tific idealism that had preceded him, and took the general result of it literally. But, as a requisite, perhaps, to his microscopic analysis of human subjectivity, he closed his eyes to all else. He declined to generalize his own discoveries. Hence his trouble with "the antinomies," his non-objectiveness for the "transcendental ideas," and his need of a "moral" ground for intellectual truth. Let us not presume to find fault with this need. If ever an error was high and holy, it was this one. It was the error of a conscience as grand, in a way, as even the master-mind that stands, so far, for the analytic capacity of the human race. But Kant's synthesis was Hegel. As Kant is the inmost centre of modern knowledge, Hegel is as yet the circumference. There has been now and then in the world a man who has dreamed of antagonizing, and even "refuting," Hegel. There has been now and then a man who fancied he could "distil" knowledge out of Hegel, without seeing a spark of light beyond Hume; and there was not long ago one man--a very imposing collector of philosophical bric-a-brac-who wondered if Hegel ever really knew what he was about-ever "understood himself." When the virtual sons of that genial Scotch bachelor, David Hume, arrive in sight of Kant, it may be of some use for them to begin a consideration of Hegel.

MYSTIC THEOLOGY.

BY DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY THOMAS DAVIDSON.

CHAPTER I.

The Divine Darkness.

§ 1. Trinity Superessential, Superdivine, and Superexcellent, Guide of Christian Theosophy, direct us to the superunknown, supersplendent, and supreme height of mystic oracles, where the simple and absolute and unchanging mysteries of theology are revealed in the superlucent gloom of the Silence that initiates into

hidden things, mysteries that in the deepest darkness outshine. the brightest light, and in the altogether intangible and invisible overfill the eyeless intellects with superbeautiful splendors. This be my prayer!

But thou, O dear Timothy, in thine intense endeavor after mystic visions, put aside sensible and intellectual acts, and all things sensible and intelligible, and all things non-existent and existent, and, as far as may be, aspire to the unity of that which is above essence and knowing; for by a non-relative and absolute withdrawal from thyself and from all things, thou shalt, having put off all things, and been released from all things, be borne aloft to the superessential ray of divine darkness.

§2. See to it, however, that none of the uninitiated overhear these things such, I mean, as are bound fast in things existent, and imagine that nothing exists superessentially above the exist ent, but think that, with their own knowing, they know Him who hath made darkness His hiding place. And if initiations into divine mysteries are above their reach, what shall we say of them who are more uninitiated, who image the overlying cause of all things by the last of existent things, and say that it in no way excels the godless, multiform shapes which they fashion; whereas they ought both to affirm of it all the affirmations of things that are, as being the cause of all things, and more properly to deny them all of it, as superexisting above all, and not to think that the negations are opposed to the affirmations, but much rather that it is above privations, being above all negation and position.

§ 3. Hence it is that the divine Bartholomew says that Theology is both great and least, and the Gospel broad and large, and yet concise. This seems to me to be a marvellous insight of his, that the Good Cause of all things is at once of many words, of few words, and of no words, inasmuch as it has neither word nor intelligence, since it superessentially overlies all things, and is shown forth without veil and truly only to those who pass through all things accursed and all things pure, and pass beyond all ascent of all holy heights, and leave behind all divine lights and sounds and words celestial, and pass into the gloom where, as the Oracles say, He who is above all truly is. Not in vain, indeed, is the divine Moses commanded first to purify himself and then to separate himself from those that are not pure; and after all purifica

tion he hears the many-voiced trumpets, sees many lights forthflashing pure and far-diffused rays; then he is separated from the many and, with chosen priests, attains to the height of divine ascents. But even then he is not in the presence of God Hinself; nor doth he behold Him (for He is invisible); but only the place where He is. This, I think, indicates that the divinest and loftiest things of sight and intelligence are certain objective Words, objectified by Him who transcends all things-Words through which His presence, which is above all thought, is revealed, standing upon the intelligible heights of His holiest places. And then he is set free from the seen things themselves and from them that see, and passes into the truly mystical gloom of unknowledge, in which he dies to all cognitive apprehensions, and finds himself in the totally intangible and invisible, being altogether of Him who is above all, belonging to no one, either to himself or to another, but being united in its better part to Him who is altogether unknown, by complete inaction of knowledge, and, by knowing nothing, knowing super-intelligently.

