It is significant
not in itself but because it hides the truth. It points forever to a
beyond. It is the vague and insubstantial pageant of a dream. Behind
it, within the impenetrable shadows, stands the Infinite Watcher of
the sons of men.
[Footnote 23: _The Meaning of God in Human Experience_, p. 236.]
In every age religious souls have voiced this unearthliness of
reality, the noble other-worldliness of the goals of the natural
order. "Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard melodies are sweeter."
Poet, philosopher and mystic have sung their song or proclaimed their
message knowing that they were moving about in worlds not realized,
clearly perceiving the incompleteness of the phenomenal world and the
delusive nature of sense perceptions. They have known a Reality which
they could not comprehend; felt a Presence which they could not grasp.
They have found strength for the battle and peace for the pain by
regarding nature as a dim projection, a tantalizing intimation of that
other, conscious and creative life, that originating and directive
force, which is not nature any more than the copper wire is the
electric fluid which it carries--a force which was before it, which
moves within it, which shall be after it.
So poet and believer and mystic find the key to nature, the
interpretation of that alien and cruel world, not by sinking to its
indifferent level, not by sentimental exaltation of its specious
peace, its amoral cruelty and beauty, but by regarding it as the
expression, the intimation rather, of a purposive Intelligence, a
silent and infinite Force, beyond it all.
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