It ought to mean nothing short of this new reach of
freedom for us, with the struggle over, the keynote of the
universe sounding in our ears, and everlasting possession spread
before our eyes.[18]
[18] Once more, there are plenty of men, constitutionally sombre
men, in whose religious life this rapturousness is lacking. They
are religious in the wider sense, yet in this acutest of all
senses they are not so, and it is religion in the acutest sense
that I wish, without disputing about words, to study first, so as
to get at its typical differentia.
This sort of happiness in the absolute and everlasting is what we
find nowhere but in religion. It is parted off from all mere
animal happiness, all mere enjoyment of the present, by that
element of solemnity of which I have already made so much
account. Solemnity is a hard thing to define abstractly, but
certain of its marks are patent enough. A solemn state of mind is
never crude or simple--it seems to contain a certain measure of
its own opposite in solution. A solemn joy preserves a sort of
bitter in its sweetness; a solemn sorrow is one to which we
intimately consent.
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