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 NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO 
 
 3 182201611 9919
 
 Authorised Translation 
 All Rights Reserved
 
 OF THE 
 
 SAINTS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRI JOLY 
 
 WITH PREFACE AND NOTES BY 
 
 G. TYRRELL, S.J. 
 
 LONDON 
 DUCKWORTH & CO., 3, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 
 
 NEW YORK, CINCINNATI CHICAGO : 
 BENZIGER BROS. 
 
 1898 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 M. H. GILL & SON.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TIAVING treated successively of the psychology 
 of the inferior animals, 1 of the psychology of 
 great men, 2 and of the psychology of criminals, 3 I 
 now come to the psychology of the saints. 
 
 We may ask : Are all these different psychologies 
 utterly distinct one from the other ? Is instinct an 
 occult possession and crime a phenomenon standing 
 quite by itself, a thing apart, the offspring of a devia- 
 tion or spontaneous retrogression of the human race ? 
 Is the great man a mysterious gift of the Unconscious 
 or the sudden incarnation of a spirit which sets at 
 defiance all attempts at analysis ? Is the saint a 
 being in whom a miraculous agency has completely 
 ousted and supplanted nature ? I have, in turn, en- 
 deavoured to combat every one of these notions. 
 
 There is one other theory, however, to which I 
 am quite as unwilling to subscribe, and that is the 
 theory that all manifestations of the human facul- 
 ties, from the lowest even to the very highest, are 
 produced by the blind and automatic action of our 
 inferior powers. According to this idea, man is 
 
 1 L 'instinct, ses rapports avec la vie et avec f intelligence, 2nd 
 edition. Thorin, L'Aomme et F animal, 3rd edition. Hachette. 
 
 2 Psychologic des grands hommes, 2nd ed. Hachette. 
 
 * Le crime, 4th ed. La France criminelle, 3rd ed. Le combat 
 centre le crime. 2nd ed. L. Cerf.
 
 vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 nothing better than an animal of a rather more 
 complicated nature than the rest ; crime is a disease ; 
 and genius and sanctity merely striking and, more 
 often than not, fantastic exhibitions of the pride, 
 ambition, self-deception and restlessness inherent in 
 our nature. 
 
 No great men and little, we are all of us formed 
 out of the same clay and the same spirit is breathed 
 into each one of us. We stand, as it were, on differ- 
 ent steps of the same ladder, which springs from one 
 and the same nature and reaches up to one and the 
 same God. We may aggravate the original weakness 
 of our nature by yielding to it, or we may use the 
 help offered to us and so develop all the potential 
 strength and beauty it possesses, but whichever course 
 we take, we can never completely destroy a single one 
 of the features of our complex humanity. No matter 
 how degenerate on the one hand, or perfect on the 
 other, they may become, our fellow-men never fail 
 to be objects of warning or encouragement to us. 
 The resemblance we bear to one another affords us the 
 means, while it teaches us the necessity, of applying 
 the lesson to ourselves. It is under the influence of 
 this conviction that the following essay has been 
 written. 1 
 
 1 During the course of this work, I have often been obliged to 
 treat of very difficult subjects. I wish to express my gratitude to 
 M. Monier, Superior of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes ecclesias- 
 tiques, who kindly revised my proof-sheets and placed his great 
 theological learning, as well as his literary experience, at my 
 disposal.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 D ESI DBS the official dogmatic teaching of the 
 *-* Christian Church which can be reduced to a 
 comparatively small compass there is a great mass 
 of traditional beliefs, historical and religious, which 
 she preserves with reverence and respect, not as 
 in any sense setting her seal on every item of which 
 it is composed, but because, as representing the 
 " folk-lore," so to say, of the faithful at large, it has 
 a critical value not final or decisive, but of an im- 
 portance varying with the subject in hand. It is, 
 we might say, a nidus from which matter is drawn 
 from time to time to be subjected to the severer 
 methods of criticism, and rejected or accepted ac- 
 cording to the verdict. Taken as a whole, it contains 
 a mingling of truth and error, as does every similar 
 body of tradition ; but for this reason to despise it 
 or deny it all critical value would be to cast away 
 the gold together with the ore. It can be trusted 
 safely and usefully if its claims are rightly under- 
 stood ; for it does not pretend to be a mirror of 
 facts, but only of subjective impressions and beliefs 
 concerning facts. We cannot at once pass by in- 
 ference from " It is said " to " It is " ; yet " It is 
 said" has an undoubted critical value under due 
 conditions.
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 Hagiography is occupied with a large part of this 
 body of Christian tradition ; but until comparatively 
 recent years, little had been done to sift the chaff 
 from the grain in this department, beyond what 
 was needed for the processes of canonisation. In 
 the ages of faith as they were called there was 
 a matter-of-course acceptance of much that we call 
 marvellous; while in the succeeding age of unfaith 
 there was an equally matter-of-course rejection of 
 the same; but in neither case was there much dis- 
 crimination attempted. But with the birth and 
 growth of the historical and inductive methods, as 
 well as with a more positive study of the rarer and 
 abnormal phenomena of psychology, the "Acta 
 Sanctorum" have acquired a new value and interest 
 for the scientist and historian which must necessarily 
 issue in results eventually advantageous to piety and 
 religion. 
 
 One by one the strange facts recorded in saints' 
 lives which were scouted by the hot-headed scepti- 
 cism of a century ago and considered to discredit 
 all hagiography, are now recognised as instances 
 of well-known psychological manifestations. It is 
 little to the purpose that they are explained as due 
 to hypnosis, thought-transference, expectant atten- 
 tion, or other " word-causes " ; the point is that, the 
 philosophy which once denied these things as super- 
 stitions, is now convicted of superstition in that 
 very denial. 
 
 The tendency of this reaction to explain all the 
 phenomena in question by purely physiological or 
 psychological laws needs to be counteracted by a
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 sounder criticism which shall fix the limits of what 
 may be so explained, and shall assign to Nature 
 the things that are Nature's and to God the things 
 that are God's ; and this is the task to which M. Joly 
 addresses himself in the little volume which is here 
 presented to the public in English dress. 
 
 It will, however, serve a no less important end 
 if it enables educated Catholics to approach the 
 lives of the saints with a more intelligent sympathy. 
 The spiritual benefit derived from that study de- 
 pends obviously on the applicability of their example 
 to our own case ; and this again, on the resemblance 
 we see between their nature and circumstances and 
 our own. It is this that spurs men to emulate their 
 betters in the various walks of life, a desire to 
 equal or approach them, as well as a belief in the 
 possibility of the enterprise. When the saints are 
 set before us rather as wonderful than lovable; 
 when we have no conception of the process of their 
 spiritual evolution, how from rudiments of sanctity 
 which are in us all, and by the aid of resources 
 and faculties which we all possess, they obtained 
 a result so different; until we have learnt to set 
 aside all that is merely the clothing and expression 
 of sanctity, and to find that the underlying substance 
 is simply the love of God and of things Divine carried 
 to an heroic degree; we cannot expect to gain much 
 definite profit from the study of saints' lives. Nothing 
 comes out more clearly in these pages than that 
 the saints themselves have been careful to separate 
 from the essence of sanctity those extraordinary 
 gifts and "charismata" in which it is vulgarly sup-
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 posed to consist ; and to place its whole inner sub- 
 stance in an eminent or heroic degree of that charity 
 which is possessed by every soul in grace, and which 
 St Paul sets above tongues, above prophetic insight 
 or foresight, above miracles, even above martyrdom 
 and self-sacrifice when they are not the fruits of charity. 
 What at once interests us and helps us, is the 
 discernment of one and the same Spirit under a 
 diversity of manifestations. In the saints of all ages 
 and countries taken together the full content of the 
 idea of Christian sanctity is unfolded to us. In 
 them we see how that Spirit which found its fullest 
 and most unimpeded expression in the life of the 
 God-man and of His Blessed Mother, has also uttered 
 itself in a thousand languages in the lives of His 
 saints, the members of that mystical body which 
 Christ rules and animates, as making with Himself 
 the full organ of Divine manifestation. However 
 differently it may act and be reacted on by its con- 
 ditions and surroundings, charity is one and the 
 same thing in the Head and in the members ; in the 
 perfect saint and in the beginner ; in every nation- 
 ality and climate ; in every stage of civilisation or 
 barbarism ; in every condition of life, in high or 
 low, rich or poor, old or young ; in every variety of 
 mind, character, temperament ; whether it languish 
 or flourish ; whether it be the first or last smoulder- 
 ing spark, or else the living flame of heroic sanctity. 
 Nor is this a mere oneness of type, or resemblance 
 a parallelism and similarity of spirit such as exists 
 between the disciples of a master, or the copies of 
 an original. For whatever may be disputed as to
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 the indwelling of one and the same God in the 
 natural conscience of all men, binding them as to a 
 common centre, it is the plain teaching of the 
 Church that the Spirit which utters itself in the 
 supernatural life of grace is not multiplied in the 
 multitude of souls nor divided among them, but is 
 identically one and the same in all. 
 
 In the measure then that we detect this "unity in 
 variety" among the saints and learn to regard each 
 several life as a self-revelation of that Divine person- 
 ality with which they were in some sort ' possessed ' ; 
 in the measure that we come to disregard the mere 
 husk of language and to look to the hidden sense of 
 that revelation, we shall learn that in our degree 
 we too can lay hold of that same sense and give it 
 utterance in a language all our own. 
 
 Not indeed that all are capable of sanctity, which 
 is the heroism of charity, but that all can drink in 
 some measure of the chalice which the saints have 
 drained. It is by the interspersion of men of special 
 and extraordinary gifts, graces, and abilities, that 
 God makes provision for the many. He breaks and 
 multiplies bread and gives it to his apostles to divide 
 to the multitudes ; and this law obtains even in the 
 distribution of that grace which in some measure is 
 needful for all. Still the difference here between 
 greatest and least is one of degree, not of kind, and 
 it would be to render the example of the saints 
 wholly unfruitful were we to lose sight of this, and, 
 by confounding the phenomena of sanctity with its 
 substance, to regard it as belonging to an order of 
 things in no way concerning us.
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 It is hoped that M. Joly's work may tend to dispel 
 such an illusion wherever it exists, and prepare many 
 minds to draw more abundant profit than heretofore 
 from the contemplation of the " great cloud of wit- 
 nesses " by which we are encompassed. 
 
 G. T. 
 
 LONDON, May 7, 1898.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 M 
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN THE DIFFERENT 
 RELIGIONS ..... 
 
 The idea of sanctity its history the saint among the 
 Chinese among the Buddhists among the Mohammedans 
 in the Old Testament in the New among the principal 
 Christian denominations the saint in the Catholic Church 
 the "great man" and the saint points of affinity and 
 divergence greater unity, more liberty, more unlimited 
 progress in the saint the saints and their surroundings 
 the saint and the mystic all mystics not saints are all 
 saints mystics? false definitions of mysticism true defini- 
 tion mysticism is the love of God the saint, a man who 
 serves God in an heroic manner and from the motive of 
 love. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT . . ' 42 
 
 Sanctity and natural gifts saints, by nature, neither half- 
 witted nor of weak constitution diversities of character 
 among the saints how far these extend they show them- 
 selves in great things and in small meaning of this latter 
 word as applied to saints humour in saints tastes and 
 personal habits.
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA IN THE LIVES OF 
 
 THE SAINTS ..... 64 
 
 Extraordinary states and states of ill health in the saints 
 is sanctity a nervous disease? its relation to certain 
 recently discussed phenomena of mental-hearing, second 
 sight, and clairvoyance the nature of these phenomena in 
 the saints revelations, visions, prophecies : they do not 
 constitute sanctity, but the sanctity of the person gives 
 them credibility and value testimony of St John of the 
 Cross St Theresa St Jane de Chantal teaching of 
 Benedict XIV. this applies also to miracles three kinds 
 of ecstasy how the saints, taught by experience, have 
 distinguished between them so-called hysteria in the 
 saints Pere Hahn and M. Janet accidental phenomena 
 overcome or transformed in the saints there is no dis- 
 integration, narrowness or dual personality, but an evolu- 
 tion of an absolutely different kind. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SENSES AND IMAGINATION THE INTELLECT 
 
 AND CONTEMPLATION . . . . Il8 
 
 Theoretic psychology of the saints the help they derive from 
 the senses the pre-eminent position they accord to the will, 
 when guided by love does the saint materialise his con- 
 ceptions or does spirituality gain the ascendency over him ? 
 distinction he draws between the eternal essence of God and 
 God made man in the person of our Lord error of the 
 quietists how the imagination, as soon as it has been puri- 
 fied, becomes once more free theory of St John of the 
 Cross what the saint chiefly requires of the intellect is that 
 it should begin to love reflection and doubt the sceptic 
 and the believer the heretic and the saint what the intel- 
 lect of the saint desires and obtains by means of prayer self-
 
 CONTENTS xv 
 
 scrutiny in the saint experiences of St Chantal Bossuet's 
 principles the saint's knowledge of his own sanctity con- 
 templation or so-called passive prayer the effect and cause 
 of steady and fruitful labour accumulated piety apd 
 reflection. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION . . .148 
 
