Chapter XII. The Human Spirit

The three normal dispositions of the spiritual life require patience, mortification, and the absence of human respect, in order rightly to perforin the functions allotted them, and to avoid the dangers which beset them. But there are also three evil spirits which haunt the dispositions in question. Not that each disposition has exactly its one bad angel, and is not troubled by the other two) but on the whole, the disposition of struggle is liable to the attacks of what may be called the human spirit, fatigue to spiritual idleness, and rest to the neglect of prayer, or the unpraying spirit. We have, therefore, now to consider these three things, the human spirit, spiritual idleness and prayer.

The kingdom of darkness, the power and wiliness of Satan, the multitude of his subordinate ministers, the ceaselessness of their open or hidden warfare against the servants of God, cannot be too often the subject of our most grave meditations, as well as the object of our hum-blest fears and most prayerful vigilance. Still, it were to be wished that men's views of this agency of Satan were always kept within the due limits of sane tneology. They not unfrequently run into something like Manicbeism, and at least give us an idea of Almighty God which has drifted widely from that which Scripture teaches. We forget that the devil is only one of three enemies against X6* tvhom at baptism we vowed to do battle, and thus we transfer to him all the phenomena which belong rather to the flesh and the world. The same secret vanity which leads us to a superstitious view of grace, as a talisman which is to act without the co-operation of our own resolute will, is the source of these erroneous views of the devil's agency. It breaks the shame of our falls to believe that in every instance we have wrestled and been thrown by an evil angel of tremendous power, and not that through cowardice, effeminacy and self-love we have simply given in to the suggestions of our own irresolute will. Nay, in certain temptations men will allow themselves to be almost passive, from this horrible doctrine about the devil. Were they logical, they would soon come to believe the blasphemy of the necessity of sin. What their view really amounts to is this, that man is a certain organized reasonable instrument, who is possessed by the devil, and that God comes and tries to establish a counter-possession by means of faith, grace, and sacraments, and that man has little to do with the matter except to consent to be the battle-field of the two spiritual powers. Every one shudders when it is put into these words. But follow a soul, who has got this wrong idea, into the whole region of temptations and scruples, and you will see what mistakes it makes and what misfortunes it encounters, a.id how at last, to use St. Bernard's figure, it needs no devil to tempt it, because it is a devil to itself.¹

It is necessary, therefore, at this poin., that I should ask my readers to remember, what theology teaches them, that there is such a thing as a definite human spirit, the spirit of man, and of fallen man, and that it has ways And operations of its own which exercise a very material influence over the whole of our spiritual life. What is usually taught about it may be briefly stated as follows. There are three spirits with which men have to do, the Divine, the diabolical, and the human. This last is a definite and distinct spirit of itself; and consists of the inclinations of our fallen nature when not allied to either of the other spirits. So that the mischief which it causes in the spiritual life is chiefly of a negative character, inasmuch as it leads us to act from purely natural motives and in a purely natural way, apart from grace. It is known by its always gravitating, independent of any satanical impulsion, to peace, comfort, ease, liberty, and making ample provision for the body. In a word, it is to good persons, what the spirits of the world and the devil are to bad people, incessantly acting upon them even when gross temptations would have no effect. It vitiates what they do, without making it wholly evil.

Brownson in his Spirit-flapper. Even Bayle in his Dictionnaire (Art. Plotinus) says to Christians, Prove to your adversaries the existence of evil spirits, and you -will soon see them forced to grant you all your dogmas. Mais prouvez-leur Texistence des mauvais esprits, et vous les verrez hientot forces de vous accorder tous vos dogmas. The blasphemy of Voltaire on the subject is too well known to need repeating here. Frederick Schlegel well said that history waa nothing more than "an incessant struggle of nations and individuals against invisible powers." Father Ravignan remarked justly and pithily of the devils of the nineteenth century, Their masterpiece has been to get themselves denied by the age. Leur chef d'oeuvre, Messieurs, e'est de s'Stre fait nier par ce si&cle.

