ious and philosophical
systems have full probative force only for the few who are able to
reproduce mystically in themselves their underlying suppositions, the
truth of which can only be mystically apprehended. "Hence it is that
those systems which rejoice in most adherents are just the poorest of
all and most unphilosophical (e.g. materialism and rationalistic
Theism)."

9. _Du Prel_. "If the self is not wholly contained in
self-consciousness, if man is a being dualised by the threshold of
sensibility, then is Mysticism possible; and if the threshold of
sensibility is movable, then Mysticism is necessary." "The mystical
phenomena of the soul-life are anticipations of the biological
process." "Soul is our spirit within the self-consciousness, spirit is
the soul beyond the self-consciousness."

This definition, with which should be compared the passage from J.P.
Ritcher, quoted in Lecture I., assumes that Mysticism may be treated
as a branch of experimental psychology. Du Prel attaches great
importance to somnambulism and other kindred psychical phenomena,
which (he thinks) give us glimpses of the inner world of our _Ego_, in
many ways different from our waking consciousness. "As the moon turns
to us only half its orb, so our Ego." He distinguishes between the Ego
and the subject. The former will perish at death. It arises from the
free act of the subject, which enters the time-process as a
discipline. "The self-conscious Ego is a projection of the
transcendental subject, and resembles it." "We should regard this
earthly existence as a transitory phenomenal form in correspondence
with our transcendental interest." "Conscience is transcendental
nature." (This last sentence suggests thoughts of great interest.) Du
Prel shows how Schopenhauer's pessimism may be made the basis of a
higher optimism. "The path of biological advance leads to the merging
of the Ego in the subject." "The biological aim for the race coincides
with the transcendental aim for the individual." "The whole content of
Ethics is that the Ego must subserve the Subject." The disillusions of
experience show that earthly life has no value for its own sake, and
is only a means to an end; it follows that to make pleasure our end is
the one fatal mistake in life. These thoughts are mixed with
speculations of much less value; for I cannot agree with Du Prel that
we shall learn much about higher and deeper modes of life by studying
abnormal and pathological st