 Feeling in the saints how much of it is due to their physical 
 organisation and extent to which this latter is modified in 
 them predominant part taken by the heart notable ex- 
 amples the saint's aptitude for suffering and emotion by 
 what things is he moved? his feelings are like ours, only that 
 he has got rid of self-love human and natural affections 
 supernatural and heavenly affections friendship and innocent 
 pleasures the love of God in the saints its connection with 
 suffering which is accepted, sought and asked for its con- 
 nection with action how the saint's capacity for action is 
 fostered by his love of suffering, by his method of contem- 
 plation, and by the purity of his faith joy in suffering 
 spiritual child-bearing the great precept of St Ignatius 
 regarding resolutions made in times of consolation the 
 active life of the saints how they carry it out conclusion.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN THE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS 
 
 TF unenlightened piety has frequently changed 
 *- and distorted the features of the saints, the dilet- 
 tantism of more than one neo-Christian of the 
 present day promises to be no less destructive in 
 its effects. Raised far above the level of human 
 nature, the saints seemed, as it were, altogether 
 outside of it, and as Mgr. Dupanloup remarks so 
 forcibly, one had almost begun to question whether 
 "they were really men, sons of Adam, with flesh 
 and blood like our own." The inclination nowa- 
 days is, on the contrary, to explain everything in 
 them as due to natural and social influences, of a 
 kind to which any one of us might be exposed. 
 They are set down, many of them, as morbid, hys- 
 terical, hypnotic persons, who, by reason of the 
 innate or acquired delicacy of their nervous systems, 
 were endowed with second sight, like these well- 
 known somnambulists who have been restored to 
 health by the marvellous and well-attested power of 
 hypnotism. Or else, according to the fashion of the 
 day, the life of some saint is taken up for the pur- 
 
 A l
 
 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 pose of obtaining a better understanding of some 
 period in the history of art or popular literature. 
 Unexpected discoveries are made and, though natu- 
 rally surprised, the student is overjoyed. He had 
 thought that he was only dealing with a saint, and 
 lo and behold, he meets a man or a woman, as 
 the case may be. He gives an account of his dis- 
 covery to his circle of readers in the tone of one 
 who half expects to be set down in consequence 
 as a lover of paradoxes, but who, as a sensible 
 man, is able to face that prospect with tolerable 
 equanimity. If he finds that his subject was more 
 solicitous of the spirit than of the letter, that he 
 was not narrow-minded but possessed a good deal 
 of initiative, tenderness, respect for conscience, a 
 love of the beautiful and even some regard for 
 cleanliness, he thinks that he has chanced upon 
 a rare case. He treats this unexpected self-assertion 
 on the part of outraged nature as an instance of 
 retrogression or atavism or else he credits heresy 
 with one more precursor or unconscious disciple. 
 
 We have no need to complain of these many 
 fanciful theories. Some of them are very artistic 
 and there is at least this much to be said for them 
 all, that they are a proof that not only literature, 
 but science and psychology would find the saints 
 an interesting subject of study. 
 
 Not an easy one though, by any means, but 
 that is only an extra reason for undertaking it. 
 
 More than one simple and conservative soul has 
 been annoyed by the way in which a certain dis- 
 tinguished priest, a member of the Institute of
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 3 
 
 France and Director of the Ecole Franchise in 
 Rome, has handled the legends of the saints. I 
 need hardly say that he has shewn no want of 
 reverence in his treatment of them. After all, 
 we are not afraid of clearing away the bric-a-brac 
 which accumulates in course of time and disfigures 
 our ancient cathedrals. It is a measure of necessity 
 if they are ever to regain their primitive beauty 
 and purity of style. What is there to prevent our 
 doing in the case of psychology what we naturally 
 do in the case of history and architecture ? I am 
 not, of course, advocating restorations and recon- 
 structions, after the fashion of certain modern 
 artists who, indirectly, attempt to credit past gener- 
 ations with ideas which never entered their heads. 
 But there is more than one saint to whom " restitu- 
 tion " is due, and the work is one of devotion no 
 less than of good taste. If there are men who have 
 nothing to lose and everything to gain from the 
 simple truth, surely these men are the saints. 
 
 It will be useful if, before entering upon a 
 closer study of the saints themselves, we ask what 
 signification the word Saint has borne in different 
 languages. The idea of sanctity is nothing new, 
 but men's conception of it has varied. To write 
 its history and to endeavour to discover how it has 
 been looked upon in this or that centre of civilisation 
 is to attempt to take the measure of the most sublime 
 or the most ambitious of all the aspirations that 
 have ever characterised the human race. 
 
 To go back to the very beginning of things.
 
 4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 Christianity has " reformed " nature and we believe 
 that in doing so it has fortified and set it free as 
 well. But the same God who redeemed nature, 
 had also, in the first instance, created it and, to 
 borrow the words of the liturgy, created it " admir- 
 ably." Mankind, in the interval, had made attempts, 
 many and great and with very unequal success, to 
 rise to the height of great virtue. Did they ever 
 attain to sanctity ? They certainly desired it and 
 even made profession of it, and thus, in some little 
 way, enjoyed a foretaste of it. 
 
 To get even as far as this it was first necessary 
 that they should rise out of the savage state of the 
 so-called primitive races. So long as poor humanity 
 made the most of its relationship to the inferior 
 creation animals, plants, wind, sun ; so long as the 
 courage or strength of a man was considered to 
 depend upon his power of appropriating to himself 
 the nature of a buffalo, a bear or a shark, by eating 
 them or taking their name ; so long as rain- 
 makers, wizards and chiefs derived their power from 
 strange alliances with the elements or animals, man's 
 ambition was to become more material rather 
 than more pure-minded and more spiritual. The 
 faint traces of religion found in the legends handed 
 down in his tribe could not help him ; as in myth- 
 ology in spite of the endless variety of its forms 
 " spirits " were generally represented as malevolent 
 and wicked. Before the idea of sanctity can dawn 
 upon him, man's intelligence has to advance so far 
 that he can desire, hope and seek for a means of 
 freeing himself from his misery. He must be stirred
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 5 
 
 and attracted by the idea of a higher sort of exist- 
 ence. At the very least, he must be able to despise 
 the gross pleasures and degrading fears that excite 
 and oppress the majority of his fellows. 
 
 The Chinese are supposed, and not without reason, 
 to be a people little given to ideals and therefore unable 
 to understand a kingdom that is not of this world 
 but their philosophers very early began to make 
 distinctions between different levels in human nature. 
 Above the ordinary man, they placed the wise man 
 who respects and cultivates his own reason and 
 strives incessantly to put in practice the known 
 principles of a virtuous life and, if he can, to discover 
 fresh ones. Above the wise man, they place the 
 saint or perfect man, who lives "like the spirits" 
 and practises, this time without effort, calmly and 
 tranquilly, the law of heaven, which is perfection 
 and truth unmixed with any alloy. 1 We are not 
 told the origin of this law, or mandate from heaven, 
 as it is called, in one of their sacred books, 2 or from 
 what source those who practise it derive the strength 
 necessary to them. When the metaphysical problem 
 comes to the fore, the learned Chinaman holds his 
 peace. Those who pretend to have discovered his 
 secret thoughts on the subject, say that he holds 
 sanctity to be the product of heredity, which is only 
 avoiding the difficulty. 
 
 Instead of expecting the Chinese to tell us, what 
 
 1 A former missionary, M. 1'abbe" Coldre, who spent fifteen 
 years in China, tells me that what struck him as the dominant idea 
 in this conception (of sanctity) was the idea of absolute rectitude. 
 
 2 See De Lanessan, La morale ties philosophes chtnois, Paris, 
 1896.
 
 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 they have never been at the pains to find out, we 
 will content ourselves with noting that in their eyes, 
 sanctity is the most perfect state of human nature ; 
 that to attain to it is a law of our being, and lastly, 
 that this law establishes a fundamental opposition 
 between the earth and what without explaining or 
 defining it their writers call Heaven. 
 
 But if the divine action is only very dimly recog- 
 nised in the Chinese conception of sanctity, it is 
 otherwise in the Greek. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that with the Greeks, 
 virtue was held to be the result of purely human 
 activity, while sanctity was associated with the idea 
 of a nearer and more intimate approach to the 
 Divinity. We possess a dialogue on sanctity by 
 Plato entitled Euthyphro. 1 It treats exclusively of 
 the question, " Is sanctity sanctity because it is 
 pleasing to the gods, or is it pleasing to the gods 
 because it is sanctity ? " Plato naturally inclines to 
 this latter solution. He wishes to prove that all 
 virtue is such as it is, by reason of its own essence 
 which is eternal and immutable, and that if this 
 essence is, in reality, one with the supreme good 
 which is God, it cannot be dependent upon the 
 arbitrary will of any capricious divinity. Plato does 
 not, however, define sanctity. He will do so, he 
 says, " on another occasion," his favourite method 
 of disposing of delicate questions. However, the 
 idea of sanctity and the idea of what is specially 
 pleasing to the Divinity are evidently closely con- 
 nected in his mind. 
 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 7 
 
 The word sanctity was evidently familiar to more 
 thoughtful minds, for we even find it in Epicurus. 
 Cicero is our informant. 1 " Epicurus had written 
 books upon sanctity and piety towards the gods." 
 Cicero adds, it is true, "The man is laughing at 
 us here" (ludimur ab homine), because, according 
 to Cicero, it was impossible to speak seriously of 
 sanctity and piety towards the gods and at the 
 same time to believe that everything is caused by 
 the chance bringing together of certain atoms, and 
 that in man, truth, happiness and virtue come from 
 the senses. Still, this is another instance of the 
 association between the idea of sanctity and the idea 
 of piety towards the gods and it is worthy of notice. 
 
 Of all religions (other than our own) Buddhism 
 is the one which has most insisted upon the necessity 
 of sanctity. Here, however, the idea that the saint 
 is a being who is pleasing to God and who serves 
 Him better than other men, has completely dis- 
 appeared. The Buddhist saint thinks he is holy 
 because he has suppressed or annihilated nature, 
 but he stops at this and does not advance to union 
 with a God who communicates to him a share in 
 His own virtue. The gods themselves he looks 
 upon as beings who are products of the unlimited 
 metamorphoses of a nature which is not only eternal 
 but eternally bad. These gods and the heaven they 
 inhabit belong to this detested world all the more 
 so, as a being who has once been a god may after- 
 wards become a horse or some other animal. They 
 do, indeed, possess a hierarchy amongst themselves, 
 1 Cicero. On the Nature of the Gods. 11,41.
 
 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 and some have a higher place in it than others, but 
 the highest class still suffer from certain remains of 
 terrestrial impurity which separates them from the 
 goal they are bound to desire equally with man, 
 and that goal is Nirvana! 
 
 In attaining to it, the gods are of no assistance 
 to man. He has to discover for himself, how to 
 escape that purposeless series of alternative births 
 and deaths from which the god himself, as soon as he 
 begins to exist, is not exempted. He has to save 
 himself, to deliver himself and to sanctify himself. 
 To the Buddhist these three expressions are synony- 
 mous. In his eyes, sanctity is deliverance and deliver- 
 ance is the extinction of evil as well as the end of 
 all things, since everything is evil : it is Nirvana. 
 
 More than one philosopher has been puzzled at the 
 sight of a religion without God and at this aspiration 
 towards nothingness, and has suggested that this 
 nothingness means rest in the plenitude of a hence- 
 forth immutable existence, but there is no Hindu 
 text to tell us so. The most that can be said is that 
 no Hindu text denies it expressly, but what is much 
 more certain is that it is a question to which Buddha 
 did not, of set purpose, wish to give any answer. 1 
 He held the care of escaping from these perpetual 
 reincarnations to be of such importance that it 
 
 1 See Oldenberg's recent standard work (French translation) : 
 ' ' Bouddha sa vie sa doctrine sa communautd. " The quotations 
 I shall presently give, are taken from this work. Those who still 
 wish to deny the existence of such an individual as Buddha, may 
 substitute in his stead the school of thinkers who originated and 
 propagated his doctrine. It will serve equally well for the pur- 
 poses of my comparison.
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 9 
 
 ought to outweigh all others. This is very clear 
 from the following curious text. " Does or does 
 not the perfect man live after death ? The Sublime 
 Buddha has taught nothing on this subject. He 
 has not revealed it. Because this knowledge would 
 not assist the saint or help to a pious life, to detach- 
 ment from earthly things, to cessation, to repose, to 
 knowledge, to illumination, to Nirvana, therefore 
 the Sublime One has not revealed it." 
 
 What he did reveal to his followers on every 
 occasion was the necessity of annihilating in them- 
 selves every desire and of renouncing all action, 
 because action and desire are but one and the same 
 thing at bottom. "The nature of man depends 
 upon his desires. Such as his desire, so is his 
 will, so are his works, so is the existence which, 
 falls to his lot." As all existence is pain, the way 
 of salvation lies in suspension of all desire. This 
 suspension will not, at once, kill the present life, 
 but what is far better, it destroys the germs of future 
 lives, and so the object of existence is attained. 
 The faithful, therefore, have carefully retained and 
 meditated upon these words of Buddha. "Whilst 
 I gave myself up to these contemplations, my soul 
 was delivered from the sin of covetousness, the 
 sin of attachment to earthly things, the sin of error, 
 the sin of ignorance. A consciousness of deliverance 
 is evoked in the one who is delivered ; the necessity 
 of rebirth is done away with, sanctity is attained, 
 duty is fulfilled; I shall return no more to this 
 world." This world is the world in which the gods 
 are, as well as men, since Buddha had been a god.
 
