of trial; but we can never cease to need Him,
"though it is true that the most eminent saints are accustomed to
regard Him less as an exterior object than as the interior principle
of their lives." They are in error who speak of possessing God in His
supreme simplicity, and of no more knowing Christ after the flesh.
Contemplation is called passive because it excludes the _interested_
activity of the soul, not because it excludes real action. (Here again
Fenelon is rather explaining away than explaining his authorities.)
The culmination of the "passive state" is "transformation," in which
love is the life of the soul, as it is its being and substance.
"Catherine of Genoa said, I find no more _me_; there is no longer any
other _I_ but God." "But it is false to say that transformation is a
deification of the real and natural soul, or a hypostatic union, or an
unalterable conformity with God.[310]" In the passive state we are
still liable to mortal sin. (It is characteristic of Fenelon that he
contradicts, without rejecting, the substitution-doctrine plainly
stated in the sentence from Catherine of Genoa.)

In his letter to the Pope, which accompanies the "Explanation of the
Maxims," Fenelon thus sums up his distinctions between true and false
Mysticism:--

1. The "permanent act" (i.e. an indefectible state of union with God)
is to be condemned as "a poisoned source of idleness and internal
lethargy."

2. There is an indispensable necessity of the distinct exercise of
each virtue.

3. "Perpetual contemplation," making venial sins impossible, and
abolishing the distinction of virtues, is impossible.

4. "Passive prayer," if it excludes the co-operation of free-will, is
impossible.

5. There can be no "quietude" except the peace of the Holy Ghost,
which acts in a manner so uniform that these acts seem, _to
unscientific persons_, not distinct acts, but a single and permanent
unity with God.

6. That the doctrine of pure love may not serve as an asylum for the
errors of the Quietists, we assert that hope must always abide, as
saith St. Paul.

7. The state of pure love is very rare, and it is intermittent.

In reply to this manifesto, the "Three Prelates[311]" rejoin that
Fenelon keeps the name of hope but takes away the thing; that he
really preaches indifference to salvation; that he is in danger of
regarding contemplation of Christ as a descent from the heights of
pure contemplation; that he unaccountably says no