The various ways in which this human spirit developes itself in the spiritual life are deserving of especial study. It often causes hot feelings to be mistaken for visitations of the Holy Ghost. Hence it is that determinations taken in moments of exaltation and excitement are so little to be depended on. The words of God in the soul effect what they say. The Divine Voice may have uttered but a single sound, one little word, but the work is done. It is safe to build upon it the edifice of years. Judge then what awful consequences follow when the mere effervescence of the human spirit is mistaken for the fire of divine inspiration! We commit ourselves to a line of action, or to a grave step in life, or even to a vow from which we cannot easily be dispensed, on the strength of a mere natural excitement. We may have put ourselves *nto a condition in which unusual aids of grace are requisite in order to' avoid sin, and what we dream was God's covenant to give us those graces, was nothing more than a palpitation of the heart, and a bounding of the blood. Many are the great beginnings which are undertaken in the human spirit, and as many and as great the ruins which remain

But it is not only in our commencements that the agency of the human spirit is to be remarked. In the shape of self-love it creeps into works well begun, and destroys their purity and saps their strength. Or it comes upon good and singleminded intentions, and warps them from their first direction, and makes them useless for any supernatural purpose. Then when we find that something has gone wrong, the same human spirit makes us eager and anxious to set matters right and to renew our fervour in its own way. Consequectly, as a means to this end, we undertake austerities on a mere physical impulse, and out of a humour of natural self-revenge. A tendency to talk about ourselves, and to speak of our spiritual state, and to let others know what we are feeling and experiencing, is another operation of the human spirit, which does the devil's work for him without his having thf trouble of interfering.

But the human spirit can do more than give us an impulse towards good, it can furnish a certain amount of facility in doing it. Elihu thought the Holy Ghost moved him to reprove Job, and his spirit gave him no little depth and eloquence in his reproofs. Cardinal Bona says that when a spiritual man finds himself filled with great light, he must not be too quick in concluding that it is the work of grace.² It may come, he says, just as well from the natural vivacity of his disposition, or from the mere habit of meditating on the truths of religion, and the habit of meditation is a very different thing from the grace and gift of it, or it may come from a simple intellectual speculation on natural and divine things. Hence it is that often in the midst of such light our will remains dry and cold, and destitute of all the unction of the Holy Ghost. We do not judge a tree by its branches and flowers, but by its fruits; so we judge of these interior lights by the good worts which they produce. If we examine these lights narrowly we shall often find some one little dark streak in them, something, it may be, contrary to prudence or alien to the principles of Christian perfection. A dash of levity is an illustration of this: for levity is an especial sign of the human spirit. Richard of St. Victor says that when we are impelled to do any good work easily and with a certain feeling of levity, that levity)ught to make us fear that our impulsion is rather from the flesh than from the Spirit, especially if it is accompanied by anything agreeable to nature. In like manner the joy with which we are attracted to anything ought to be suspected, if it be mingled with warmth or impatience; for the Holy Spirit is moderate, patient, tranquil, and the movements He excites are conformable to what He is in Himself.

Another mark of the human spirit is to be found in the self-annoyance or disgust which arises in us at the view of o»r own faults, which we shall have especially to consider hereafter. It casts us down also because of the defects of our good works or the ill success of earnest efforts. We wish all to be square and neat; and there are some dispositions which are more tried by the absence of finish and completeness in their works than by an actual sin. There is an obstinate attachment to devotional practices, because we fancy they have done us good, which looks like supernatural perseverance, and yet is in truth nothing but the pertinacity of the human spirit. If sometimes our inward life is inundated with a gushing variety of good thoughts and zealous projects, it is for the most part to be attributed to the human spirit. The Holy Spirit inundates us slowly, noiselessly, and with simplicity,