 10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 It is easy to see how superficial minds and those 
 whose object it is to cast discredit upon Christianity 
 have been, in this instance, led astray. The Bud- 
 dhist monk and the Buddhist " saint " have often 
 been compared to the Christian monk and saint. 
 The reason given is that when the Buddhist wants 
 to be a saint, he must begin by becoming a monk, 
 and the Indian monk is obliged to renounce domestic 
 and family life, to profess absolute poverty and 
 continency, to beg his bread, to practise passive 
 contemplation and, if he possibly can, to be wrapt 
 in ecstasy. But his motive for despising the flesh 
 and everything connected with it, is not because 
 it is subject to corruption and death, but because 
 it is subject to indefinite existence. His object 
 is not, therefore, to reform the world and to intro- 
 duce fresh life into it by unfolding new forms of 
 activity. He desires to cut himself off completely 
 from the world, both present and future. The 
 Buddhist saint renounces all action as well as 
 all desire in order to deliver himself from the 
 obligation of being born again. In his eyes, this 
 deliverance is sanctity, and sanctity itself is neither 
 more nor less than this deliverance. 
 
 It would be hard to find a greater contrast than 
 exists between the Buddhist fundamental con- 
 ception of sanctity and the Mahomedan. I say 
 fundamental, because, to judge from appearances 
 one might easily imagine that the Buddhist monk 
 and Mussulman marabout resemble one another 
 pretty closely. Both renounce the world, both 
 seek solitude and retirement, both practise long
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 11 
 
 vigils, fasting and abstinence, both aspire to visions 
 and ecstasy and both would have us believe that 
 they attain to them. But if the former aims at 
 the suppression of existences, the latter desires a 
 rebirth, for all eternity, of his bodily faculties, and 
 if he renounces a certain number of pleasures in 
 this life it is in the hope of enjoying many more in 
 the world to come. While the former does without 
 gods, the latter aspires to intercourse with the god 
 he invokes. In India, the word saint means "one 
 who is delivered," in Islamism the name " marabout," 
 which is given to a man who is already prepared 
 for sanctity or who is instructed in the way of it, 
 signifies "one who is tied or bound." Tied or 
 bound to whom ? To God, for the saint or ouali 
 is, properly speaking, the friend of God. "The 
 marabout who has attained to this degree of per- 
 fection (ecstasy) is called ouali, the friend of God, 
 a saint. He is worshipped by the faithful, and after 
 his death they profess themselves his religious 
 servants. It is orthodox, under these conditions, 
 to implore his intercession by means of prayer, 
 with God and his prophet. 1 
 
 If we ask, by what means the fact of this inter- 
 cession, which is the fruit or reward of sanctity 
 is revealed, the Mussulman answers: by countless 
 miracles. He has the less difficulty in enumerating 
 them as on the one hand, he holds every natural 
 phenomenon, which is not foreseen and expected, 
 habitual and of daily occurrence, to be miraculous ; 
 and on the other, as no clergy has ever been at 
 
 1 Colonel Trumelet. "The Saints of Islam," introd. xix.
 
 12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the pains to verify these legends of the " saints " 
 for him, he accepts everything, even such stories 
 as those of mountains sinking into the earth and 
 the moon being cut in half. 
 
 Despite his fasts and his miracles, the saint of 
 Islam is not unmindful of self, nor has his prophet 
 been unmindful of him in dispensing the joys of 
 his paradise. "This singular hagiography," says a 
 commentator, 1 " reveals the object or determining 
 cause of miracles to be, in the case of the Mussul- 
 man, to a great degree tainted by the materialism 
 inherent in Mahomedanism. The private interests 
 of the saint are too frequently set before those of 
 the divinity who has bestowed upon him a share 
 in his power. In other words, the saint of Islam 
 too often uses his gifts for his own purposes and 
 for the gratification of his passions." 
 
 These first considerations shew us that, above 
 rectitude and honesty, above wisdom and talent 
 and intellectual greatness, mankind very early con- 
 ceived the idea of a still more perfect mode of 
 existence. All nations were not able to understand 
 that this perfection could only be the fruit of inter- 
 course with a god, some absolutely denied that it 
 could be so, but the majority felt instinctively that 
 such heights were unattainable to human nature 
 without the assistance of an attraction and strength 
 that could only come from a divine source. It was to 
 this explanation of the " mandate from heaven " that 
 all, even the Chinese, inclined, when they tried to find 
 out what was really involved in the idea of sanctity. 
 1 Id. , ibid., Iviii.
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 13 
 
 It is, above all, among the Hebrew people and in 
 the Bible that we find the idea of sanctity most 
 intimately associated with the idea of God. In 
 Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, God alone is holy. 
 If He communicates a share of His holiness to one 
 of His creatures, He does so, in virtue of a special 
 decree of His Providence, as a mark of special 
 favour, guaranteed by a visible consecration. It is 
 also a free gift, bestowed, in the first instance, 
 independently of any human merit. It can be con- 
 ferred upon inanimate objects. There are sacred 
 places, sacred days, sacred unctions, sacred vest- 
 ments, sacred victims and sacred meats. 
 
 "Thou shalt make," says the Book of Exodus, 
 "also a plate of the purest gold, whereon thou 
 shalt grave with engraver's work: Holy to the Lord. 
 And thou shalt tie it with a violet fillet and it shall 
 be upon the mitre. . . . And the plate shall be 
 always on his (Aaron's) forehead, that the Lord may 
 be well pleased with them." 1 The priests are holy, 
 for they, as well as the victims they are to offer up, 
 are consecrated to the Lord. " Neither shall they 
 shave their head nor their beard . . . for they offer 
 the burnt offering of the Lord and the bread of their 
 God and therefore they shall be holy." 2 
 
 As a nation Israel is holy, not on account of the 
 magnitude of its virtues or of its superabundant 
 merits, but because God has chosen it and set it 
 apart for His service. It is written in Leviticus: 
 " You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord 
 am holy and I have separated you from other people, 
 1 Ex. xxviii. 36, 37, 38. 2 Lev. xxi. 5-6.
 
 14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 that you should be mine." l And in Deuteronomy, 
 " Thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God." 2 
 
 Even in the Old Testament, however, we find a 
 gradual development of ideas. At first, sanctity 
 was connected chiefly with ceremonial, it consisted 
 in an absolute fidelity to material and carnal rites. 
 Slowly but surely, the Divine action began to pene- 
 trate from exterior things to interior. Even in the 
 books quoted above, the man who had been purified 
 and consecrated to the Lord is urged to conform 
 himself, as far as he can, to the likeness of the God 
 who has elected him. " Let them therefore be holy, 
 because I also am holy, the Lord who sanctify 
 them " (Lev. xxi. 8), and " He will keep the feet of 
 his saints, and the wicked shall be silent as dark- 
 ness " (1 Kings ii. 9). 
 
 But in the Book of Kings, the purely moral con- 
 ception of sanctity becomes gradually more promi- 
 nent, although it still remains closely allied with 
 the idea of God and His service. It is thrown 
 into even stronger relief by a contrast of ideas 
 altogether new in form : " With the holy one Thou 
 wilt be holy, and with the valiant, perfect. With the 
 elect Thou wilt be elect and with the perverse Thou 
 wilt be perverse " (2 Kings xxii. 26). So also David 
 in one of his Psalms (Ps. xvii. 26). He is in his 
 turn called "the servant of the Lord," an expres- 
 sion sanctioned by God Himself, who speaks of 
 " My servant Job." The latter is described, further 
 on, in the Book of Tobias, as " the holy man Job." 
 Not long afterwards, Elias is declared to be a man 
 1 Lev. xx. 26. 2 Deut. vii. 6.
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 15 
 
 of God, and of Eliseus it is said : " I know that this 
 man is a man of God and holy." 
 
 What then, we may ask, is, in future, to be the 
 distinguishing mark between the saint or man of 
 God, and the impious and ungodly ? Not outward 
 ceremonial and fidelity in offering sacrifices, as we 
 learn from the example of Job and the teaching of 
 those who, in sacred writ, are always recalling to 
 our minds the virtues of the " holy patriarchs." The 
 prophets, witness Isaiah and Jeremiah, are energetic 
 in their declarations that purity of heart is of more 
 avail than purification by the blood of goats and 
 heifers. 
 
 From the comparisons instituted above, we see 
 that it is in the religion which ignores God that 
 sanctity bears the most severe and repulsive aspect. 
 To prejudiced minds, this may sound paradoxical. 
 In point of fact, however, when God is got rid of, 
 human nature is not emancipated. It becomes the 
 hopeless slave of a fatalism, which, besides being 
 utterly unintelligible, leads, as far as anyone can see, 
 absolutely nowhere. All said and done, therefore, 
 it is a moving sight, and one that does honour to our 
 degenerate nature, to witness the despairing efforts 
 of so many millions of men to escape from the 
 bondage of the flesh. They have experienced to 
 the full its bitterness and emptiness. The Mussul- 
 man believes and hopes in God, but then he expects 
 to receive, in return, benefits calculated to make 
 sanctity singularly attractive to those who have only 
 outwardly renounced the pride of life and the lusts 
 of the flesh. The Old Testament believer, on his
 
 16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 side, at first submitted to a God who reserved 
 sanctity for Himself alone and only demanded exact 
 obedience, in return for which He promised earthly 
 happiness. It was only very gradually that the man 
 " who walked in God's ways " was led to aspire to 
 being more than His servant. His heart, by degrees, 
 became capable of higher, nobler sentiments. He 
 realised at last, what all men require to know, that 
 love is the only adequate return for love, both here 
 and hereafter. This truth was in the mind of the 
 author of the Book of Tobias when he wrote of the 
 young couple in it: "They continued in good life 
 and in holy conversation so that they were accept- 
 able to both God and man" (Tobias xiv. 17). 
 
 We now come to the New Testament. Its followers 
 are, it is true, divided among themselves, but on 
 no subject have there been more lively discussions 
 between them than on that of the cultus of the 
 saints and their intercession, for they one and all 
 believe in sanctity. From St Paul to St Francis of 
 Assisi down to the very eve of the Reformation, 
 there have been saints who are recognised by the 
 Protestants of the present day, no less than by 
 Catholics, as worthy of honour and imitation. 
 
 There is one point of even greater importance, 
 upon which Catholics, as well as all Protestants 
 who hold any kind of definite belief, are agreed. 
 God is sanctity itself according to the Bible, but 
 this sanctity is revealed to us in a more accessible 
 form, for our imitation and guidance, in the person 
 of Jesus Christ. In all their great works, published
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 17 
 
 during the last twenty years, Protestants have 
 taught that " the idea of sanctity was realised for 
 the first time on earth in the person of Jesus Christ. 
 Since His coming, we have not only known, but we 
 have witnessed what real sanctity is like in this 
 world." 
 
 These same Protestant theologians are careful to 
 point out, what, in their opinion, is the difference 
 between the just man and the saint. The just 
 man or man who has been justified, obeys the pre- 
 cept of Jesus Christ when He said, " Come to Me." 
 The saint or man who has been sanctified, goes one 
 step further. He answers to the invitation which 
 says " Abide in Me and I will abide in thee." When 
 all due allowance has been made for the infinite 
 variety of opinion existing among the Protestant 
 sects, we may be allowed to select the following 
 from among their formularies. " Sanctification de- 
 mands good works proceeding from regeneration of 
 heart, by means of faith." Faith, that is to say, in 
 the Divinity of Christ, faith in the possibility of becom- 
 ing a participator in His Divinity, who has vouch- 
 safed to become a participator in our humanity. 1 
 
 Having established so much common ground 
 
 1 See "Encyclopedic Religieuse." Paris: Fischbauer. 1889. 
 Art. : Saint and Sanctity. We must confess that these ideas are 
 very different from those held by Luther, and that, at any rate, 
 the most extreme and sectarian of his views are passed over in 
 silence. In Luther's opinion, Christian sanctity was only an 
 imputed sanctity which did not essentially change us, but only 
 threw the cloak of Christ's merits over the perversities of our 
 nature. These merits were imputed to us by faith, without the 
 necessity of good works on our part. 
 
 B
 
 18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 between us, we will go on to consider, what chiefly 
 interests us, namely, the saints of the Catholic 
 Church. Controversy apart, all who really wish 
 to study sanctity from the point of view of psycho- 
 logy, and in order to sound the innermost depths 
 of the human soul, acknowledge that by " saints " we 
 mean the saints who have been verified, proclaimed, 
 honoured and written about by the Catholic Church. 
 These are the real saints in the eyes of the literary 
 man and the psychologist, no less than of the public 
 at large. It will not be unprofitable to consider in 
 what way, by what means, at what cost and with 
 what profit to themselves, these extraordinary beings 
 so far outstripped the ordinary run of their fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 This relationship of the saints to Jesus Christ has 
 been fully explained to us by that Apostle, who, in 
 mind, bore the closest resemblance to Him, for he 
 was the most apostolic of all the Apostles. Protes- 
 tants acknowledge that it was necessary that God 
 should reveal His sanctity to us in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. Why should it not be expedient that 
 the sanctity of Jesus Christ should take a more 
 human form still in the person of His nearest dis- 
 ciples and notably in the one of whom it has been 
 said that " his heart was the very heart of Christ " ? 
 " Cor Pauli, cor Christi erat." l His Master had, 
 indeed, taken our humanity upon Himself, but who 
 can wonder, if a humanity united so intimately with 
 
 1 St John Chrysostom. Abbe Fouard has inscribed these 
 words at the head of one of the chapters in his interesting book 
 on St Paul. (Paris: Lecoffre.)
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 19 
 
 the Divine essence, still appeared too far above our 
 reach ? In the sanctity of the Apostle, we find the 
 heart of Christ united this time with moral and 
 not only bodily infirmity. He has still to struggle 
 against the sinful inclinations of his nature, and 
 in spite of his marvellous conversion, he is still liable 
 to all the temptations and subject to all the miseries 
 of our fallen race. 
 
