scopic, like his physical sight:
he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better
for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing
as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed
that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless
ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth
because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly
this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole
buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this:
that man can understand everything by the help of what he does
not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid,
and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows
one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.
The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear,
and then finds that he cannot say "if you please" to the housemaid.
The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because
of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and
crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness;
but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.
As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness,
we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and
of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal:
it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature;
but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger
or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision
and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without
altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can
grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound.
The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free
travellers.

Symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this
deep matter; and another symbol from physical nature will express
sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind.
The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in
the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday,
mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own
victorious invisibility. Detached intellectualism is (in the
exact sense of a popular phrase) all moonshine; for it is light
without heat, and it is secondary light,