virtues in this stage.[17] They occupy the lowest
place, it is true; but this only means that they must be acquired by
all, though all are not called to the higher flights of contemplation.
Their chief value, according to Plotinus, is to teach us the meaning
of _order_ and _limitation_ ([Greek: taxis] and [Greek: peras]), which
are qualities belonging to the Divine nature. This is a very valuable
thought, for it contradicts that aberration of Mysticism which calls
God the Infinite, and thinks of Him as the Indefinite, dissolving all
distinctions in the abyss of bare indetermination. When Ewald says,
"the true mystic never withdraws himself wilfully from the business
of life, no, not even from the smallest business," he is, at any rate,
saying nothing which conflicts with the principles of Mysticism.[18]

The purgative life necessarily includes self-discipline: does it
necessarily include what is commonly known as asceticism? It would be
easy to answer that asceticism means nothing but _training_, as men
train for a race, or more broadly still, that it means simply "the
acquisition of some greater power by practice.[19]" But when people
speak of "asceticism," they have in their minds such severe
"buffeting" of the body as was practised by many ancient hermits and
mediaeval monks. Is this an integral part of the mystic's "upward
path"? We shall find reason to conclude that, while a certain degree
of austere simplicity characterises the outward life of nearly all the
mystics, and while an almost morbid desire to suffer is found in many
of them, there is nothing in the system itself to encourage men to
maltreat their bodies. Mysticism enjoins a dying life, not a living
death. Moreover, asceticism, when regarded as a virtue or duty in
itself, tends to isolate us, and concentrates our attention on our
separate individuality. This is contrary to the spirit of Mysticism,
which aims at realising unity and solidarity everywhere. Monkish
asceticism (so far as it goes beyond the struggle to live unstained
under unnatural conditions) rests on a dualistic view of the world
which does not belong to the essence of Mysticism. It infected all the
religious life of the Middle Ages, not Mysticism only.[20]

The second stage, the illuminative life, is the concentration of all
the faculties, will, intellect, and feeling, upon God. It differs from
the purgative life, not in having discarded good works, but in having
come to perform them, as