 It is worth while to pause and consider for awhile 
 his striking personality. Many people know no more 
 of the Apostle than they learn from those portions 
 of his Epistles which are read in church. On these 
 solemn occasions, they speak to us in the name of 
 the Universal Church, uniting both Old and New 
 Testaments and so interpreting the mysteries of 
 both laws. But what is naturally calculated to 
 increase the respect entertained for them by the 
 faithful tends somewhat to obscure their historical 
 value for those who never read them at any other 
 time. 
 
 We have only to turn to the Epistles themselves, 
 however, to hear the very tones of the man who 
 gathered the tradition concerning Jesus Christ from 
 eye-witnesses and who himself saw Him in vision. 
 The historical events in which he took part establish 
 a visible link between his preaching and that of 
 Christ Himself, and, read in connection with them, 
 the most dogmatic texts are invested with a human 
 and personal meaning without losing anything of 
 the majesty attaching to revealed truths. 
 
 Read in the light of their own times and of their own 
 social and geographical surroundings, the Epistles
 
 20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 recall still more vividly the human personality of 
 their author. All his sufferings, his anguish, his 
 struggles, alternating with the inspirations of grace, 
 are made known to us. Heedless of the dangers 
 which encompass him, the most sublime doctrines 
 burst from his lips in the unstudied and familiar 
 language of burning zeal, with now and again a 
 certain reticence due to the demands of human 
 prudence. The saying " Foris pugnae, intus timores" 
 which he seems to have adopted for his own, may 
 very well stand, in future, as the motto for all the 
 saints. To enemies, he exhibits a martyr's courage ; 
 to friends, superiors and equals alike, he reveals his 
 interior sufferings, his temptations, and his trials of 
 faith. To the rest of the disciples, he shews himself 
 in a more subdued light. To them, he appears less 
 eager indeed for the fight, but also less weighed 
 down with sorrows, for he fears to discourage 
 weak and timid souls. St Paul is therefore the 
 great Apostle of the sanctity of the New Dispensa- 
 tion, no less than of its dogma. 
 
 His leading idea is that Christ, in dying for men, 
 invited all to live a new life in Him, a life of sanctity. 
 He often calls those of the faithful who had known 
 Jesus Christ when he was on earth, by the name of 
 saints, and later on he gives the same title to those 
 who, in the midst of a pagan society, renounced its 
 superstitions and lived a life apart and among them- 
 selves for the sake of more carefully preserving 
 the deposit of faith. In St Jerome's time the word 
 still bore this same signification. Strictly speaking, 
 the Christian life and the life of sanctity should be
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 21 
 
 synonymous terms, for the Catholic Church has 
 never ceased to remind us that we are all called 
 to be saints. But did St Paul mean that everyone 
 who renounced paganism and believed in Jesus 
 Christ, had thereby attained to perfect sanctity? 
 Surely not, since he recognises not only different 
 ministries and offices, a diversity of spiritual gifts 
 and unequal graces in the Church of God, but like- 
 wise many degrees in that charity which is to be 
 preferred to the Apostleship or the gifts of prophecy 
 and miracles. To a select few, who had carried 
 their detachment from the things of this world to 
 its utmost limits, far more than to the ordinary run, 
 the turba magna, of the elect, he applied these words : 
 " For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to 
 be made conformable to the image of His Son, 
 that he might be the first-born amongst many 
 brethren " (Rom. viii. 29). 
 
 Were these brethren content to dwell in peace 
 in the bosom of this holy family ? Had they nothing 
 further to do except to keep themselves pure and 
 to abstain from anything that would render them 
 unworthy of their vocation ? Were they the servants 
 of God and nothing more ? The great Apostle, who 
 trod so closely in the footsteps of the " First Born," 
 has described sanctity to us in these astounding 
 words : " I fill up what was wanting in the sufferings 
 of Christ." l Bossuet interprets these words to mean 
 that Christ only suffered in Jerusalem and that it 
 was necessary that the cross should be carried to 
 Rome and Greece and from thence to all parts of 
 1 Coloss. i. 24.
 
 22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the world. 1 A deeper meaning is given to them by 
 one who was Bossuet's contemporary and inferior 
 to him as a writer, but who approached nearer to 
 sanctity certainly than he did, since the process of 
 his canonisation has already begun. I mean M. 
 Olier, the founder of St Sulpice. "The feast of 
 All Saints," he says, " appears to me, in some sort, 
 a greater feast than that of Easter or the Ascension. 
 Our Lord is made perfect in this mystery, because, 
 as our Head, He is only perfect and fulfilled when 
 He is united to all His members, the saints." 2 And 
 again, "This feast is glorious, because it manifests 
 exteriorly, the hidden life of Jesus Christ. The 
 greatness and perfection of the saints is entirely 
 the work of His spirit dwelling in them." 
 
 This participation in the spirit of Jesus Christ is 
 rightly the destiny of each one of the faithful. 
 Few, however, attain to it in a high degree, and 
 it is to the few who do, that the Church, properly 
 speaking, reserves the name of saints. 
 
 If, therefore, we have rightly interpreted the 
 beautiful words of M. Olier, the saints are destined 
 to manifest exteriorly the " hidden " life of our Lord, 
 but in order to do this, they must have begun by 
 " hiding " Him in their hearts. This was what was 
 said of St Francis of Assisi by his celebrated 
 "three companions" who wrote his life. They 
 applied St Paul's words to him : " Studebat in 
 interiorem hominem recondere Jesum Christum." 
 He strove to hide Christ within his heart. These 
 
 1 See the Panlgyrique de S. Paul, 
 
 2 Letters, II., p. 475 (Lecoffre).
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 23 
 
 two ideas are not mutually antagonistic, as we shall 
 see more fully later on. When the interior is filled 
 with the spirit of Christ, exterior action flows from 
 it, as from its true source and, sometimes in one 
 direction, sometimes in another, fertilises the field 
 of this world's activities, for the benefit of mankind. 
 
 All this is likely enough to provoke the scepticism 
 of those who persist in regarding the saint as a man 
 who despises nature and society. It will in no way 
 surprise those who are accustomed to recognise the 
 handiwork and influence of the saints in the evolutions 
 and revolutions through which the human race has 
 passed. The saint, although he is a man of God, 
 is still a man, and a man who has not developed 
 and raised himself under the influence of grace, in 
 the direction of the supernatural and eternity alone. 
 Bossuet 1 calls the saints "Those great men who 
 planted the Church of God." It will be of interest 
 to determine in what they resemble and in what 
 they differ from the men who have been great in 
 the purely human and profane sense of the word. 
 
 We will not waste time over the too easy task of 
 instituting a comparison between the virtues which 
 have raised men of the humblest capacities to great- 
 ness, and the weaknesses which, in other men, have 
 not prevented them from reaching eminence in the 
 sphere of art or science. 
 
 Which of these two kinds of greatness is least out 
 
 of reach of the immense majority of men ? Many 
 
 will say that nothing in this world is more difficult 
 
 than sanctity, and to judge from the obstacles which 
 
 1 See sermon for the feast of All Saints.
 
 24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 our own imagination places in the way of it, they 
 would seem to be right. But the wish, in this case, 
 may be father to the thought. Our own sensuality 
 makes us willing to find excuses and even justification 
 for our weakness. And yet, as we have just seen, the 
 doctrine that we are all of us called to sanctity is one 
 of the principal truths of Christianity. Genius needs 
 preparation, circumstances, exceptional materials, 
 forerunners, a field of action favourable to its de- 
 velopment, an innate appreciation of the needs of 
 the times. It demands, as it were, its theatre and 
 admiring crowds, the adjuncts of worldly power, glory 
 and reputation. These things have, I know, fallen 
 to the lot of some saints who have been intrusted 
 with the government or defence of the Church and 
 who have had, in consequence, to take part in the 
 struggles and victories of civilisation. But how 
 many more have been content to be salt of the 
 earth, and to teach men by their example to esteem 
 the lowliest duties and the most despised vocations. 
 To say that any man can be great no matter what 
 his condition may be, is an absurd contradiction in 
 terms, but there have been saints in every conceivable 
 state of life. 
 
 If we take account of those professions which were 
 abandoned at the moment of conversion after having 
 been practised for long years before, we find come- 
 dians and a great many courtesans on the list of 
 saints. As for these professions which saints, men 
 and women, have continued to exercise, we find that 
 the Church has not only canonised monks, side by 
 side with dukes, duchesses, kings, queens, emperors
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 25 
 
 and empresses, but also merchants, school-masters, 
 gardeners, workmen, shepherds and shepherdesses, 
 lawyers, doctors, publicans, a retired public execu- 
 tioner, jailors, treasurers, magistrates, beggars, 
 domestic servants, artisans, shoemakers, carpenters, 
 blacksmiths, and fishermen ! 
 
 " For the canonisation of a servant of God," says 
 Benedict XIV., " it is sufficient that there be proof 
 that he has practised those virtues which occasion 
 demanded, in an eminent and heroic degree, ac- 
 cording to his condition in life, rank and circum- 
 stances." 
 
 The Church stipulates, however, that this heroism 
 should not have been the impulse of a moment, but 
 that it should have been manifested all through life 
 by means of varied and frequent acts. In the case 
 of martyrs she is content with the witness afforded by 
 their death, but this is because she holds the sacrifice 
 of their lives they offer for the faith to be the sum- 
 ming up, as it were, of the heroism of their lives, 
 both past and also future, had they been prolonged 
 on this earth. This is also the teaching of Benedict 
 XIV.i 
 
 Benedict XIV. "On the Beatification and Canonisation of 
 Saints," iii. 21. 
 
 As I am quoting him for the first time, I may as well say here 
 that his great work is not so much a collection of rules imposed 
 by authority for the recognition of sanctity, as an experimental 
 treatise on what has been gradually revealed to the doctors and 
 rulers of the Church by the action of Christianity upon succeeding 
 generations and by the spontaneous development of sanctity. It 
 has therefore an historical and psychological as well as a dogmatic 
 interest.
 
 26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 The interior life is, for this reason, always far 
 more prominent in the saint than in the great man. 
 There never was a saint who did not live a life of 
 extraordinary prayer, of constant interior raising up 
 of the heart to God, and who did not love meditation 
 and solitude. The great man, on the other hand, 
 is set upon obtaining public triumphs. It may be 
 that these triumphs are of a nobler sort than those 
 achieved by the ordinary run of men, but they, none 
 the less, serve to entangle him in polemical and 
 scholastic disputes and, above all, in political quarrels. 
 He needs partisans to aid him in the accomplishment 
 of his designs. He seeks to obtain public favour 
 and to compel admiration. When this has been 
 achieved, he rules the destinies of men, changes the 
 convictions and modifies the tastes of a whole nation, 
 but he rarely gets thus far without having flattered 
 their passions and pandered to their lower nature in 
 a manner that destroys the peace of the individual 
 conscience and often the peace of nations. When 
 the saint acts, and even when he acts with most 
 vigour, he seeks, as far as he is personally concerned, 
 to disappear from the eyes of men, to live ignored and 
 despised, and his only desire is to disseminate among 
 his fellow-men, by means of prayer and self-sacrifice, 
 the peace of heart which he has laboured to obtain 
 for himself. 
 
 Then again, though he may be great in the esti- 
 mation of the multitude and of those who only 
 witness the exterior results of his labours, the 
 great man is often petty in the eyes of those 
 who are nearest to him and who see the weak-
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 27 
 
 nesses of his character. There is a proverb which 
 says that no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. 
 But the saint is holiest of all in the eyes of those 
 who live with him and who are the witnesses of 
 his hidden virtues, his tenderness of heart, his 
 power with God, and his secret influence over souls. 
 It is their part oftenest to enlighten the ignorance and 
 dissipate the prejudices of those who misjudge him. 
 
 As a necessary consequence of this, the saint has 
 also more liberty than the great man. What ! more 
 liberty with his love of the letter of the law, of 
 self-discipline, of submission to that grace which 
 has transformed and conquered him ? Yet so it is, 
 and we do not need theology to prove it to us. The 
 most elementary pagan philosophy tells us in the 
 words of Seneca that to obey God is true liberty : 
 Parere Deo libertas est. It also teaches us that 
 a rule, adopted of our own free will, does not an- 
 nihilate, but on the contrary, strengthens and con- 
 solidates liberty and confers upon it all those benefits 
 which had been anticipated from it. I do not 
 myself believe that genius is a product of the 
 Unconscious, and that the destiny of great men 
 is decreed by a law inscribed by fate upon their 
 temperaments, circumstances or surroundings. 1 
 But in spite of the heroism of mind which makes 
 them turn these latter to such brilliant advantage, 
 they are in many ways victims to their tyranny 
 victims, that is to say, to the tyranny of the senses, 
 of the passions, of ambition, of the circumstances 
 
 1 On this subject see my book Psychologie des grands hommes. 
 2nd edition. Paris : Hachette.
 
 28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 they have themselves created and which so often 
 recoil on their makers, of insincere admiration, and 
 to the tyranny, yet more galling and disastrous in 
 its effects, of the false friends whose envy they 
 have aroused. Where do we find a great man who 
 has not had to suffer humiliation, torment and 
 misery from the reiterated attacks of these enemies ? 
 I do not believe in the necessary and inevitable 
 madness of great men any more than I believe 
 that there is a fatality over their destiny. Still, 
 if no genius has ever begun his career as a mad- 
 man, not a few have so ended it, and this has 
 never been the case with any one of the saints. 
 
