2. (Eccl. Hist.) The doctrine of the Mystics, who professed a pure, sublime, and wholly disinterested
devotion, and maintained that they had direct intercourse with the divine Spirit, and aquired a knowledge
of God and of spiritual things unattainable by the natural intellect, and such as can not be analyzed or
explained.
3. (Philos.) The doctrine that the ultimate elements or principles of knowledge or belief are gained by
an act or process akin to feeling or faith.
Mystification
(Mys`ti*fi*ca"tion) n. [Cf. F. mystification.] The act of mystifying, or the state of being
mystied; also, something designed to, or that does, mystify.
The reply of Pope seems very much as though he had been playing off a mystification on his Grace.
De Quincey. Mystificator
(Mys"ti*fi*ca`tor) n. One who mystifies.
Mystify
(Mys"ti*fy) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mystified ; p. pr. & vb. n. Mystifying ] [F. mystifier, fr. Gr. + L. -
ficare (in comp.) to make. See 1st Mystery, and - fy.]
1. To involve in mystery; to make obscure or difficult to understand; as, to mystify a passage of Scripture.
2. To perplex the mind of; to puzzle; to impose upon the credulity of ; as, to mystify an opponent.
He took undue advantage of his credulity and mystified him exceedingly.
Ld. Campbell. Mytacism
(My"ta*cism) n. [Gr. . Cf. Metacism.] Too frequent use of the letter m, or of the sound
represented by it.
Myth
(Myth) n. [Written also mythe.] [Gr. my^qos myth, fable, tale, talk, speech: cf. F. mythe.]
1. A story of great but unknown age which originally embodied a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon
of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; an ancient legend
of a god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin; a popular fable which is, or
has been, received as historical.
2. A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
As for Mrs. Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years.
Ld. Lytton. Myth history, history made of, or mixed with, myths.
Mythe
(Mythe) n. See Myth. Grote.
Mythic
(Myth"ic Myth"ic*al) a. [L. mythicus, Gr. . See Myth.] Of or relating to myths; described in a
myth; of the nature of a myth; fabulous; imaginary; fanciful. — Myth"ic*al*ly, adv.
The mythic turf where danced the nymphs.
Mrs. Browning.
Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very
existence may be questioned.
Macaulay. Mythographer
(My*thog"ra*pher) n. [Gr. myqogra`fos; my^qos + gra`fein to write.] A composer of
fables.
Mythologer
(My*thol"o*ger) n. A mythologist.
Mythologian
(Myth`o*lo"gi*an) n. A mythologist.
