for keeping, like Ficinus, a lamp burning in
his honour throughout our present task.

It is not my purpose in these Lectures to attempt a historical survey
of Christian Mysticism. To attempt this, within the narrow limits of
eight Lectures, would oblige me to give a mere skeleton of the
subject, which would be of no value, and of very little interest. The
aim which I have set before myself is to give a clear presentation of
an important type of Christian life and thought, in the hope that it
may suggest to us a way towards the solution of some difficulties
which at present agitate and divide us. The path is beset with
pitfalls on either side, as will be abundantly clear when we consider
the startling expressions which Mysticism has often found for itself.
But though I have not attempted to give even an outline of the history
of Mysticism, I