Perennial
Phil INTRODUCTION
PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS the phrase was coined
JL by Leibniz ; but the thing the metaphysic that recognizes
a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and
lives and
minds ; the psychology that finds in the soul something
similar
to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic
that places
man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and
trans-
cendent Ground of all being the thing is immemorial and
uni-
versal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be
found
among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every
region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it
has a
place in every one of the higher religions. A version of
this
Highest Common Factor in all preceding and subsequent
theo-
logies was first committed to writing more than
twenty-five
centuries ago, and since that time the inexhaustible
theme has
been treated again and again, from the standpoint of
every
religious tradition and in all the principal languages of
Asia
and Europe. In the pages that follow I have brought
together
a number of selections from these writings, chosen mainly
for
their significance because they effectively illustrated
some
particular point in the general system of the Perennial
Philo-
sophy but also for their intrinsic beauty and
memorableness.
These selections are arranged under various heads and em-
bedded, so to speak, in a commentary of my own, designed
to
illustrate and connect, to develop and, where necessary,
to
elucidate.
Knowledge is a function of being. When there is a change
in the being of the knower, there is a corresponding
change in
the nature and amount of knowing. For example, the being
of
a child is transformed by growth and education into that
of a
man ; among the results of this transformation is a
revolution-
ary change in the way of knowing and the amount and
character
of the things known. As the individual grows up, his
know-
ledge becomes more conceptual and systematic in form, and
its
factual, utilitarian content is enormously increased. But
these
gains are offset by a certain deterioration in the
quality of im-
mediate apprehension, a blunting and a loss of intuitive
power.
Or consider the change in his being which the scientist
is able
to induce mechanically by means of his instruments.
Equipped
with a spectroscope and a sixty-inch reflector an
astronomer
becomes, so far as eyesight is concerned, a superhuman
crea-
ture; and, as we should naturally expect, the knowledge
pos-
sessed by this superhuman creature is very different,
both in
quantity and quality, from that which can be acquired by
a star-
gazer with unmodified, merely human eyes.
Nor are changes in the knower's physiological or
intellectual
being the only ones to affect his knowledge. What we know
depends also on what, as moral beings, we choose to make
our-
selves. * Practice,' in the words of William James, ' may
change
our theoretical horizon, and this in a twofold way : it
may lead
into new worlds and secure new powers. Knowledge we could
never attain, remaining what we are, may be attainable in
consequence of higher powers and a higher life, which we
may morally achieve.' To put the matter more succinctly,
* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'
And the
same idea has been expressed by the Sufi poet,
Jalal-uddin
Rumi, in terms of a scientific metaphor : ' The astrolabe
of the
mysteries of God is love.'
This book, I repeat, is an anthology of the Perennial
Philo-
sophy ; but, though an anthology, it contains but few
extracts
from the writings of professional men of letters and,
though
illustrating a philosophy, hardly anything from the
professional
philosophers. The reason for this is very simple. The
Peren-
nial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one,
divine
Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and
lives
and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such
that it
cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by
those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions,
making
themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit. Why
should this be so ? We do not know. It is just one of
those
facts which we have to accept, whether we like them or
not and
however implausible and unlikely they may seem. Nothing
in
our everyday experience gives us any reason for supposing
that
water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen; and yet when we
subject water to certain rather drastic treatments, the
nature of
its constituent elements becomes manifest. Similarly,
nothing
in our everyday experience gives us much reason for
supposing
that the mind of the average sensual man has, as one of
its con-
stituents, something resembling, or identical with, the
Reality
substantial to the manifold world; and yet, when that
mind is
subjected to certain rather drastic treatments, the
divine ele-
ment, of which it is in part at least composed, becomes
mani-
fest, not only to the mind itself, but also, by its
reflection in
external behaviour, to other minds. It is only by making
physical experiments that we can discover the intimate
nature
of matter and its potentialities. And it is only by
making
psychological and moral experiments that we can discover
the
intimate nature of mind and its potentialities. In the
ordinary
circumstances of average sensual life these
potentialities of the
mind remain latent and unmanifested. If we would realize
them, we must fulfil certain conditions and obey certain
rules,
which experience has shown empirically to be valid.
In regard to few professional philosophers and men of
letters
is there any evidence that they did very much in the way
of
fulfilling the necessary conditions of direct spiritual
knowledge.
When poets or metaphysicians talk about the subject
matter of
the Perennial Philosophy, it is generally at second hand.
