Now turn to the inward senses or noble powers of the soul, lower and higher. Take the lower powers first. These are intermediate between the higher powers and the outward senses. They are excited by the outward senses : what the eye sees, what the ear hears, they offer forthwith to desire. This offers it again, in the ordinary course, to the second power, called judgment, which considers it and once more passes it on to the third power, reckoning or reason. In this way it is clarified before it arrives at the higher faculties. So exalted is the power of the soul that she can seize it minus form or image and carry it in this state up into her higher powers. Here it is stored in the memory, mastered in the intellect and consummated in the will. These are the superior powers of the soul and they are one in nature. What the soul does is done by this simple nature in her powers.
Now it may be asked, What is this nature of the soul ?—It is the consciousness (the spark or synteresis) in the soul, that is the impar- tible nature of the soul. So subtile is this nature of the soul that space might not exist at all for all it troubles her. For instance, if one has a friend a thousand leagues away, thither flows the soul with - the best part of her powers, loving her friend there. St Augustine testifies to this. He says, ‘ The soul is where she loves rather than where she is giving life.’ The simple nature of the soul is in no way hampered by place. So much for the nature of the soul.
Next consider her higher, powers, so orderly appointed, so
1 See also Greith, p. 114, etc. ; and Spamer, Texte, B. 2.
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admirably adapted to their several functions albeit of one nature. Memory is the power of storing up what the other powers bring | in, that is its function—The second power is understanding. This is so exalted that in its understanding of the highest good, God namely, all the other powers must subserve it to the best of their ability.—The third faculty is will. It is lordly enough to bid what it will and forbid what it will not; from things it does not will it is altogether free. So much for the superior powers of the soul and the röle assigned to each.
Doctors dispute as to whether understanding is the nobler or the will. The position is this. Understanding sees things beyond this mundane level, that is its prerogative. .But to will alone are all things possible. As St Paul declares, “I can do all things in God who strengtheneth me.’ When understanding comes to the end of its tether, up soars the will transcendent in the light and power of faith. Here will surpasses understanding. This is the prerogative of will. But mind you, though the will is free to do and leave undone exactly as it will, this upward flight is not achieved by its own power alone : help comes from the other powers and from faith_as well. What help we shall now see. The powers have in common their impartible nature, and to this is due the transcension of the will. The other powers are the cause of this transcension in virtue of identity of nature. That is one help.
Then comes the question, which is the power in the psychic trinity wherein faith first appears ?—The middle one: it springs from understanding but it is fortified in will and will is fortified by faith. Thus the light of faith contributes to this ascent of will. That is the second help, And of still another it remains to tell. Intellect projects itself to hear and understand. It analyses, orders, synthesises. But even when working to per- fection, always there is something on beyond which it cannot penetrate and which it recognises as belonging to a higher order. This it communicates to will, in their common nature, not in its individual capacity. This communication gives will an upward swing which displaces it into that higher order—always in their common nature. Here understanding is superior to will. But to will as individual a certain superiority belongs at the summit
of its nature where it receives from the highest good, from very God.—What does it receive ?—It receives grace and in grace the highest good itself. What soul receives she receives willingly or not at all. Not that will as such receives this light: to receive is not its part; but by the grace of the sovran good the other powers are strengthened in their common nature. This light is kindled in that second power, in the Holy Ghost. It is in this
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light that all works are wrought in the soul. As Isaias says, “All our works are wrought by God.’ This light is gracious light, and any light outside this light is the light of nature. It is a sure sign of this light when of his own free will a person turns from mortal things to the highest good, God namely. We are in duty bound to love him for conferring on the soul such great perfection. When she has reached her limit of endeavour then will as such is free to leap over to that gnosis which is God himself. A somersault which lands the soul at the summit of her power. A marvel, truly, God has made from naught in the image of himself !
See now how the soul rises to sovran rank and to the zenith of her power. One master says, God is conveyed into the soul and there implanted. Whence there arises in the soul a divine love-spring which bears the soul back into God. Mark how. According to one holy man, ‘ Whatever we can say of God, that God is not.’ According to another, ‘ Whatever we can say of God, God is.’ And an eminent authority declares that both are right. With these three holy men even so I say, that when with her own understanding the soul receives divine understanding it is offered forthwith to her will. Will accepting it grows one with what it has accepted and finally takes it and puts it’ away in the memory. Thus God is conveyed and implanted in the soul. Then as to the divine love-spring. This overflowing in the soul causes her higher powers to flood the lower ones and the lower ones flood the outward man who, borne above all nether things, is incapable save of what is spiritual. As the spirit works by divine energy even so the outward man is driven by the spirit.