.ike the flooding of low-lying grounds by an oozing river. One thing at a time, and all things in order, such are the characteristics for the most part of divine operations. Unevenness and fluctuation of spirits is another human operation, which need never be mistaken for divine. The same also may be said of a delusion which leads us to fancy that self-respect requires such or such a course of action in us. I am not saying that where there is such a motive there is always sin, but that the action is purely human, and must be content to take its chance as such. It must not be disappointed if no blessing goes along with it, and it is not allowed to enjoy the rights and immunities of evangelical prudence. Nothing is so completely left to itself and to its own unassisted efforts by providence as human prudence, and the reason is obvious. It is, as far as it goes, an attempt on man's part to do without God, and to walk alone in his own wisdom. Yet how the- world admires this human prudence, and the gravity of look and the solemnity of manner and the measuredness of words which are mostly its attendant gifts. 0 man! you are not truly prudent, because you are pompous, because you do not commit yourself to good people, or because your eye is grave, and your demeanour fleeorous, and your words flow as if they were worth i silver crown a-piecej but you are prudent because your eye is calmly fixed on God, and your heart whole with Him, and your gait slow lest you should leave Him behind. Human prudence will earn you human respect. Will that bread satisfy you? You did not come into the world in order that you might go to your grave an unoffending and unproductive man! God wants something more of you than that you should be unoffending; and alas! to be unprodiictive is a capital offence against Him and souls. Yet with how many Christians is this unoffending non-production their very summum bonum. " To be ever safe is to be ever feeble j" if ever the spirit of evangelical prudenco spoke plainly, it spoke in that golden apophthegm.

The spirit of unnecessary recreations, the spirit of mix^d intentions, the spirit of dispensations, the spirit of little immortifications practised under the pretext that we do not mean them to be habitual, the spirit which makes us speak lightly and with a false prudence about the enthusiasm of our first fervours in religion, all these are developments of the human spirit. And those peculiar developments, which show themselves most in each one of us, are those which fit themselves most readily to our natural temperament and disposition. It is to this quarter, therefore, that we must look most steadily, and prepare most carefully; for it is there that this "ignoble" spirit, as Scaramelli calls it, will invade us.

But the worst artifice of the human spirit is when it comes upon us in the disguise of virtue. We have a natural aptitude for some particular virtue, and we mistake that facility for grace, and so become deluded. The worst, says Scaramelli, is when this injurious spirit travesties some virtue, and makes us seem in our own eyes different from what we really are. For, as Richard of St Victor says, the nature of man contains within itself a natural disposition to certain virtues, in the pursuit of which it meets with fewer impediments than in the pursuit of others; and on the other hand, every man has in himself a peculiar inaptitude and repugnance to the practice of particular virtues. Hence it comes to pass, very often, that a certain promptitude in doing good looks like devo rton, and is not really so, but arises from natural inclination. From this doctrine, that great mystic infers that the thoughts, words, works, and affections of imperfect persons, ordinarily proceed from this low natural principle, and are consequently to be attributed to the human spirit.

Scaramelli proceeds to give cases in illustration of this doctrine. Beginners in devotion, and other imperfect persons, are often to be found, who will run here and there all day long in works of mercy, who are all ingenuity in devising plans, and all hands in carrying them into execution. You would believe them to be very portraits of charity and zeal. Yet if you could penetrate into their hearts, you would find that all these anxieties and promptitudes are operations of nature, not of grace, arising in great measure, if not altogether, from an ardent and unquiet temper, which could not live if it were not always embarrassed with a thousand occupations. Another person you will find who is quiet and peaceable, and does not even resent an injury. It is as if he did not know how to be angry. You would believe him to be a very model of meekness. Yet if you diligently scrutinized his apparent imperturbability, you would see that it was not grace which moderated and refrained his natural character, but that he was of a cold, heavy, and phlegmatic disposition. Again, you will meet with persons who are full of tenderness in prayer, and continually bursting into tears. You would suppose the manna of heaven was being rained upor them by angelic hands. But put these tears into the balance of the sanctuary, and it will soon be evident that grace has the least share in them. They are legitimately claimed by a sanguine, tender, and affectionate 17 N nature, whose imagination is vividly acted upon by any lovely or pitiful object. So others are to be met with who are so attentive at prayer, that they can pass entire hours in it without distraction. Your first thought ia that they have arrived at a profound and habitual recollection, and perhaps a high degree of contemplation. But you will be mistaken. This attention may not only come from a heavenly light which fixes the mind on a divine object, but also from a strong imagination, or a profoundly melancholy temperament, and a certain fixedness which nails the mind to the objects on which it is meditating.