 But illness, obstacles, trials, the opposition of 
 friends as well as enemies, all these the saint has 
 experienced, as well as the humiliations attendant 
 on self-knowledge, but he is not dominated or held 
 captive by them. They are the daily bread upon 
 which his sanctity thrives. According to St Theresa, 
 this is the bread with which the saint must eat his 
 other sublime and dainty food. He does not wish 
 to eat one without the other, and he himself testifies 
 that this coarse bread nourishes and sustains the 
 most solid parts of his spiritual being. 
 
 This unassailable liberty is the source of that 
 unity which we find in the lives of the saints and 
 which we do not find, at least in the same degree, 
 in those of great men. The latter are possessed 
 with a dominant idea, a great design, to the realisa- 
 tion of which they devote the major portion of their 
 lives. Every man of genius bestows some new 
 thing upon humanity at large, or at any rate upon
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 29 
 
 his fellow-countrymen, whether it be a new method 
 or style, or new solutions of old problems in science 
 or war, and his unity consists in his identification 
 in history with the fortunes of his triumphant dis- 
 covery. But outside the sphere of this single 
 dominating interest, we find incoherences, disorders 
 and miseries enough in his life. This inferior side 
 of his nature frequently ends by entirely eclipsing 
 the other and by bringing about a premature decay 
 of his faculties. Too often the life of the man of 
 genius is but a tissue of failures, useless sacrifices 
 and painful and sanguinary defeats. 
 
 Finally the saint and the great man are opposed 
 in this, that the progress of the saint is uninterrupted 
 and has no visible limits. I do not subscribe to the 
 wonderful theories that have been advanced as to 
 the precocity of great men. A great deal has been 
 said about the suddenness of their vocations and 
 the perfection to which their works have instantly 
 attained. It has been suggested as an explanation 
 of the rapid decline of some great men, that they 
 obeyed a mysterious instinct which forsook and left 
 them helpless, as soon as their work was done. 
 There is only a very relative degree of truth in 
 this theory. There have been great men who were 
 very precocious, others who were less so, and some 
 who were not precocious at all. There are very 
 few of them whose lives do not afford instances of 
 hard work and struggle as a condition of success. 
 Progress does not seem to be a necessary law of 
 their being or a law that knows no exceptions. 
 Some have ended by failure due to the abuse of
 
 30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 their health or their power. Alexander died of drink. 
 Louis XIV. and Napoleon left France exhausted and 
 mutilated. Corneille at last wrote such tragedies 
 as Pertharites and Surna. The tool of the great 
 sculptor or the brush of the great painter at length 
 falls from his hand, and the brain of Newton, after 
 enduring untold strain, sinks into a condition of 
 senile apathy. 
 
 The sanctity of the saint, on the contrary, as 
 everyone knows, goes on increasing to the very 
 last day of his life. Whatever may be thought of 
 his miracles (and I am not discussing that question 
 just now), they are most numerous when he is on 
 his death-bed. He is greater on the day of his death 
 than ever before. It is then that his sanctity and 
 power are most conspicuous. 
 
 Points of divergency do not, however, destroy 
 points of resemblance. Genius and sanctity have 
 often been united in one man, and so they cannot 
 be natural enemies one of the other. The genius 
 of St Augustine, St Thomas, St Louis, St Gregory 
 the Great and St Gregory VII., did no harm to their 
 sanctity and vice versa. The combination is a rare 
 one, no doubt, for the saint avoids, far more than 
 he seeks, opportunities of exterior action and of 
 influencing political events and persons. In his 
 mode of action and development, however, he has 
 certain points of affinity with great men which it 
 will be useful to notice. 
 
 They are neither of them, in reality, isolated in 
 the circles in which they move, whether literary, 
 artistic or political, or, in the case of the saint,
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 31 
 
 moral, religious or charitable. They are the chosen 
 ones among their fellows, whose advent is as rare 
 as it is unforeseen. There would seem to be centres 
 peculiarly favourable to the production of holiness, 
 and these have their human and historical aspects. 
 At one time they are those groups of men who 
 longed after the solitude of the desert as a means 
 of escape from pagan immorality, far more than 
 from pagan institutions and ideas. Such, again, 
 were communities; and those bands of apostolic 
 and pioneer monks; and such, too, were those 
 localities which produced more than one bold as- 
 pirant to martyrdom ; and the sincere and earnest 
 spirits who felt so deeply the need of reform. In 
 the days when pagan sensuality was rampant, the 
 independence of woman had to be vindicated by 
 the esteem and practice of voluntary chastity, and 
 we find St Jerome and St Augustine repeatedly 
 urging men to embrace monastic celibacy. Later 
 on, when the clergy were corrupt and many kept 
 concubines, a king and a queen reformed them by 
 the wonderful example they gave of the most 
 difficult form of continency. 1 We find saints who 
 taught the love of detachment and poverty to bar- 
 barians addicted to pillage and usury; others who 
 opened monasteries of monks devoted to agriculture 
 in the midst of warlike barbarians, and monasteries 
 of learned monks among wild and ignorant tribes. 
 Later on, again, there were saints who founded 
 religious orders bound to absolute obedience, in 
 opposition to an age given over to the spirit of 
 1 See the new Life of S. Hedwige. Paris : Blond et Earral.
 
 32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 revolt, schism and private judgment. Others founded 
 free schools for secular priests at a time when 
 rank was the only necessary qualification for the 
 highest episcopal dignities. We might extend the 
 list, but it would take too long to make it complete. 
 
 Were these successive creations of the saints 
 only temporary expedients to meet the danger which 
 threatened one day and passed away the next? 
 Hardly ; for the enemies they had to fight were 
 rarely short-lived, and their great institutions owe 
 their continued existence to the restoration or more 
 exact interpretation (whenever needed) of the saintly 
 and productive spirit of their founder. Whenever 
 one of the standing needs of humanity asserts itself 
 with greater intensity than before, and the want 
 of a remedy threatens danger to the community, 
 then an individual arises, who, without destroying 
 the established order of things, adds a fresh force 
 to those which Christianity has already at its dis- 
 posal. In purely human matters, the man of genius 
 acts in a similar way for the benefit of his own 
 times and posterity. 
 
 Finally, though no country has been denied the 
 privilege of producing saints, some countries seem 
 to have been allowed to take possession of the most 
 illustrious among them for the purpose of enabling 
 them to obtain a world-wide influence. 
 
 It has often been remarked that if French litera- 
 ture has been less spontaneous, natural, and popular 
 than many another, it has on the other hand been 
 characterised by a sort of strong selective attraction 
 which draws into its orbit numberless imperfect begin-
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 33 
 
 nings, undeveloped talents, tendencies and move- 
 ments from other literatures of various descriptions. 
 And something analogous may be observed in rela- 
 tion to the saints. 
 
 " It is a curious fact," says M. Bougaud in his life 
 of St Chantal, "that scarcely one of the religious 
 orders developed and spread throughout the world 
 until after it had taken root in French soil. St 
 Benedict lived and died in Italy, but St Maurus 
 hastened to establish himself in France. St Col- 
 umban came from Ireland, St Bruno from the 
 banks of the Rhine, St Norbert from Germany, 
 St Dominic from Castille, St Thomas of Aquinas 
 from Italy, St Ignatius from Pampeluna. They 
 were all foreigners, urged by some mysterious in- 
 fluence to come to France, either because God, 
 who had predestined her to be the eldest daughter 
 of the Church, wished to give her the honour of a 
 share in every great Catholic work, or else because 
 the French genius, so full of brightness and vigour, 
 is especially fitted to impress upon those works, 
 those characteristics of simplicity, charm, nobility 
 and greatness which attract all minds and win all 
 hearts." 
 
 Then as to the times in which the saint lived. 
 He has more apparent connection with the state 
 of things which is the result of his action, than 
 with that which immediately preceded his advent, 
 and we may say the same of the great man. The 
 latter has often a long battle to fight before his 
 work, discovery or strategy is accepted by the 
 world. The victory once gained, the distance
 
 34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 between him and his fellow - countrymen or the 
 world at large, disappears, and this is one of the 
 signs that his work is really a creative one, and 
 that he deserves to be ranked among great men. 
 So it is with the saint. There never was an 
 apostle, a founder of an order, an initiator of a 
 new devotion destined to spread universally in 
 the Church, or a reformer, who did not have to 
 suffer, not only from enemies but from friends, 
 his brethren in the faith. 
 
 All true greatness, whether in the way of genius 
 or sanctity is, at first sight, a shock to lovers of 
 mediocrity and routine. The man who demands 
 effort and self-sacrifice from those who are reluctant 
 to give either, naturally exposes himself to objec- 
 tions, suspicion, doubts and accusations brought 
 sometimes in good faith and sometimes in bad. 
 But once the time of trial is over, a new force 
 is found to be within reach of souls. Eyes which 
 sought a purer light, willingly follow it when it 
 shines before them ; hearts which were weighed 
 down with a weariness they could not understand, 
 eagerly answer to the call, and henceforward, weak 
 souls find a path hewn out for them, where formerly 
 there was none. 
 
 So then, we see that no matter how great the 
 distance may be between nature and grace, between 
 religious and social life, there is no necessary gulf 
 between them. They may even be brought into 
 close and very close connection with one another. 
 Needless to say there is no antagonism between 
 them. Those who think that there is, are deceived,
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 35 
 
 partly because they confound sanctity too entirely 
 with mysticism, but chiefly because they have a 
 mistaken idea of what mysticism really is. 
 
 What then is Mysticism ? 
 
 Philosophers have given us many definitions of it, 
 and in particular Victor Cousin tells us that " it 
 is the opposite of rationalism. It results from the 
 despair of the intellect which has begun to doubt 
 the power of reason and to dream of direct com- 
 munication with God. It is a blind faith which 
 strives to forget all the conditions to which our 
 nature is subject, which will acknowledge no 
 medium between God and man, either in the 
 sensible universe or in reason, and which not 
 only claims to see God face to face, but to unite 
 itself to Him, sometimes through the feelings and 
 sometimes through some other hidden agency. It 
 forbids all reflection and condemns liberty, and in 
 place of effort, substitutes contemplation, without 
 thought and almost without consciousness." 
 
 We need hardly say that this kind of mysticism 
 is not what Catholics and therefore certainly not 
 what the saints mean by mysticism. It is true 
 that they have no unbounded confidence in human 
 reason. They believe that it was necessary that 
 God should reveal certain truths which reason 
 could not have discovered for itself. But it is 
 one thing to recognise that reason has limits and 
 another to condemn it as worthless and to regard 
 all efforts made by it as useless. To say that 
 Catholics refuse to recognise that nature is, in
 
 36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 any way, a medium between God and man, is 
 ridiculous. 1 
 
 The mysticism of the saints is utterly different 
 in kind from Alexandrian mysticism and the various 
 other forms of mysticism to be met with in different 
 philosophical systems. 
 
 After metaphysicians, come sociologists and mor- 
 alists who tell us that mysticism is the opposite 
 of naturalism. It condemns the earthly existence 
 of man and has an equal contempt for society 
 and nature. " The monk is the type of this frame 
 of mind." He is without egotism, but also with- 
 out individuality, family or country. He is full of 
 charity for every description of misery but is himself 
 an easy and docile prey " for despotism and supersti- 
 tion " ! 2 They give a satisfactory finishing touch to 
 the description by adding " Mysticism is far older 
 than Christianity. It is the real basis of Buddhism." 
 
 We have said enough already about the Buddhist 
 idea of sanctity, to shew how artificial is this 
 supposed likeness. Catholic mystics no more de- 
 spise nature than they despise grace. All they say 
 
 1 "It is necessary for us to understand that we ought to treat 
 with suspicion anything which hinders us in such a manner as to 
 take away our capacity for mental prayer, as we shall never in 
 that way attain true spiritual liberty, one of the characteristics 
 of that liberty being to enable us to find God in all things and to 
 use creatures as a means of raising ourselves to Him." St 
 Theresa, Bk. of Foundations, ch. vi. 
 
 2 See the philosophical leaflet of the Journal des Dtbats of 
 Thursday evening, Aug. 8, 1895, Naturalism and Mysticism, by 
 M. J. Bourdeau. (The author states that he is epitomising certain 
 unpublished lectures of Taine's, which gives an added importance 
 to his remarks. )
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 37 
 
 is that neither the one nor the other is self-sufficing 
 and that by pretending to be so, they weaken and 
 degrade themselves. It is a most arbitrary pro- 
 ceeding to insist upon attributing to the Catholic 
 Church, an indifference and contempt which she 
 has never, in any way, professed. 
 
