Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/192

Rh :“Urbs Sion unica
 * Mansio mystica
 * Condita Caelo, —
 * Nunc tibi gaudeo
 * Nunc mihi lugeo
 * Tristor, anhelo.”

And in view of this fact, that these infinite contrasts are the only expressible aspect of the whole situation, the Hindoo metaphor of the dreamless sleeper is, indeed, as apt to suggest the perfect glory of the home of peace, as are many of the metaphors of Bernard; as are, for instance, the joys and delights, the sweet sounds and the gay colors, with which his vision falsely fills the depths, where, truly, as the poet himself believes, eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard.

But if you ask why the Hindoo philosophical mystics feel so sure that, despite this wholly negative expression of the nature of their Absolute, they are still teaching a truth that is not only indubitable, but positively significant and even portentous, then the answer for them always lies in the reductio ad absurdum of opposing efforts either to win final truth or to satisfy the practical needs of life. For our conscious finitude, they insist, means at once dissatisfaction, and the admission that the truth is not present to us. Common-sense Realism, observing this very fact, makes the truth an independent Being, that is beyond our striving, in the sense of being wholly apart from every knowledge which refers to it. But, in reply, the Hindoo in his own way observes, and insists upon, that essentially contradictory character of all ordinary Realism, — that very character which we at the last time set forth, in our own way, in detail. What