But let us look at ourselves. On some days we feel an extraordinary fervour, and a great deal of spiritual consolation; and so we believe ourselves to be full of God. But, alas! our poor soul deceives itself: this great consolation is but a work of nature. Some good fortune has befallen us, or some piece of happy news arrived, by which our sensitive appetite is dilated, and filled with cheerfulness and natural delectation. With this a slight amount of devotion is combined, which gives a tinge of spirituality to the whole mind. So that the fervour is nothing better than natural high spirits coloured with devotion. We can soon test the truth of this. Let something happen to displease us, and the consolation is gone like lightning, the fervour cooled in an instant, and our mind hard to be lifted to God. Alas, that it should be so easy to confound the impulses that come from God with those that nature gives, and to take the human spirit for the divine! Poor we! how shall we blush at the tribunal of God, when we find our actions which we believed to be the pure silver of supernatural virtues, to be only the worthless scoria of natural actions, or a drossy compound of nature and grace, where two thirds are nature, to one-third grace. So says Isaias, Argentum tuum versum est in scoriam, vinum tuum mixtum est aqua.* All these sweetnesses which spring from natural cheerfulness, or quickness of perception, dr mere habits of meditation, explain why it is that people can feel so much, advance so little, and fall back so often.

The corrosive power of this human spirit is shown by the way in which it causes natural temperament to mingle with and mar our good. Thus the zeal of a choleric man becomes bitter. A melancholy man ungraceful in his charity, and a cheerful man unrecollected in his prayers. But let us listen to Scaramelli commenting on that sweetest and most persuasive of mystics, Richard of St. Victor, if St. Bernard will not be angry at my calling him so. It is to be remembered that the human spirit mixes itself with the works of the most devout people, who are in the habit of regulating their actions with no slight perfection. Although this ignoble spirit has not the power utterly to spoil them, it nevertheless corrupts them to a certain extent, and lowers their perfection. Thus if a spiritual man is of an irritable disposition, he experiences in his zeal a certain bitterness and natural perturbation. If he is phlegmatic, he is remiss in correcting. If he is melancholy, his charity wants benignity. If he is high-spirited, his virtues are diluted by dissipation. In a word, as the liquor from the bottle of skin tastes of the skin, so the virtues taste of the natural disposition of the man in whom they dwell. Let every man, therefore, beware of the spirit that sleeps in his own bosom. *L22.

First of all, this human spirit is a most malignant spirit j for under the pretence of serving God, it is always seeking itself and its own natural satisfactions. And in the next place it is a most subtle spirit, which is always gliding like smooth oil into all our actions. Huge mortification is required to fight it well, and to beat it. On this matter, St. Bernard quotes the saying of the Wise Man, that he who overcomes himself is more to be esteemed than he who takes a city; for nature can take a city, but grace alone can take self. Let every one reflect, adds our author, that the greatest enemy of persons advanced in spirituality is neither the devil, nor the world, nor the flesh; for these three adversaries have either been already overcome, or are actually being combated. Their greatest enemy is the human spirit, which is the ally of self-love) and it cannot be overcome except by an incessant mortification of the will.

To this authority I would add that of Cardinal Bona; and I will paraphrase the passage in which he speaks of the human spirit, and compares it with the devil. Man has no more pernicious enemy than his own spirit; for it is full of deceits, artifices, and disguises. It is inconstant. It takes different shapes. It is curious, unquiet, the enemy of its own repose, and a lover of novelty. The imagination produces nothing deformed or monstrous, with which it will not occupy itself. There is nothing unruly,, vain and ridiculous, which it is not capable of embracing. Sometimes it appears altogether subject to the Spirit of God, sometimes enslaved to the spirit of Satan; and it never abides long in one stay. As it is full of artifices, it assumes different forms with a most surprising industry and a marvellous subtilty, so as to hide as Kma <*)ta7cinence and interests under the pretexts of the glory of God and of perfection. Under these captious:ippearances it is nevertheless very far indeed from seeking the glory of God or loving perfection. For it seeks itself jn everything and loves itself excessively. It positively adores itself, and turning aside from their true end fchings the most holy, by a horrible sacrilege it refers them to itself. It is on this account that a man must far more distrust himself, and stand on his guard against himself, than against Satan. For no power external to ourselves is able to hurt us, unless we give him the hand at first, furnish him with arms when he begins the atttack, and inwardly acquiesce in his designs and enterprises. Of a truth many enemies push us to our ruin. The world pushes us thither: Satan pushes us: other men push us; but no one pushes us so violently and so dangerously as we push ourselves.

