ABSTRACT

One should not get a true idea of the part played by the light symbol in religion if they thought of it simply as a symbol for salutary knowledge. The author think, to recognize that light is welcomed by men for different reasons, which need not go together. It is curious that light should be at the present moment one of the mysteries for Science, with characteristics hitherto supposed irreconcilable. Quite early darkness must have become associated in men's minds with evil-whether the malignant will of some being directed against me, or evil deeds which the author may wish to do undiscovered. He think it is, further, true that the particular kind of admiration evoked is a feeling sui generis, and cannot be analysed into a combination of other more primary feelings; any attempt to define it would inevitably bring in the notion to be defined by the use of some such word as 'splendid' or 'glorious'.