 There are Christians, however, and even some 
 Catholics, who believe that mysticism is the peculiar 
 property of pure contemplatives, and that it destroys 
 all interest in earthly things, all action properly 
 so called, and anything like intellectual culture. 
 They would be perfectly ready, therefore, to admit 
 the truth of the following two-fold proposition. 
 " All saints are not mystics and all mystics are 
 not saints." 
 
 But is this proposition quite accurate ? Certainly 
 it is, if mysticism be what they define or imagine 
 it to be ; for all the saints did not live in the cloister, 
 many were engaged in the business of this world, 
 many founded schools of philosophy, many were 
 married and bound by the deepest and tenderest ties 
 of human love at the very time when the Church has 
 decided that they were living a life of sanctity. 
 
 When I asked the opinion of one, 1 who has had 
 a wide and varied experience of these matters, he 
 replied emphatically : " No, all mystics are not 
 saints." He declined, however, to agree to the 
 first part of the proposition and he gave me the 
 following definition of mysticism, the simplest and 
 
 1 He will forgive me for mentioning his name Abb Huvelin. 
 I am proud to be able to say that he and I were old companions 
 at the Ec61e Normale.
 
 38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 clearest that I have ever come across. " Mysticism 
 is the love of God." 1 
 
 This definition, of course, requires to be amplified 
 and developed, for the love we bear to God can 
 never be an exact parallel to the love we bear to 
 our fellow-creatures. It needs to be guided and en- 
 lightened. Plato's fable, according to which love 
 is the offspring of wealth and poverty, has a certain 
 amount of truth in it, for love gives and receives, 
 but in very unequal proportions. The little child 
 who loves its mother expects, and does in fact 
 receive, everything from her. The God who loves 
 His creatures with a Father's love, gives them 
 everything they possess. In earthly loves, we each 
 give and receive more or less, according to the 
 richness and generosity of our nature. But when 
 instead of giving his love to a fellow-creature, the 
 mystic loves his God, however anxious he may 
 be to carry His cross and share in His sufferings, 
 he is still obliged to pray for and expect far more 
 from God than he himself is able to give. The 
 whole question is a delicate one and we shall have 
 more to say upon it later on. 
 
 St Francis of Sales tells us very clearly that the 
 love of God is the foundation and essence of Catholic 
 mysticism. He says: Speculative theology tends 
 to the knowledge of God. Mystical theology to the 
 love of God . . . Mental prayer and mystical theo- 
 logy are one and the same thijig . . . Mental prayer 
 and mystical theology are neither more nor less 
 than the loving intercourse which the soul holds 
 1 V. Appendix.
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 39 
 
 with God, concerning His infinite goodness in 
 uniting and joining Himself to her." l 
 
 When we come to reflect upon it, we see that 
 every sort of love, no matter what its object may be, 
 and in spite of absolute sincerity on the part of the 
 lover, is subject to error, weaknesses and excess. 
 
 1 Treatise on the love of God. IV. i. Ed. of Annecy, p. 303. 
 
 It will be interesting to compare these definitions with the 
 definitions given in dictionaries of the word mysticism. 
 
 The Academy dictionary says: "Mystic, one who refines in 
 matters of devotion and the spiritual life ; or (according to another 
 definition in the same dictionary), of the interior life." The mystic 
 is certainly devout and a lover of the interior and spiritual life. 
 Nevertheless, the definition is a vague one, all the more so, as 
 the word " refine " is one of those slightly disapproving, deceptive 
 expressions, suggestive of a tendency, which is legitimate or not, 
 according to the interpretation one chooses to put upon it. 
 
 Littre associates mysticism with the spiritual life, and defines 
 the latter as : " Whatever has reference to the interior exercises of 
 a soul freed from the senses, whose one desire is to perfect itself 
 in the eyes of God." This definition is interesting and not in- 
 accurate, but to readers of mystical books it will at once appear 
 incomplete, if it is intended indirectly as a definition of mysticism 
 as well. The definition in the Encyclopedic des sciences religieuses 
 is equally unsatisfactory. It implies that mysticism is simply 
 whatever is hidden from us in the actual conditions in which 
 we are living, but which we feel to exist and towards which our 
 soul naturally is attracted. Mysticism, according to this theory, 
 is religion which supplements in each individual conscience, the 
 " solid " but " limited " teaching of philosophy. 
 
 Each one of these explanations ignores the fact of the love 
 of God, which, according to the best mystics, is the very soul 
 itself of mysticism. If there is such a thing as a mystical know- 
 ledge, which is experimental and ineffable, it can be derived 
 from nothing else but love. Gerson gives the following justly 
 esteemed definition: " The subject-matter of mystical theology 
 is an experimental knowledge of God which is the result of the 
 embrace of unitive love." (Consider 28.)
 
 40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 It may be too exacting and jealous ; it may demand 
 more than its due and forget, in a measure, what 
 it owes. Again, it may not recognise sufficiently the 
 rights over it and the dignity of the object of its affec- 
 tions. These are dangers from which the love of God 
 is not exempt. We gather this from the example of 
 F^nelon and still more from the example of a multitude 
 of souls less gifted and worse directed than he was. 
 
 True mysticism or love of God is, therefore, a 
 first, and, it would seem, necessary step in the direc- 
 tion of holiness. It is but the first step, however, 
 on a long and thorny path, along the whole of which 
 frequent demands will be made upon body, mind and 
 heart, in the way of effort and difficult undertakings. 
 
 Every Christian who is in a state of grace, loves 
 God and is more or less of a mystic, but the mystic, 
 properly so called, like the man whom we shall 
 henceforward call " the saint," is one who is wrapped 
 up in, and filled with, the love of God. 
 
 I have not the least intention of writing a dog- 
 matic treatise on sanctity or of giving advice to 
 those who wish to become saints. I shall have quite 
 enough to do in endeavouring to point out what the 
 soul of the saint possesses in common with us, and 
 how these common attributes in his case develop 
 and thrive. The saint, we know, is an heroic servant 
 of God, a man who loves and is loved by God and 
 who derives an extraordinary strength from this 
 mutual love. Holiness, we know too, is not the 
 annihilation, but the completion of our nature ; for, 
 as Spinoza says : " Man advances in perfection in 
 proportion to the perfection of that object which
 
 THE IDEA OF SANCTITY IN RELIGIONS 41 
 
 he loves above all other things and which loves him 
 in return." l It is not wrong to wish to know how, 
 in the case of these favoured beings, sanctity trans- 
 forms the faculties they share in common with those 
 " whose miseries they have themselves experienced." 
 
 1 Spinoza. Politico-theological treatise, chap. iv.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 
 
 DEFORE enquiring what use sanctity makes of 
 *** the natural gifts of the soul, it is of import- 
 ance to ascertain whether sanctity " requires " the 
 presence of any of these natural gifts, and, if so, 
 of which. The word " requires " may appear some- 
 what too strong an expression under the circum- 
 stances, for many are inclined to leave a very wide 
 field indeed to the mysterious operations of grace 
 and the stirrings of the Spirit who breathes where 
 He wills. Nevertheless, those who have really 
 made a study of the lives of the saints, and whose 
 duty it is to comment upon them, always take 
 largely into account that foundation of natural 
 character which sanctity transforms, but does not 
 destroy. 
 
 No prudent ecclesiastical superior would admit 
 to the priesthood, or the religious state, one 
 whose mental organisation was defective. 1 St 
 
 1 That is, defective in a way which would interfere with the 
 attainment of the end of religious life. Fontenelle's well-known 
 saying that Malebranche was of so weak a constitution that he 
 was fitted, by nature and grace, for the ecclesiastical state, ought 
 not to be pressed too far. Malebranche, as everyone knows, had 
 an intellectual organisation which would have enabled him to 
 shine anywhere as a philosopher and a writer. 
 4 2
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 43 
 
 John Chrysostom, in his magnificent treatise on 
 the priesthood, long ago told us that, in order 
 to exercise the sacred ministry, " a man must 
 not only be pure, but he must also possess learn- 
 ing and experience." In like manner, solitude has 
 great dangers, in the way of unwholesome dream- 
 ing, in store for weak, excitable souls, and those 
 who find meditation a difficulty, A priest, one 
 day, brought a penitent of his, of whose angelic 
 piety he had a great opinion, to St Theresa. The 
 saint was, all the same, extremely reluctant to 
 admit her into the monastery. " You see, Father," 
 she said, "even though our Lord should give this 
 young girl devotion and teach her contemplation 
 while with us, nevertheless, if she has no sense, 
 she will never come to have any, and then, instead 
 of being of use to the community, she will always 
 be a burden." " An intelligent mind," she says again, 
 " is simple and submissive ; it sees its faults and 
 allows itself to be guided. A mind that is deficient 
 and narrow never sees its faults, even when shewn 
 them. It is always pleased with itself, and never 
 learns to do right." l 
 
 I have, therefore, no hesitation in admitting the 
 truth of the following proposition, which is analogous 
 to the one I discussed when speaking of mystics: 
 All religious are not saints, and all saints are not 
 religious. The life of sanctity differs from the 
 
 1 Life of St Theresa according to the Bollandists. Paris : 
 Retaux. II. 408. It is written by a Carmelite nun, and is one 
 of the most delightful and solidly interesting books ever written 
 by one woman of another.
 
 44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 religious life chiefly, it will be readily admitted, in 
 that it surpasses it. From a purely human point 
 of view, no one will deny that the Church has 
 accomplished great things in the scientific no less 
 than the social order. They may be open to 
 criticism, but so are the achievements of politicians 
 and the systems of metaphysicians. If the Church 
 has left so deep an impression upon the secular 
 history of mankind, if she has taught, civilised, 
 conquered and organised so many countries and 
 nations, it would be strange indeed if the saints, 
 who are, as it were, her advance guard, had not 
 had the chief share in all her good works. And yet, 
 it is hard to believe that this extraordinary increase 
 is all a gratuitous and miraculous gift from on high. 
 
 Joan of Arc has not suffered in her reputation 
 either as a young girl or as a warrior, now that 
 her sanctity has begun to attract general attention. 
 She has lost none of the beauty, grace, wit, power 
 of repartee and command of all the niceties of the 
 French language, so much praised by Quicherat, 
 Michelet and Sainte-Beuve ; while her military 
 genius, her knowledge of the tactics of war and the 
 good use she made of the science of artillery, then 
 in its infancy, are brought out in a work recently 
 published by a French officer. 
 
 These various testimonies are summed up as 
 follows, by an eminent psychologist of the Society 
 of Jesus: "Joan of Arc is no blind and passive 
 instrument of a supernatural power. An exterior 
 intelligence does not take the place of her intelli- 
 gence, or an exterior will of her will. The Deliverer
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 45 
 
 of France is not a composite being, the dwelling- 
 place, for the moment, of foreign powers. Joan 
 knows that she possesses a very clearly defined 
 personality of her own. She insists upon that fact, 
 and she proves the truth of her claim by the inde- 
 pendence of her decisions and actions, and by the 
 resistance she occasionally offers to the guidance of 
 her voices." 
 
 The above may be very properly applied to the 
 majority of the saints, 1 and we may add in the 
 words of the same Jesuit : " When God has some 
 extraordinary mission in store for one of His 
 creatures, He nearly always bestows natural gifts 
 upon him which create in him a great aptitude for 
 the work." 
 
 What Pere de Bonniot says of Joan of Arc is 
 obviously true of many great saints, from St Paul 
 downwards. Still we ought not to dwell too much 
 on this side of the question, nor must we forget 
 what theologians tell us of the paradox and scandal 
 of the cross, of these victories God wills to be gained 
 by weakness in the natural order, by authority which, 
 according to Bossuet, is the result of obedience, by 
 power born of humility, by chastity which gives that 
 fruitfulness to the faithful, living in the world, which 
 is denied to sceptical and luxurious races. Saints, 
 undoubtedly, need power from on high, to influence, 
 
 1 That is, of those who are known, and who have allowed 
 themselves to be known, thoroughly. See Mgr. Dupanloup's 
 striking letter at the beginning of Mgr. Bougaud's "Life of 
 St. Chantal," on the proper way of writing the lives of the 
 saints.
 
 46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 as they do, men and the things of this world. But 
 it is not by any means clear, that this power is not 
 bestowed upon natural gifts which must needs exist 
 before they can be metamorphosised by sanctity. 
 Why should mental gifts be the monopoly of those 
 who deal with external facts and abstract truths? 
 Why should not a clear knowledge of one's own 
 defects, a delicate perception of moral danger, a 
 power of developing the natural faculties of the soul 
 after the pattern of their divine ideal why, in short, 
 should not goodness be a matter of intelligence ? 
 