St. Bernard, in his eighty-fifth sermon on the Canticles, writes as follows: Every one is his own enemy. Man urges and precipitates himself into evil in such a way, that if he would only keep his own hands from suicide, he need fear the violence of no one else. Who can harm you, says St. Peter, if you have no desire except to do good? Your own consent to evil is the only hand which can wound and kill you. If when the devil suggests evil to you, or the world invites you to it, you withhold your consent, no misfortune can befall you. The devil may push you, but he cannot throw you down, if you refuse him your consent. How plain it is, then, that mark is his own principal and most dangerous enemy!

I still dwell on this all-important subject, and at the risk of some little repetition, I will ask you to examine 17* with ine the marks by which Cardinal Bona distinguishes the human spirit, as we have already done those of Scavamelli and Richard of St. Victor.

First of all, he says, there are persons so touched w*th the remembrance of their sins, and the meditation of the Bufferings of Christ, that they shed an abundance of tears, and are suddenly filled with a profound sentiment of compunction. This disposition leads them to chastise themselves with rude disciplines and macerations of the flesh. Others are touched in a lively way by the consideration of the joys of heaven, and they all at once go into an extasy. Yet specious as these effects are, they do not come from the Spirit of God, but from the love of self, from the liveliness and application with which the soul has apprehended its objects, and from the natural change which a sudden and extraordinary emotion causes. This is easily seen when the impetuosity and ardour of this emotion is arrested; for then such persons not only relapse into a state of coldness and dryness, but evey fall back into their old passions and vices. On the contrary, the true movements and impressions of the Spirit of God have nothing vain or unprofitable for the conversion of souls, but at once effect great things. Hence we must conclude that the discernment of spirits in these matters is very difficult. For we often attribute to the Spirit of God, and often also to the spirit of the devil, that which really comes only from the dispositions and impression? of nature. Every one, therefore, ought carefully to examine his heart, so that he may not be deceived by his own spirit, which St. Gregory calls a spirit of pride. Now no one can examine and discuss what passes in himself, unless he prepares for God a dwelling in his soul by chasing away every kind of presumption, and keeping himself down in distrust of self, and a sincere humility For, as the holy pope excellently says, no one can become the abode of God's Spirit, who has not first emptied himself of his own; for the Spirit of God rests only in humble minds, in quiet consciences, and in hearts which tremble at His words.

Secondly, it sometimes happens that we begin a work truly for God and for His glory. But inasmuch as nature is always secretly seeking itself, insensibly and without our perceiving it we forget the good pleasure of God in the progress of the work which we have begun, and instead of regarding attentively His glory and His will, we let ourselves go about seeking our own convenience and satisfaction. We find this out in the following way. If God arrests the success or completion of our work by any illness or accident, at once we are troubled and disquieted; and such a sadness and perturbation of our interior peace take possession of us, that it is as much as ever we can do to acquiesce in the Divine Will. There are few persons who are thoroughly aware of the malignity of that natural inclination which is at the bottom of all self-seeking, because it is so subtle and hidden. The very fact that good is in a -jertain sense conformable to our natural desires, causes us easily to lean towards ourselves. So that even in the intentions which seem to us the most pure and the most according to the will of God, we often seek ourselves, drawing rather to what suits our own inclination than what is precisely the most for the glory of God.

A similar defect may be observed in our love of mortification, especially when it is too ardent. For many mortify their senses, restrain their affections, punish their bodies, and abstain from pleasures, with an appearanc of virtue and zeal, who do all this in reality to be seen of men, or to give their own minds a satisfaction in which self-love seeks itself with all the address and artifice of which it is capable. For he who is impelled only by the instinct of grace, always desires to be hidden. Nature as invariably seeks to display itself. Yet even those who are really full of supernatural and divine lights are not exempt from this fault, in consequence of their frequent insensible returns upon self, and the views of self which are continually opening upon them, like landscapes seen through sudden openings in a wood, just at times when they ought to be most exclusively occupied with God.

