Here, too, there is no derivation
of object from object, but an alternative for the mind. As M. Benda points
out, natural interests and sympathies may expand indefinitely, so as to
embrace a family, a nation, or the whole animate universe; we might even
be chiefly occupied with liberal pursuits, such as science or music; the
more we laboured at these things and delighted in them, the less ready
should we be for renunciation and detachment. Must conversion then descend
upon us from heaven like a thunderbolt? Far from it. We need not look for
the principle of spiritual life in the distance: we have it at home from
the beginning. Even the idea of infinite Being, though unnamed, is
probably familiar. Perhaps in the biography of the human race, or of each
budding mind, the infinite or indeterminate may have been the primary
datum. On that homogeneous sensuous background, blank at first but
secretly plastic, a spot here and a movement there may gradually have
become discernible, until the whole picture of nature and history had
shaped itself as we see it. A certain sense of that primitive datum, the
infinite or indeterminate, may always remain as it were the outstretched
canvas on which every picture is painted. And when the pictures vanish, as
in deep sleep, the ancient simplicity and quietness may be actually
recovered, in a conscious union with Brahma. So sensuous, so intimate, so
unsophisticated the "return to God" may be for the spirit, without
excluding the other avenues, intellectual and ascetic, by which this
return may be effected in waking life, though then not so much in act as
in intent only and allegiance.
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