Chapter II. On the Three Degrees of Consideration

Great is he who, according to what has been said, regards the service of the senses as the wealth belonging to the natives of this land of his exile, and so endeavours to put it to the best use by employing it for his own and his neighbour's salvation. Nor less great is he who, by philosophising, uses the senses as a stepping-stone for attaining to things invisible. The only difference is that the latter occupation is manifestly the more pleasant, the former the more profitable : the one demands more fortitude, the other yields greater delight. But greatest of all is he who, dispensing altogether with the use of the senses and of sensible objects, so far at least as is possible to human fragility, is accustomed, not by toilsome and gradual ascents but by sudden flights of the spirit, to soar aloft in contemplation from time to time, even to those sublime and immaterial realities. To this last kind of consideration as I think, belong the transports of St. Paul. For they were rather raptures than ascents : he does not say that he mounted, but that " he was caught up into paradise " (2 Cor. xii. 4). And in another place he writes, " Whether we be transported in mind, it is to God " (ibid. v. 13). Now these three degrees are attained in the following manner. Consideration, even in the place of its banishment, by the pursuit of virtue and the help df grace, rises superior to the senses ; and then either represses them lest they should wax wanton, or keeps them within due bounds lest they should wander away, or it avoids them altogether lest they should tarnish its purity. In the first it appears more powerful, in the second more free, and more pure in the third. For purity and fervour are the two wings which it uses in its flight.

Dost thou desire me to distinguish each of these three kinds of consideration by its proper name ? Well, if it pleases thee, let us call the first ' dispensative ' con- i sideration, the second ' estimative,' and the third, ' contemplative.' The meaning of these names will appear from their definitions. Dispensative consideration is i that which uses the senses and sensible objects in an orderly and unselfish manner as a means of meriting God ; estimative consideration is that which prudently \ and diligently examines everything and ponders everything in search of God ; contemplative consideration is that which, concentrating itself in itself, disengages itself — in so far as it is assisted by divine grace — from all earthly human occupations and interests in order to contemplate God. Notice carefully that contemplative consideration is the fruit of the other two species, and that these latter, unless referred to it, are not really what they are called. For dispensative consideration apart from contemplative, sows much indeed, but reaps nothing ; and similarly, out of relation to contemplative, that which I have called estimative advances, I allow, but never reaches its term. Therefore it may be said that what the first prepares, the second enjoys the odour of, and the third the taste. Nevertheless, it is true that both dispensative and estimative consideration can also bring us to the taste, but not so speedily. And as between these, the first attains the goal with more iabour, the second with more tranquillity . *