Thirdly, it is very certain that we have need of the grace of God to pray and do good works as we ought. But it is certain also that we can do virtuous actions from a human motive, from self-love, or from servile fear. We have moreover so little light in ourselves that we cannot clearly distinguish on what principle we act, whether it be divine or human. In truth we wish to raise our heart to God, and to disengage it from these returns upon self which are so full of imperfections. But sometimes this desire arises from a subtle and secret interest which we do not perceive. For we may desire to be stripped of our self-love by another self-love. We can desire and love humility through pride. Without question there is in our actions and interior dispositions a perpetual circle and incessant return of ourselves upon ourselves, which is almost imperceptible. There always remains in our heart a root of self-love which is extremely fine, subtle and volatile, and which is unknown to us. So that we are sometimes very far from guiding ourselves by reasons altogether divine and motives purely disinterested, at the very moment when we think we are doing so the most completely. Job's comforters are examples of this. Pure and true love of God, disengaged from all consideration of self, is extremely rare and exceedingly difficult. If men could hide themselves from the eyes of God and from the eyes of the world, there are very few indeed who would do good, and very few who would abstain from evil.

Fourthly, when we tease and worry ourselves, and are as it were in despair about our spiritual progress after we have fallen, all these dispositions come only from a secret self-confidence and pride. For he who is truly humble is never astonished at his falls. He knows that man is so feeble he can do nothing without the assistance of God. So that he asks the divine aid, detesting his sin with a heart at once tranquil and contrite; and rising from his fall with courage and diligence, he renews his course with fresh fervour.

It is also a mark of the human spirit to attach itself to its exercises and functions, however good and holy, to such a degree that when superiors withdraw us from them and apply us to others, we indulge in murmurs and complaints, and imagine that we can never reach the perfection befitting our state, as if not to allow us always to do what we like were depriving us of the necessary means to attain perfection. For the pain which we feel under these circumstances does not come really from the fact that the things we have been forced to abandon were more suitable and efficacious for our perfection, but because we rested in them and leaned upon them with a vicious affection, and were complacently enjoying therein our own interest and satisfaction rather than the glory of God

Nature loves what is beautiful, what is good, what is perfect, and seeks to be pleasing and attractive to itself in these things. Hence it conies to pass that it hates everything that is defective in its enterprises and designs, and even in its most spiritual works: insomuch that these defects, as has been said before, torment and disquiet it, which is a sign that the love of the good and the perfect, however specious it seemed, was only the produce of nature.

Fifthly, the human spirit instigates men who are learned and desirous of becoming more so, to learn the science of divine and supernatural things, partly to give them consideration from others, and partly to satisfy their suriosity. From this eagerness to appear learned in high matters proceed many rare, magnificent and subtle discourses whose only fruit is to tickle the ears, not to save the souls, of others. Hence also those writings of philosophers who treat of virtue in a pompous style, without spirit and without life, filling the soul with distractions, and dissipating it in an infinity of speculations and ideas, and without the least gift of inflaming it with love of God. Works which emanate from the natural capacity of the mind, and in the production of which grace has had no share, may doubtless contain an abundance of good things, but the fruit of them is very small. They are like the apostle's sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Whereas the words which are animated by the Spirit of God, although they have nothing lofty or elevated in themselves, nay on the contrary are far from anything of the sort, bring forth in their simplicity abundant fruit. The human spirit on the other hand is accustomed to distribute itself readily among external things, aud to plume itself on the multitude and variety of its fine thought*, ttnd this causes it to swerve from the unity which is so desirable and so necessary.

Sixthly, in matters relating to virtue the prudence of the flesh is the inseparable companion of the human spirit. This is the reason why so many content themselves with mediocrity in the spiritual life, without aspiring to a perfect state. They measure everything by themselves and by their own weakness, and not by the power and efficacy of the grace of God. They fear suffering and contempt, and ardently love riches, honours and bodily comforts, and to these things they refer all they do, or say, or think. They wish to make an enjoyment of themselves, as if they were their own ultimate end; and forming an idol of themselves, they pay it the worship which is due to God. They let their soul be charmed by the enchantments of the world, and sell it as a slave to the goods of this present life.

