ALTHOUGH it could hardly be disputed that the German philo-
sophical vocabulary is superior to the English both in fullness and
in precision, in regard to the subjects discussed in this book our
language does not seem to be altogether at a disadvantage.
Indeed, the English wealth of synonyms has presented the trans-
lator with an embarrassment at the very outset. In place of the
single German adjective heilig, with its derivative noun and verb,
we have the words sacred and holy, sacredness, holiness, and sanctity,
hallow and sanctify. Gottheit again gives us a triad of synonyms,
deity, divinity, Godhead. Each of these alternatives is probably the
most appropriate rendering in some special context, and in
choosing any one of them we are bound to sacrifice subtle differ-
ences in meaning which would be suggested by the others, and
which are perhaps implicit in the single German equivalent. The
deciding factor in the choice of holy rather than sacred as the regular
rendering of heilig was the fact that it is the Biblical word, found
especially in those great passages (e.g. Isa. vi) of which this book
makes repeated use, and which seem central to its argument.
Holy will be felt, I believe, to be a distinctly more numinous word
than sacred: it retains about it more markedly the numinous
atmosphere. And although, as is urged in the text with perhaps
still more reason of its German equivalent, it refers mainly to the
higher levels of religious experience at which the numinous has
been interpreted in rational and moral terms, and therefore
means to us mainly goodness, the word 'holy' is found also in
contexts where this more exalted meaning is excluded, and where
it is simply the numinous at an early and savage stage of develop-
ment. The well-known lines from Coleridge's Kubla Khan give
an example of such a use:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As c'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

This is a finely numinous passage, but it is the numinous at the
primitive, pre-religious, 'daemonic' level: it conveys nothing of
sanctity. For, while the daring use of 'holy' in this context may

-216-