wretchedness came indeed to be recognised as God's punishment for
selfishness in devotion and for too great desire for the sweetness
of communing with God, and so arose the doctrine of "disinterested
love," which was more and more emphasised in the later mysticism,
especially by the French Quietists.

I have spoken quite candidly of the defects of Eckhart's mystical
Christianity. As a religious philosophy it does not keep clear of
the fallacy that an ascent though the unreal can lead to reality.
"To suppose, as the mystic does, that the finite search has of
itself no Being at all, is illusory, is Maya, is itself nothing,
this is also to deprive the Absolute of even its poor value as a
contrasting goal. For a goal that is a goal of no real process has
as little value as it has content."[23] But, as Prof. Royce says,
mysticism furnishes us with the means of correcting itself. It
supplies an obvious reductio ad absurdum of the theory with which it
set out, that "Immediacy is the one test of reality," and is itself
forced to give the world of diversity a real value as manifesting in
different degrees the nature of God. Those who are acquainted with
the sacred books of the East will recognise that here is the
decisive departure from real Pantheism. And it may be fairly claimed
for the German mystics that though their speculative teaching
sometimes seems to echo too ominously the apathetic detachment of
the Indian sage, their lives and example, and their practical
exhortations, preached a truer and a larger philosophy. Eckhart, as
we have seen, was a busy preacher as well as a keen student, and
some of the younger members of his school were even more occupied in
pastoral work. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, mysticism
can give a very good account of itself to the Marthas as well as the
Marys of this world.