to us from the highest habitation, having
come into a place which is adverse to the Divine Nature and to
Eternity." And in such a Soul as this there is its own individual
power, and the intellectual power, and the Divine power; that is to
say, that influence which has been mentioned. Therefore it is written
in the book On Causes: "Each Noble Soul has three operations, that is
to say, the animal, the intellectual, and the Divine." And there are
some men who hold such opinions that they say, if all the preceding
powers were to unite in the production of a Soul in their best
disposition, arrangement, order, that into that Soul would descend so
much of the Deity that it would be as it were another God Incarnate;
and this is almost all that it is possible to say concerning the
Natural way.

By the Theological way it is possible to say that, when the Supreme
Deity, that is, God, sees His creature prepared to receive His good
gift, so freely He imparts it to His creature in proportion as it is
prepared or qualified to receive it. And because these gifts proceed
from ineffable Love, and the Divine Love is appropriate to the Holy
Spirit, therefore it is that they are called the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, which, even as the Prophet Isaiah distinguishes them, are
seven, namely, Wisdom, Intelligence, Counsel, Courage, Knowledge,
Pity, and the Fear of God. O, good green blades, and good and
wonderful the seed!

And O, admirable and benign Sower of the seed, who dost only wait for
human nature to prepare the ground for Thee wherein to sow! O, blessed
are those who till the land to fit it to receive such seed!

Here it is to be known that the first noble shoot which germinates
from this seed that it may be fruitful, is the desire or appetite of
the mind, which in Greek is called "hormen;" and if this is not well
cultivated and held upright by good habits, the seed is of little
worth, and it would be better if it had not been sown.

And therefore St. Augustine urges, and Aristotle also in the second
book of Ethics, that man should accustom himself to do good, and to
bridle in his passions, in order that this shoot which has been
mentioned may grow strong through good habits, and be confirmed in its
uprightness, so that it may fructify, and from its fruit may issue the
sweetness of Human Happiness.

CHAPTER XXII.

It is the commandment of the Moral Philosophers that, of the good
gifts whereof they have spoken, Man ought t