existing conditions, and not until he has succeeded in accomplishing his purpose can he hope for religious peace.  The mystic is possible in all states of civilisation.  He is not dependent on external circumstances; his whole consciousness is filled with one problem only, before which everything else pales:  the relationship of the soul to God.  But the reformer is possible only under certain circumstances.  He, too, starts from an inner religious consciousness, but his problem is soon solved, and he devotes all his energy to the world.  The mystic is not even aware of the difference between his own conception of God and traditional religion; he is under the impression that he is still an orthodox believer, long after he has broken fresh ground; for he has taken from the traditional doctrine everything which he can re-animate.  The remainder is dead as far as he is concerned.  To accuse him of heresy appears to him as a monstrous misunderstanding.

Thus mystic and reformer drink from the same well of direct religious consciousness.  But while in the case of the mystic the well is fathomless, it is much more shallow in the case of the reformer.  Certain of himself, he directs his energy to the conversion and reformation of the world.  He resembles in some respects the public orator and agitator; he has a grasp of social conditions, strives to influence his surroundings by word and deed, and is ready to sacrifice his life to his convictions.  The mystic remains solitary and misunderstood.  Luther, who was to some extent influenced by German mysticism, fought, at his best, against the dogma of historical salvation.

It is the tragic fate of all religions that they must crystallise into a system.  A reflection of the enthusiasm which animated their founders still falls on their disciples:  Follow me!  But the second generation already demands proofs, tradition and clumsy miracles; reports are drawn up and looked upon as sacred—­religion has become a glimpse into the past.  Most people never have any direct religious experience, their salvation lies in the dogmas, the universally accepted doctrines.  The founder of a new religion is always regarded by his contemporaries as abnormal, and is persecuted accordingly; not in malice, but of necessity.  Arnold of Brescia died at the stake; St. Francis was no more than a heretic tolerated by the Church, and Eckhart escaped the tribunal of the Inquisition only through his death.

I have attempted to show in diverse domains of the higher spiritual and psychical life, how powerfully the Christian principle of the individual soul, the real fundamental value of the European civilisation, manifested itself at the time of the Crusades, and everywhere became the germ of new things.  The deepest thinkers teach the deification of man as the culmination of existence, the ultimate purpose of this earthly life, and claim immortality for the soul.  This position, which may roughly be conceived as the raising of the individual into the ideal, has determined the European ideal of culture and differentiated it from all Orientalism, including even the loftiest Indian philosophy.  Every attempt to substitute for this fundamental concept and its emotional content something else—­whether it be pantheism, Buddhism, or naturalism—­will always remain a failure.