 Socrates, if he could return to earth at the pre- 
 sent moment, would be the last to deny the value 
 of self-knowledge, for he summed up the whole of 
 philosophy in those two words. To put it more 
 simply, faith, hope and charity are the great springs 
 of action in the lives of the saints. Catholic theology 
 teaches that these three virtues come from God, but 
 it also teaches that they need the co-operation of the 
 natural virtues. The doctors of the Church have 
 borrowed the names of these natural virtues from 
 pagan philosophy. They call them cardinal or funda- 
 mental virtues : prudence, fortitude or strength of 
 soul, temperance and justice. 1 
 
 We may expect, therefore, to meet with these 
 
 1 According to Benedict XIV. (II. 21), these four virtues must 
 be visible, in an eminent degree, in the life of the servant of God 
 who is to be beatified. I am not dealing with the theological 
 question of the connection between natural and supernatural 
 virtues, and the transformation effected by grace, etc. I am 
 merely stating the fact that the possession of the one does not 
 dispense from the necessity of possessing the other, in the case of 
 saints any more, and I ought to say still less, than in our own.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 47 
 
 latter virtues in the lives of the saints, even while, 
 as yet, they have given small sign of their future 
 sanctity. Not that these virtues are at that time fully 
 or even equally developed, for sanctity often requires 
 conversion and the abandonment of the state of life 
 up till then adhered to. The saints have not all 
 begun life like St Aloysius Gonzaga. Take, for in- 
 stance, St Mary Magdalen, St Mary of Egypt, St 
 Afra, St Margaret of Cortona, who were courtesans, 
 St Paul, who was a persecutor, St Augustine, who 
 had many sins on his conscience, St Francis Borgia, 
 whose ingenious method of curing himself of an 
 immoderate love of wine Liebnitz is so fond of 
 quoting. There are saints too, who did not wander 
 quite so far, but who, nevertheless, had to struggle 
 against fiery passions. Bernard, the future Abbot 
 of Citeaux, in order to get rid of a temptation 
 caused by a single look, threw himself into a pond 
 and stayed there until the icy water had cooled the 
 ardour of his senses. St Vincent of Paul, incred- 
 ible as it may seem, was " naturally of a bilious tem- 
 perament and very subject to anger." We should 
 be inclined to doubt his testimony of himself, if his 
 friend and disciple, Abelly, did not tell us the same 
 thing. 1 St Francis of Sales, as everyone knows, was 
 naturally extremely passionate. 
 
 We see by these examples, and many more which 
 
 1 St Vincent says more. He tells us that had it not been for 
 divine grace, he would have remained "in temper, hard and re- 
 pellent, rough and crabbed." More than one of my readers will 
 be inclined to think that, to use a familiar expression, the saint 
 is " laying it on."
 
 48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 we have not time to quote, that easy temperance and 
 absence of desires and passions are not necessarily 
 among the natural virtues that sanctity builds upon. 
 M. Renan has tried to make out that David was a 
 ruffian, but he has been unable to deprive him of his 
 largeness of heart and his tenderness, so wisely and 
 sincere, even in the midst of crime. Christ, when 
 He was on earth, forgave the debauchee, far more 
 readily than He did the miser, and St Augustine 
 was only interpreting His Doctrine when, later on, 
 he dared to write, " Love God and then do what you 
 like." The meaning of the saint's words is not 
 difficult to understand. Love alone can suggest 
 sacrifices and love alone gives the soul strength 
 to carry them out. 
 
 But if sacrifice is the proof of love, must not the 
 saints have had a good deal to sacrifice to God ? 
 
 It is quite certain that the natural joys which the 
 saints renounce, have not, in the first instance, been 
 denied them by nature. The illnesses from which 
 they suffer are the result of voluntary sacrifices, 
 austerities, interior struggles, moral conflicts and the 
 persecutions which have always fallen to the lot of 
 saints, not of constitutional infirmity. These things 
 they look upon as a "gift" from God, who, when 
 He sees them determined to aim higher than the 
 ordinary run of men, " visits " and " tries " them. 
 We do not find one who chose sanctity as his line, 
 because he was naturally delicate and unlikely to 
 live long. The saints who died young, usually died 
 a violent death. Among those who were not strictly 
 speaking martyrs, cases of longevity are by no means
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 49 
 
 rare. St John the Evangelist lived to close upon a 
 hundred, and so did the celebrated Fathers of the 
 Desert, St Simeon, St Paul the Hermit, St Anthony, 
 and later on St Bertinus. St Romuald and St Maurus 
 lived to a still greater age. St Jerome died at seventy- 
 two, St Augustine at seventy-nine, St Remigius at 
 eighty-three, St John Climachus at eighty, St Vincent 
 Ferrier at seventy, St Francis of Paula at ninety- 
 one, St Vincent of Paul at eighty-five, St Philip 
 Neri at eighty, St Paul of the Cross (canonised by 
 Pius IX.) at eighty-two, St Peter of Alcantara, 
 whose penances, St Theresa tells us, were "in- 
 comprehensible to the human mind," lived to sixty- 
 three, and so did St Bernard and a crowd of others. 
 
 I should not be surprised to find that women 
 saints, who lived a more sedentary life and made 
 up, by penance, for the want of exterior heroism 
 denied them on account of their sex, were shorter- 
 lived in consequence. St Catherine of Genoa, how- 
 ever, whose physical sufferings were only equalled 
 by the ardour of her love, reached the age of sixty- 
 three. St Theresa, whose only desire was to suffer 
 or die, lived to over sixty-seven and St Jane de 
 Chantal to seventy; the greatest of all contempla- 
 tives, St Gertrude, was seventy when she died, for 
 her biographers tell us that she was elected abbess 
 at the age of thirty and held that office for forty 
 years. Among the saintly personages of our own 
 century, we may mention Mere de Lales Chappius, 
 whose beatification is hoped for by the diocese of 
 Troyes. She died at the age of eighty-two. 
 
 If, as we have seen, grace finds more to work 
 D
 
 50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 upon in the saints than an empty receptacle or 
 inert and passive material, we must expect to 
 find that each saint has his own individual character 
 and temperament. The difference, in this respect, 
 between St Peter and St Paul, is proverbial, and 
 each, in consequence, probably had his own manner 
 of governing and directing the Church. The former, 
 " under the influence of grace, remained by instinct 
 and nature, such as he is described to us in the 
 Gospel, good, timid, generous and prompt in his 
 impulses and thereby subject to lively impressions 
 to which he yields instantly. One moment throwing 
 himself out of the boat, full of faith which supports 
 him on the waters, the next instant, doubting and 
 missing his footing ... as easily depressed as he is 
 consoled." Of the latter it has been truly said: 
 "The nature of the scribe, although crushed, still 
 survives under the action of the grace which has 
 mastered him : there is the same soul, the same 
 fire in his words, the same spirit in his actions." l 
 
 Throughout the history of the Church, there 
 would seem to have been two distinct classes of 
 saints. There are saints who personify active 
 love and tenderness and there are saints who per- 
 sonify energetic action and the spirit of eager 
 propagandism. We contrast St Francis of Assisi 
 and St Dominic, St Bonaventure and St Thomas 
 Aquinas, St Vincent of Paul and St Ignatius, in 
 the same way as we contrast Bossuet and Fenelon 
 or even Raphael and Michael Angelo, Mozart and 
 Beethoven. In the case of saints, the difference 
 1 Abbe Fouard. See work already quoted.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 51 
 
 shews itself far less by opposition and controversy, 
 than by the need they had of one another and 
 the mutual help they gave each other. Had 
 Bossuet and Fe"nelon been saints as well as great 
 bishops and geniuses, instead of writing against 
 one another, they would have felt impelled to meet 
 in some lonely retreat, in order that, like St 
 Dominic and St Francis, each one might gain 
 from the other what he lacked himself. 
 
 These opposite characters, which yet perfect and 
 complete one another, are to be met with, where 
 least one should expect to find them in those states 
 to which the soul attains when it has struggled to rid 
 itself of all attachment of the senses, all personal 
 inclinations and even choice. One would easily 
 think that all traces of natural character would be 
 obliterated, when the soul has passed through the 
 " night " of the senses and the night of the spirit, 
 and has " bound " its faculties in order to subject 
 itself more entirely to the action of God whom it 
 contemplates and to whom it has given itself with- 
 out reserve. And yet the great mystic retains his 
 own individual character, which latter is discernible, 
 we will not say in the doctrine which he teaches, but 
 in that particular way of regarding all doctrine which 
 he seems naturally drawn to insist upon. All stu- 
 dents of the mystics have recognised this fact. St 
 John of the Cross and St Theresa, St Francis of 
 Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal were not only 
 friends but fellow-labourers, both in action and in 
 the doctrine which they meditated, applied, de- 
 fended, wrote upon, and propagated. And strange
 
 52 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP THE SAINTS 
 
 as it may seem, the man and the woman who re- 
 formed Carmel, and the founder and the foundress 
 of the Visitation, belonged, apparently, to rival 
 schools of mysticism. 1 I say apparently, because 
 nothing was omitted, still less misunderstood by the 
 members of either group. The two alternating con- 
 ditions of the mystical life, painful desire and joyous 
 possession, were fully recognised by all of them. 
 Still St John of the Cross and St Jane de Chantal 
 dwell more particularly upon the necessity of en- 
 during the desolation, aridities and sufferings which 
 they had to go through themselves, while St Theresa 
 and St Francis of Sales tell us more of the delights 
 and the sweetness for which they, nevertheless, had 
 to pay pretty dearly. 
 
 Historically, they form two groups, in each of 
 which there is a joyous consoler and a wounded 
 struggler. In the holy rivalries of the supernatural 
 life, as in the greatest friendships known in the his- 
 tory of the world and of literature, contrast is as 
 necessary to the mutual reformation of character as 
 to the charm of mutual love. 
 
 It is difficult to tell exactly how far the natural 
 character of the saints influences and determines 
 their work. " When God wishes to make use of the 
 saints for His glory He exercises them in various 
 ways, so that He may mould them according to His 
 own mind. He takes account of their natural dis- 
 
 1 Pere A. Poulain, S.J., "The Mysticism of St John of the 
 Cross," 1893. A most interesting little work, as is also the book 
 published about the same time by Pere Ludovic de Besse : ' ' Light 
 thrown upon Mystical Works of St John of the Cross. "
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 53 
 
 positions only just so far as to avoid doing violence 
 to them." 1 Bossuet's own natural character in- 
 clined him to leave the least possible scope for the 
 action of natural disposition in the saints. He loved 
 absolute obedience far more than he did " theories." 
 His contemporary, M. Olier, in spite of his aus- 
 terity and his spirit of detachment from the things 
 of this world, takes a wider view of the subject. In 
 his opinion, in order to become a saint, it is not enough 
 to have a sort of general inclination towards piety, 
 love of God, and rectitude of life. " Otherwise," he 
 says, "every Christian who is convinced of the 
 beauty and holiness of the Gospel teaching would 
 have a vocation to be a saint." " No," he continues, 
 " over and above the call to aim at perfection which 
 constitutes a religious vocation, these great souls 
 have an interior drawing and inclination for the state 
 of life they have chosen." 2 Elsewhere he expresses 
 himself even more clearly. " God did not treat St 
 Theresa in the same way as He treated St Gertrude, 
 or St Catherine of Siena in the same way as St 
 Theresa, or again St Catherine of Genoa in the same 
 way as St Catherine of Siena, and yet He treated 
 them all according to the interior dispositions which 
 He found in each." 3 
 
 M. Olier mentions St Catherine of Siena. She 
 loves to dwell upon the diversities which exist in the 
 mystical life, and she makes use of expressions which 
 would have delighted Liebnitz as shewing meta- 
 
 1 Bossuet, Sermon for the feast of All Saints. 
 
 2 Letters, Lecoffre, I. 548. 
 
 3 Letters, Lecoffre, II. 482.
 
 54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 physical intelligence in the necessary " discernment " 
 of things. Some one of our contemporaries might, 
 on the other hand, see in her words, only the aesthetic 
 appreciation of the variety of expression inherent 
 in beauty, common to nearly all Italians. "The 
 saints," she says, "who enjoy eternal life have all 
 followed the way of charity, only in a different 
 manner, as they are not all alike. This same dif- 
 ference exists among the angels, who are not all 
 equal. One of the joys which our souls will have in 
 the next life will be to contemplate the greatness of 
 God in the variety of the rewards which He will bestow 
 on His friends. There is this same variety in created 
 things which all differ from one another, and yet God 
 has created them all from the same motive of love." 1 
 Nature has so much to do with these innate 
 diversities that we often find the characteristics of 
 a certain family or city reproduced in the saint. 
 The gentle virgin of Siena used to tell her fellow- 
 townsmen that there were " no people so easily led 
 by love as they," and she urged that this charac- 
 teristic of theirs might be made use of in order to 
 win them over to the cause of the reform of the 
 Church and the pacification of Italy. 2 Later on, 
 St Bernardine of Siena tells us the same thing. 
 II sangue sanese e uno sangue dolce. It is easy, 
 therefore, to understand why, in spite of her 
 austerities and her ecstasies, and all through her 
 difficult negociations for peace, the gentle saint 
 never loses her love of flowers and her delight 
 
 1 Letters French translation in 8, Poussielque edition, II. 124. 
 a Id., I. 64.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 55 
 
 in nature and in the scenery which glowed under 
 Tuscan skies. She was fond of sending her friends 
 bunches of flowers gathered with her own hands. 
 She covered the little children with kisses, and, 
 when called to assist a youth who had been con- 
 demned to death, she not only accompanied him to 
 the block, but she spent the whole night previous to 
 the execution in his cell, even allowing him to rest 
 his head on her breast. 
 
