The Inner Light: A Study of the Significance, Character, and Primary Content of the Religious Consciousness (Classic Reprint)

PREFACE

THIS treatise is an attempt to express the results at
which its author has arrived through that intellectual
re-birth which is a necessity for all who feel themselves
thrown back perforce upon first principles. Each must
pass through this for himself ; yet the conclusions of
one may help another. Study has of course been
indispensable, but it is absolutely impossible to state
the degree of my specific indebtedness to particular
writers. Whenever definitely conscious of it, I think
I have given some indication. But in working out my
position I have been conscious rather of a logical
unfolding from within than of the incorporation of
theories from without. The general position to which I
have worked my way, such as it is, is my own, and has
not, so far as I am aware, been reached by anyone else.

As to particular positions, I have noticed a great
deal of independent coincidence between myself and
other writers allowing for the different setting of their
ideas and mine in what I have read since writing these
pages. Convinced yet diffident, I greatly value this
support.

It seems well to give this hint as to the genesis of the
work, if only in order to be able to ask the reader to
consider it primarily as a whole, and to read the parti-
cular arguments as elements in a synthesis. Of course
its contents will always remain mere speculation to
many, and to none the vital expression of unitary
spiritual experience which they are to its author: but
still what I have just said may help to show how it
may be best understood and most fairly estimated.

I conclude with my hearty thanks to Professor
Caldecott for his value