Psychologists with a slant towards materialism therefore argue that mysticism is nothing but sublimated sexuality and frustrated fleshliness, whereas the spiritists maintain that the love-imagery (of the Song of Songs) is nothing but allegory and symbolism never to be taken in its gross animal sense.  But is it not possible that both parties are right and wrong, and that the love of nature and the love of spirit are paths upon a circle which meet at their extremes?  Perhaps the meeting is discovered only by those who follow both at once.  Such a course seems impossible and inconsistent only if it can be held that love is a matter of choosing between alternatives, if, in other words, love is an exclusive attitude of mind which cleaves to one object and rejects all others.  If so, it must be quite other than what is said to be God's own love, 'who maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and sendeth his rain upon the just and the unjust.'  Love is surely a disposition of the heart which radiates on all sides like light.

• love
• materialism
• mysticism
• sexuality
• god
• nature
• light
• evil
• spirit
• attitude
• alternatives
• other
• matter