dy endeavoured to describe the religious enthusiasm which
took possession of the Moslems in the first and second century after
Muhammad and have partly traced the causes which led to this phenomenon.

Ecstasy is an invariable concomitant of religious enthusiasm. In the
endeavour to break through the narrow bounds which confine the human
spirit pious and credulous natures are only too easily led astray. The
instruments which man has at his command when he wishes to investigate
the supernatural do not suffice to procure him an even approximately
correct image of the object which he would fain observe. While the
optician with the aid of mathematics can reduce errors arising from the
convexity of his magnifying lens to an infinitesimally small amount, the
theologian has never found a device, and never will find one, to obviate
the errors which arise from the fact that his intellectual insight has
to be exercised through the medium of material senses, which obscure the
clearness of his observation. And yet it is precisely this ceaseless
striving, this irresistible impulse after something higher, this
unquenchable thirst for the fountain-head of knowledge, which
constitutes the highest and noblest side of humanity, and is the most
indubitable pledge of its spiritual future. The net result of these
strivings has been an endless series of self-delusions, and yet humanity
takes on a grander aspect in them than in all its other manifold efforts
and successes. The history of this spiritual wrestling, this hopeless
and yet never relaxed struggle against the impossible, forms the noblest
aspect of the history of mankind.

The phenomena produced by Islam in this respect do not fundamentally
differ from those produced by Christianity and Buddhism. Sufism exhibits
a more remarkable development of these phenomena, simply because it grew
up in an environment which favoured their more luxuriant growth.

The Koran, which Muhammad came, as he said to preach, was regarded as
the very word of God, and must therefore have produced an overpowering
impression on the minds of the faithful. Of this numerous instances are
reported. Abd al Wahid ibn Zaid heard one day a Koran-reader recite the
following verse (Sura 45: 28):--"This is Our book, which announces to
you the truth; for We have caused to be recorded all that ye have done.
Those who believe and do good works shall their Lord admit to His
favour; verily this is the most manifest recompense