CHAPTER II.

How we must be united and offer Hymns to Him who is the Author of all Things and above all Things.

It is in this superlucent darkness that we long to be, and through unsight and unknowledge to see and to know that which is above sight and knowledge, by very not seeing and not knowing. This, indeed, is truly to see and to know and to praise superessentially the Superessential by the removal of all existent things; just as those who make a statue out of a single block remove all the obstacles that impede the pure vision of the hidden one, and display, by mere removal, the hidden beauty, itself by itself. And we must, I think, praise the removals in a way opposite to the positions. The former, indeed, we put on, beginning from the first and passing down through the middle to the last; in the latter case, making our ascents from the last to the most principal, we remove all things, in order that without a veil we may know that unknowledge which lies hidden by all known things in all things that are, and may see that supéressential darkness which is hidden by all the light in all the things that are.

CHAPTER III.

Affirmative and Negative Theologies.

In our Outlines of Theology we have celebrated the leading principles of Affirmative Theology, showing how the Divine and Good Nature is called One, and how it is called Three; what is the meaning in it of Fatherhood and Sonship, and what is the import of the theology of the Spirit; how from the immaterial and individual Good there sprang the embosomed lights of goodness, which have remained immanent in the Good itself, in themselves and in each other, with an immanence coeternal with their propagation; how the superessential Jesus was essenced with truths of human nature; and so on through all those truths revealed by the Oracles, which are celebrated in the Outlines of Theology.

In our work On the Divine Names we have shown how God is called Good, how Existent, how Life and Wisdom and Power, and all the other titles of the intellectual divine naming. In our Symbolic Theology, again, we have shown what are the metonymies from sensible to divine things; what are the divine shapes, the divine figures and parts and organs, what are the divine places and worlds; what the angers, griefs, wraths; what the intoxications and the nauseas, the oaths and the maledictions; what the sleepings and wakings, and all the other sacredly moulded shapes of symbolic divine representation. And I think you have seen how the last are more prolix than the first; for it was necessary that the Outlines of Theology and the evolution of the Divine Names should be briefer than the Symbolic Theology. The truth is, the further we carry our nods of negation upward, the more our words are contracted by the surveys of intellectual things, and so even now, in passing into the darkness that is above intellect, we shall find not brevity of speech, but complete absence of speech and absence of intelligence. And in the one case, speech, going down from the highest to the lowest, widened out to an extent proportionate to the amount of the descent; whereas, in the present case, mounting from the lowest to the highest, it is narrowed in proportion to the ascent, and at the end of the entire ascent it will be voiceless altogether, and altogether

united to the ineffable. "But why," you will say, "do we begin the divine positings from the first, and then begin the divine removals from the last?" Because, in positing that which is above all positing, we were obliged to begin positing the suggestive affirmation from that which is most akin to it; whereas, in removing that which is above all removal, we were obliged to remove it from the things that are farthest apart from it. Is not God more truly life and goodness than He is air and stone? And is it not more true that He does not suffer from intoxication and is not wrathful than that He is not named and is not thought?

CHAPTER IV.

The Supreme Cause of all the Sensible is not any Sensible Thing.

We affirm, therefore, that the Cause of all things, being above all things, is neither essenceless, nor lifeless, nor reasonless, nor mindless; nor has it body, or fashion, or form, or quality, or quantity, or bulk; nor is it in place, nor is it seen, nor hath it sensible contact. It neither feels nor is felt; nor has it disorder and confusion, as if excited by material passions; nor is it powerless, as if subject to sensible contingencies; nor is it in need of light; nor is it or has it either change, or decay, or division, or privation, or flux, or any other sensible thing.

CHAPTER V.

The Supreme Cause of all the Intelligible is not any Intelligible Thing.

Ascending again, we affirm that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, or opinion, or reason, or intelligence; nor is it reason or intelligence; nor is it spoken or thought. It is neither number, nor order, nor magnitude, nor littleness, nor equality, nor inequality, nor similarity, nor dissimilarity. It neither stands, nor moves, nor rests; it neither has nor is power or light; it neither lives, nor is life; it is neither essence, nor eternity, nor time. Even intellectual contact does not belong to it. It is neither science nor truth. It is not even royalty or wisdom; not one; not unity; not divinity or goodness; nor even spirit as we know it. It is neither sonship, nor paternity, nor any other ex