But
in every age there have been some men and women who chose
to fulfil the conditions upon which alone, as a matter of
brute
empirical fact, such immediate knowledge can be had; and
of
these a few have left accounts of the Reality they were
thus
enabled to apprehend and have tried to relate, in one
compre-
hensive system of thought, the given facts of this
experience
with the given facts of their other experiences. To such
first-
hand exponents of the Perennial Philosophy those who knew
them have generally given the name of 'saint' or
'prophet/
' sage ' or ' enlightened one/ And it is mainly to these,
because
there is good reason for supposing that they knew what
they
were talking about, and not to the professional
philosophers or
men of letters, that I have gone for my selections.
In India two classes of scripture are recognized : the
Shruti,
or inspired writings which are their own authority, since
they
are the product of immediate insight into ultimate
Reality ; and
the Smriti, which are based upon the Shruti and from them
derive such authority as they have. ' The Shruti,' in
Shankara's
words, 'depends upon direct perception. The Smriti plays
a
part analogous to induction, since, like induction, it
derives its
authority from an authority other than itself.' This
book, then,
is an anthology, with explanatory comments, of passages
drawn
from the Shruti and Smriti of many times and places.
Unfor-
tunately, familiarity with traditionally hallowed
writings tends
to breed, not indeed contempt, but something which, for
prac-
tical purposes, is almost as bad namely a kind of
reverential
insensibility, a stupor of the spirit, an inward deafness
to the
meaning of the sacred words. For this reason, when
selecting
material to illustrate the doctrines of the Perennial
Philosophy,
as they were formulated in the West, I have gone almost
always
to sources other than the Bible. This Christian Smriti,
from
which I have drawn, is based upon the Shruti of the
canonical
books, but has the great advantage of being less well
known
and therefore more vivid and, so to say, more audible
than they
are. Moreover, much of this Smriti is the work of
genuinely
saintly men and women, who have qualified themselves to
know at first hand what they are talking about.
Consequently
it may be regarded as being itself a form of inspired and
self-
validating Shruti and this in a much higher degree than
many
of the writings now included in the Biblical canon.
In recent years a number of attempts have been made to
work out a system of empirical theology. But in spite of
the
subtlety and intellectual power of such writers as
Sorley,
Oman and Tennant, the effort has met with only a partial
suc-
cess. Even in the hands of its ablest exponents empirical
theo-
logy is not particularly convincing. The reason, it seems
to
me, must be sought in the fact that the empirical
theologians
have confined their attention more or less exclusively to
the
experience of those whom the theologians of an older
school
called 'the unregenerate' that is to say, the experience
of
people who have not gone very far in fulfilling the
necessary
conditions of spiritual knowledge. But it is a fact,
confirmed
and re-confirmed during two or three thousand years of
reli-
gious history, that the ultimate Reality is not clearly
and
immediately apprehended, except by those who have made
themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit. This
being
so, it is hardly surprising that a theology based upon
the experi-
ence of nice, ordinary, unregenerate people should carry
so
little conviction. This kind of empirical theology is on
pre-
cisely the same footing as an empirical astronomy, based
upon
the experience of naked-eye observers. With the unaided
eye
a small, faint smudge can be detected in the
constellation of
Orion, and doubtless an imposing cosmological theory
could
be based upon the observation of this smudge. But no
amount
of such theorizing, however ingenious, could ever tell us
as
much about the galactic and extra-galactic nebulae as can
direct
acquaintance by means of a good telescope, camera and
spectro-
scope. Analogously, no amount of theorizing about such
hints
as may be darkly glimpsed within the ordinary,
unregenerate
experience of the manifold world can tell us as much
about
divine Reality as can be directly apprehended by a mind
in a
state of detachment, charity and humility. Natural
science is
empirical ; but it does not confine itself to the
experience of
human beings in their merely human and unmodified condi-
tion. Why empirical theologians should feel themselves
obliged to submit to this handicap, goodness only knows.
And of course, so long as they confine empirical experience
within these all too human limits, they are doomed to the
per-
petual stultification of their best efforts. From the
material
they have chosen to consider, no mind, however
brilliantly
gifted, can infer more than a set of possibilities or, at
the very
best, specious probabilities. The self-validating
certainty of
direct awareness cannot in the very nature of things be
achieved except by those equipped with the moral
'astrolabe
of God's mysteries/ If one is not oneself a sage or
saint, the
best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to
study
the works of those who were, and who, because they had
modi-
fied their merely human mode of being, were capable of a
more
than merely human kind and amount of knowledge.
