o answer, "That spiritual conquest, as soon as it is
completed in this manner, ceases to be spiritual; that this ambitious
conqueror, the spirit, cannot have all without perishing at the moment
of victory."

The flesh is not embarrassed; but taking refuge in hypocrisy, makes
itself of no importance, and becomes humble to regain its advantage:
"Is then the body so important that we should trouble our heads about
it? A simple dependent of the soul ought to follow wherever she goes."
The mystics are never behindhand, in this matter, in their insults to
the body and the flesh. The flesh is the brute animal, says one, which
we must cudgel. "Let her pass," says another, "through any muddy
brook: what does it signify to the soul that rides above, sublime and
pure, without deigning to look down?"

Afterwards comes the vile refinement of the Quietists: "If the inferior
part be without sin, the superior grows proud, and pride is the
greatest sin: consequently the flesh ought to sin, in order that the
soul may remain humble; sin, producing humility, becomes a ladder to
ascend to heaven."

"Sin!--But is it sin? (depraved devotion finds here the ancient
sophism:) The holy by its essence, being holiness itself, always
sanctifies. In the spiritual man, everything is spirit, even what in
another is matter. If, in its superior flight, the holy should meet
with any obstacle that might draw it again towards the earth, let the
inferior part get rid of it; it does a meritorious work, and is
sanctified for it."

Diabolical subtlety! which few avow clearly, but which many brood over,
and cherish in their most secret thoughts. Molinos is forgotten, but
Molinosism still exists.[2]

Besides, false reasonings are hardly necessary in the miserable state
of dreaming in which a soul lives, when deprived of will and reason.

Beside herself, and out of her senses, having lost all connection with
reality, ever buried in miracles, intoxicated with God and the devil,
she is weakened to death: but the excess of this weakness is yet strong
enough to give poison and fever in return; terrible contagion--you
thought that this morally dead person would toil after you, but it is
you who will follow her: she will bear away the living.

Here end the subtleties with which desire had been satisfied. A
horrible light breaks upon them, and sophistry finds no longer any
clouds to darken it. You see, then, when it is too late, that you have
done more t