Neither mysticism nor metaphysics is sufficient by itself. We need not
only the union of what is best in both, but also the disinterested
driving force of moral activity. Only when our metaphysical
understanding and meditational exercises begin to interpret themselves
in active life do we begin to justify both. The Word must become
flesh. It is not enough to accumulate knowledge. We must also apply
it. We must act as well as meditate. We cannot afford like the
ascetical hermit to exclude the world. Philosophy, which quite
definitely has an activist outlook, demands that intuition and
intelligence be harmoniously conjoined, and that this united couple be
compassionately inserted into social life. Like the heat and light in
a flame, so thought and action are united in philosophy. It does not
lead to a dreamy quietism, but to a virile activity. Philosophic
thought fulfils itself in philosophic action. This is so and this must
be so because mentalism affirms that the two are really one. Thus the
quest begins by a mystical turning inwards, but it ends by a
philosophic returning outwards.
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