As charity never seeks its own interests, so blind self love seeks no interests but its own. And the power of this pernicious love over the soul is at once so malignant and so penetrating, that it not only mingles with temporal and earthly things, but even with heavenly and spiritual things, infecting with its venom the love of prayer, the usage of the sacraments, and the exercise of virtues. Even in these things men seek for praise and the reputation of sanctity, or secretly hope to obtain from God certain lights and spiritual luxuries and joys of soul, which only make them soft and vain. This venom of self-love taints even our works of penance; for frequently after a fall a sinner is touched with extreme sorrow, and chastises his body fiercely, not because of the offence against God, but because of the note of infamy which he has himself incurred, or through the fear of losing his reputation amongst men, or at least because he wishes to seem innocent in his own eyes. Yet as no solid peace is to be found among the perishable things of this life, there is so much inconstancy in a man's love of himself, that he is incessantly changing his affections and pleasures, and knows neither what he wishes nor what he is doing. Sometimes he lets himself be rashly buoyed up by hope; sometimes he falls into despair; sometimes he breaks out into a vain joy; sometimes he is out of his depth in sadness. There is neither moderation nor measure in his conduct, and instead of being in a mean, he is always in extremes. He resembles a vessel, tossed hither and thither uncertainly on the waves, and at last striking on a rock, and becoming a miserable wreck. For as our Saviour has taught us, He that loves his own soul shall lose it. Now all that is said of the human spirit must be referred to this pernicious self-love; for it is the exciting cause of all the merely natural movements of the soul.

It is plain that Scaramelli and Bona drew from a single source, that that source was Richard of St. Victor, and that he spoke the spiritual tradition of his day, on a subject about which, more than almost any other in the spiritual life, it is needful to have clear and decided views.

You may ask how we are to test this human spirit, and how we are to rectify it. I answer briefly, that we may test it in two ways and rectify it in two ways. Our first test must be whether we will or will not allow ourselves to be despoiled of our habits and practices by obedience. The second is whether a virtue is accompanied in us by its congruous virtues, which in the order of the Holy Spirit it would be, and is not an isolated and exceptional thing. The first means of rectifying it is to redirect our intention to the glory of God, even when in act we are obliged to abstain from what we desire; and the second means is to strive to put grace by degrees in the place of all other prin ciples of action. But more of this in the next chapter.

We must remember that to be in a state of grace and to act from a principle of grace are two very different things To act from a principle of grace is to make the pleasure of God the sole motive of our actions, to the exclusion of all mere natural motives; and to learn to know God more and more is the means towards the accomplishment of this magnificent end. In such a work as this, there can be nc rapidity, no vehemence, nothing sudden, nothing revolutionary. Grace must occupy as fast as it destroys; it must fill the void as it creates it. The aborigines must waste in the presence of the white man; but it must be a waste, not an extermination, else the wild beasts will be down upon the settlements. Some men turn away from this slow supernatural life, because they weary of the yoke which is never off their necks; and some because they are persuaded such a life is impossible to man. Yet the saints and the saintlike lived it, and were at large and at ease in it. Why not we? The state of grace seeks God and all other things in Him: the principle of grace seeks God and nothing else but Him. The state of grace is satisfied with clearness from sin: the principle of grace is ever forcing its way upwards to divine union. The state of grace has calm and storm alternately: the principle of grace, if it oscillates at all, oscillates like the needle, in fidelity to its centre. In the beginning it is hard, yet with many consolations. Its progress is like the dawning of day. Its end is the eternal sunrise. Why are there so few that live it? Because so few have Faith. "Thy truths, 0 Lord, are diminished from among the children of men/' 18

Footnotes

1. The same doctrine is also taught very strongly by Father de Condren, General of the French Oratory. See his life by F. Ame-lote, p. 177, xiv. Of course this side of the question must not ba exaggerated any more than the other. The doctrine of the personality and influence of the devil is peculiarly needed just now in ordei So meet the Sadduceism of the day, as has been remarked by Dr. ↩

2. The criteria of Cardinal Bona, by which he distinguishes the human spirit from the diabolical, have attracted the notice of M. de Mirville in his first MSmoire on Pneumatologie, and he has promised to consider them at length, and in connection with Catholio theology, in his second MSmoire. Nous Gtudierons aussi la veritable nature de cet ennemi domestique appele" la chair, ennemi que le cardinal Bona ne craint pas de ranger dans la classe-des Esprits. Nous tacherous tout a lafois de bien d6finir le vrai r61e de ces agent? psychologiqueo et physiologiques, dans les ph6nomenes magnetiques, ct de voir s'ils peuvent jamais y remplacer l'assistanco d'un Esprit Stranger. Prem. Mem. p. 81. 3me Edition. ↩