Oh wonder of wonders! When I think of the union of the soul with God! He makes the soul to flow out of herself in joyful ecstasy, for no named things content her. And since she is herself a nature named therefore she fails to content herself. The divine love-spring surges over the soul sweeping her out of * herself into the unnamed being in her original source, for that is all God is. Creatures have given him names, but in himself he is nameless essence. Thus the soul arrives at the height of her perfection.
Further as concerns the noble nature of the soul. St Augustine says, ‘As with God so with the soul.’ Had God not made the soul in the likeness of himself, to be God by grace, she could never be God above grace. Her likeness to the pattern of the blessed Trinity we see by comparing her with God.
God is threefold in Person and onefold in his nature. God is in all places and in each place whole. In other words, all places are the place of God. And the same with her. God has prevision
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of all things and everything is pietured in his providence. This is natural to God. And also to the soul. She too is threefold in her powers and simple in her nature. She too exists in all her members and in each member whole. So that all her members are the place of the soul. She too has foresight and imagines such things as she is able. To anything that we can predicate of God, soul has a certain likeness. Or, in the words of St Augustine, ‘ Like God like the soul.’ God has endowed the soul with his own likeness which did she not possess she could not be God by grace nor above grace either ; whereas in this likeness she is able to attain to being God by grace and also above grace. And she must equal him in divine love and divine activity. So much for the soul as being God by grace.
The soul who abides in this perfect likeness and in this noble nature God has given her, and at the same time rises to higher rank and higher, to her, what time she leaves the body, and at that very point, eternal life is open and in the opening she is encompassed with divine light, and enveloped in this divine light she is absorbed and transformed into God. Now each of the powers of the soul is endowed with the likeness of a divine Person : will receives the likeness of the Holy Ghost; understanding receives the likeness of the Son; memory the likeness of the Father and (her nature the likeness of the) divine nature withal remaining undivided.—That is as far as I can understand it.
In the third place let us see how the soul becomes God above grace. What God has given her is changeless for she has reached a height where she has no further need of grace. In this exalted state she has lost her proper self and is flowing full-flood into the unity of the divine nature. But what, you may ask, is the fate of this lost soul: does she find herself or not? My answer is, it seems to me that she does find herself and that at the point where every intelligence sees itself with itself. For though she sink all sinking in the oneness of divinity she never touches bottom. Wherefore God has left her one little point from which to get back to herself and find herself and know herself as creature. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. Henceforth I shall not speak about the soul, for she has lost her name yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul: she is called infinite being.
Now I go on to speak about abstract knowledge of God. And. I address myself to you, my brethren and my sisters, beloved Friends of God who are familiar with him and know something of the matter. I will start with the nomenclature of the holy Trinity. And here you will be called upon to follow an abstruse,
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technical discussion. When we speak of the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost we are speaking of the Persons. When we speak of the Godhead we are speaking of their nature. The three Persons, as Person and essence, flow with their essence into the essence wherein they are Godhead. Not that the Godhead is other than what they are themselves: they are the Godhead in their unity of nature. They flow in essence into the essence, both Person and essence, because essence is comprehended by nothing but itself. It is fast locked in stillness, comprehending itself with itself. This influx is, in the Godhead, the oneness of the three inseparate Persons. In this same flux the Father flows into the Son and the Son again into the Father (as our Lord Jesus Christ declares, ‘ He that seeth me seeth my Father. My Father is in me and I in him ’), and they both flow into the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost back to them again. (As our Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘ I and my Father are one Spirit.) The Father utters his Son and in his Son tells forth himself to creatures as a whole, all in this flow. And the Father returning to himself speaks himself to himself : ‘ The fountain flows into itself,’ as St Dionysius says. This proceeding in the Godhead is a speaking without words and without sound; a hearing without ears; a seeing without eyes. Inthis proceeding each Person wordlessly utters himself in the others. It is a flow where nothing flows. Compare with this the noble soul, which provides a striking likeness of this flow; for where her higher powers and her simple nature have the same property (hyparxis) they are flowing into each other, speaking themselves without word and without sound. Happy the soul who thus attains to the vision of eternal light !