 St Theresa was another great lover of Jesus 
 Christ, but in her way of showing her love we 
 recognise her Spanish blood. Her birthplace was 
 Avila, surnamed Avila of the Knights. The women 
 of that town stood a siege in the absence of their 
 husbands, and their brave commandress had conferred 
 upon herself and her descendants the right of voting 
 in the public assemblies. The saint may have had 
 these events in her mind when she described so 
 naturally the fortress on the top of which she has 
 planted the " banner of God," and when she spoke 
 of women who were so full of the Apostolic spirit 
 that they envied the liberty enjoyed by men of 
 serving "the God of battles" in the midst of this 
 world. There was nothing combative about her, 
 however, nor did she love to rule and despise her 
 own sex. " My son," she said one day to a religious, 
 " when I was young I was told I was beautiful, and 
 I believed it ; later on I was told I was wise, and I 
 believed that too, far too readily. I have often had 
 to accuse myself in confession of these two vanities." 
 Even when favoured with ecstasies and the most 
 sublime revelations, she never forgot that she was a
 
 5'6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 woman. She was even, in a sense, grateful to God 
 for having created her one. She was of opinion 
 that men received the favour of rapture and union 
 less frequently than women, and she tells us, not 
 without a spice of fun, that the reasons for this, 
 divined by herself and those given her by St Peter 
 of Alcantara, were all to the advantage of women. 1 
 She was naturally as proud as she was shrewd, 
 loving and attractive ; and so careful of her honour 
 that, even at the time when she still loved the world 
 and the reading of romances, that feeling was strong 
 enough to protect her against temptations and even 
 importunate imaginations. When, in later years, 
 our Lord said to her, " My honour shall be your 
 honour, and your honour my honour," it may well 
 have seemed to her that she guarded both with the 
 same confidence and noble sense of security with 
 which, in former days, she watched over her own 
 youth ! 2 Her dislike of the " way of fear," and 
 especially of " servile fear," in the service of God, 
 came, in great measure, from the natural character 
 which she had inherited. She wishes us to follow 
 in Christ's footsteps with " manly courage," an 
 expression she constantly uses, and she was fond 
 of saying that He ought to be served " gratuitously," 
 as great nobles serve their king. 
 
 These differences of character are conspicuous in 
 small things no less than in great. But are there 
 small things in the saints ? No doubt there are, 
 
 1 Life written by herself, Lecoffre, p. 526. 
 
 2 " I never felt in myself the smallest attraction for anything 
 that could have sullied my innocence." Id., p. 19.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 57 
 
 if by the word "small" we do not mean to imply 
 censurable things and if we remember the childlike 
 innocence that Christ held up as a model to His 
 disciples. Many of the saints had simple tastes 
 which they would have been ready enough to give 
 up had the sacrifice been asked of them, but which 
 they indulged, in matters of indifference or at times 
 of recreation. 
 
 Many of them were lovers of the arts, which is 
 not surprising as Catholic ritual necessitates the 
 cultivation of nearly all of them. But apart from 
 its connection with the ceremonies of the Church, 
 many of the saints were passionately fond of music. 
 St Francis of Assisi was so enthusiastic about it 
 that he imitated little children and took a piece of 
 wood and a ruler upon which he pretended to play 
 the violin as a sort of accompaniment to the ideal 
 music with which his entranced imagination was 
 filled. Bartoli tells us that St Ignatius of Loyola 
 was also ravished out of himself by music, to 
 such an extent as to become unconscious of pain. 
 Flowers delighted him so when he looked at them 
 that it used to astonish the Fathers who lived with 
 him. 1 
 
 More than one saint has amused himself by 
 playing and conversing with animals. St Francis' 
 love of animals and especially of doves is well- 
 known. He used to have nests made for them 
 so that they might rear their young in the neigh- 
 
 1 I have been allowed to touch the little flute and tambourine 
 which St Theresa loved to play on feast days. They are still kept 
 in the monastery of St Joseph at Avila.
 
 58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 bourhood of the monastery. St Philip Neri was 
 devoted to his old cat and took the greatest possible 
 care of it. 
 
 This latter saint is well known, too, for his eccen- 
 tricities (Goethe, who was proud of having him for 
 a patron saint, called them more respectfully " his 
 whimsical sallies "). These sallies were, it is true, 
 often full of good sense, as for instance, when the 
 Pope sent him to visit a monastery in the neighbour- 
 hood of Rome in order to examine into the sanctity 
 of a religious, said to be favoured with revelations 
 and ecstasies. The weather was abominable and 
 Philip, who had started on a mule, arrived at the 
 convent, soaked to the skin and covered with mud. 
 The sister was brought to him and she appeared 
 full of sweetness and unction. By way of beginning 
 his theological examination, Philip sat down, held 
 out his leg and said to her, " Pull off my boots." 
 The sister drew herself up, scandalised. Philip had 
 seen enough. He seized his hat and went back to 
 the Vatican, to tell the Holy Father that a religious, 
 so devoid of humility, could not possibly possess 
 the graces and virtues she was credited with. 1 
 
 At other times it was his own disciples and 
 children whom he liked to humiliate in public. 
 If he saw that one of them was rather too pleased 
 with his religious habit, donned for the first time, 
 
 1 It seems that in our own times, a similar test has been held 
 sufficient. A certain Rose Tamisier was supposed to be favoured 
 with extraordinary graces. A prudent ecclesiastic came to see 
 her. " You are the saint, aren't you?" he said to her. "Yes, 
 Father," was the answer he got. The illusion was instantly 
 detected.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 59 
 
 Philip made him wear some ridiculous appendage 
 a fox's skin tied to his back, and in this guise 
 he would send him out for a walk in the streets. 
 Another time he set his religious (oratorians and 
 learned men) to rearrange all the kitchen utensils, 
 and he often took part himself in these sanctifying 
 though peculiar exercises. 
 
 His biographers are careful to tell us that these 
 were inventions of his humility, which made him 
 anxious to hide the treasures of holiness and learn- 
 ing which he possessed under a commonplace and 
 almost foolish exterior. Goethe, in this matter, 
 speaks like a regular hagiographer. " Neri summed 
 up his principal doctrine in a short proverb: De- 
 spise the world, despise yourself, and despise 
 being despised. And, as a matter of fact, this is 
 the end of all knowledge. The pessimist often 
 fancies that he has attained the two first points; 
 to even aim at the third, one must needs have 
 started on the road to sanctity." l I do not deny 
 that there is a deep meaning and great truth in 
 Goethe's words. His colossal genius enabled him 
 to appreciate, and even to exaggerate, the con- 
 tempt felt by the saints for all earthly things. 2 
 
 1 See Journey in Italy. Complete works, edit. Porchat, ix., 
 364 and foil. 
 
 2 One might be inclined to think that Goethe wished to belittle 
 his great patron, but nothing was further from his mind. This is 
 what he says of him, and it is odd that his latest biographer should 
 have passed it over in silence : 
 
 "To strange and mysterious powers, he united the clearest 
 common-sense, the justest appreciation, or rather contempt, of 
 earthly things, the most active charity for the corporal and
 
 60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 Still, it is probable enough that Philip was act- 
 ing, in a measure, according to the dictates of 
 his natural temperament. Why not ? On second 
 thoughts, he may have seen, in this tendency of 
 his, a means of checking the admiration men 
 felt for him. We may even take that much for 
 granted. But the first impulse must have been 
 involuntary, for, whatever may be said of the love 
 of humiliations indulged in by all the saints, we 
 must allow that, as a rule, they do not invent such 
 practices as these. They do not put themselves 
 to the pains of acquiring artificial virtues. Take, 
 for instance, a saint who is subject to abnormal 
 absence of mind, like certain great students. He 
 is glad enough to be laughed at for it, but he will 
 not go and make believe to have distractions. 
 Simplicity is ever a characteristic of the saints, 
 even when raised to the most extraordinary states. 
 
 Much the same may be said of certain habits of 
 cleanliness and (to give things their right names) of 
 uncleanliness. The great majority of saints have 
 
 spiritual sufferings of his fellow-men. . . . He was most scrupu- 
 lous in fulfilling all the duties of an ecclesiastic. . . . He devoted 
 himself to the education of youth, taught them music and elo- 
 quence, suggesting themes both religious and ingenious, and 
 encouraged conversation and debates proper for sharpening the 
 mind. What is more singular still, he did all this of his own 
 accord, and for years persevered in this line, without becoming 
 a member of any order or being ordained priest. What is 
 strangest of all, is that, in Luther's time and in the midst of 
 Rome, one active, clever, pious, energetic man should have con- 
 ceived the idea of uniting ecclesiastical and sacred with secular 
 things, should have introduced divine things into secular life, and 
 so should have prepared the way for a reformation."
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 61 
 
 certainly been advocates of the former. St Theresa 
 returns again and again to the subject, and even 
 inserted rules as to the obligation of cleanliness into 
 the statutes of her order. She did not go quite the 
 lengths of St Augustine, who would never eat with 
 anything but a silver spoon, or of St Philip Neri, who 
 could never bring himself to drink out of any but his 
 own particular glass, and, what is more astonishing 
 still, never used any but his own chalice in saying 
 Mass. However, St Theresa would have agreed 
 with St Bernard when he said, " Poverty I love, 
 but not dirt," and she handed on her ideas 
 to her daughters, as the following anecdote will 
 show : 
 
 St Theresa wished to make a trial, in the convent 
 of Avila, of a new sort of habit, made of very coarse 
 material. She used it herself at first, but not with- 
 out suffering great inconvenience from it. At last 
 she gave permission to the others to try it, as they 
 were most anxious to do so. Worse results followed 
 the general trial of the material, and a swarm of 
 noxious insects made their appearance. St Theresa, 
 who, like St Francis of Sales, ranked cleanliness 
 among the smaller virtues, had not intended this 
 kind of mortification to form part of the austerities 
 of Carmel. She set to work to pray to the Lord to 
 deliver them from the new plague of Egypt. While 
 she prayed, the sisters went in procession, with the 
 cross at their head, towards the spot where their 
 holy mother was kneeling, singing the verse : " Since 
 Thou hast given us this vesture, O King of Heaven, 
 deliver our habits of serge from these insects."
 
 62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 Theresa caught up their words and improvised 
 three more charming verses, which are given in 
 the original account. Their prayers were evidently 
 heard, and from that day to this all Carmelite con- 
 vents, no matter how coarse the nuns' habits may 
 be, are, by a special privilege, exempt from the 
 attacks of these particular insects. 1 
 
 What a contrast to St Benedict Labre, and how 
 are we to defend his ways ? We are not bound to 
 believe that he was canonised because he treasured 
 up what was so strongly objected to by the Carmelites 
 of Avila. He had been disappointed in his early 
 desire of becoming a monk of the Chartreuse, and 
 he made up for the lack of a life of discipline and 
 rule by treating his body with a contempt which 
 may have been part of his natural character. 
 If so, he turned it into a means of mortification, 
 and, his motives being so high, he was thereby 
 enabled to practise virtues which lent a value to 
 that kind of resignation and ascetism which, in 
 themselves, they certainly do not possess. 2 St John 
 Chrysostom tells us that " the actions of the saints 
 
 1 See Life of St Theresa by a Carmelite, I. 334. 
 
 2 We must not, however, suppose that St Benedict Labre was 
 altogether singular in this method of mortification, though he 
 seems to have been eminent in it. The like is recorded of St 
 Thomas of Canterbury and many another. We can only say that 
 wisdom is justified in all her children, and that the same spirit 
 may be embodied in very contrary manifestations. Still, though 
 the spirit is from God, its expression need not be ; nor are we 
 bound to approve it any more than we are the style and diction 
 of an inspired prophet whose literary taste may be very question- 
 able. Editors Note.
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN THE SAINT 63 
 
 were not all equally holy," and we may apply his 
 words to the habits of St Benedict Labre as well 
 as to the somewhat excessive refinement of St 
 Augustine and St Philip Neri.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA IN THE LIVES 
 OF THE SAINTS 
 
 IMILAR discoveries will be easily made by anyone 
 who takes the trouble to make a separate and 
 careful study of the lives of the best known saints. 
 The examples given above, are, however, sufficient 
 for present purposes. Let us now see what effect 
 their vocation, once solidly established, has upon 
 the natural gifts of the saints. It does not, as we 
 have seen, suppress them ; but we should wish, if 
 possible, to know how it contrives to work in harmony 
 with them. The saint has renounced the joys of this 
 world or at least he has resolved only to use them 
 with the greatest humility. He may have joined 
 some community, whose members, though to all 
 appearances vowed to the service of God, have no 
 small share left of vanity and self-love, and in con- 
 sequence he has had a harder battle than usual to 
 fight, in order to purify himself and to influence his 
 brethren for good. But he has at length destroyed 
 everything that he has been able to detect in himself, 
 contrary to the love of God and his neighbour, and 
 henceforward he appears as if freed from the bondage 
 of nature which he has, as it were, completely 
 trampled upon. He continues, however, to live, think, 
 64
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 65 
 
 imagine, act, to feel pleasure and pain, to suffer and 
 to love. What has been the effect, upon these 
 various faculties, of this transformation of his whole 
 being ? 
 
 We have already said that the saints are not 
 necessarily persons of weak health, destined to an 
 early grave. They are, however, subject to innumer- 
 able illnesses and they bless God for the trial. Some 
 of these illnesses are of no psychological interest. 
 Troubles of the stomach, and liver and lungs in 
 their many varieties, are much the same in all men, 
 and if sanctity counts for a good deal in the way 
 we bear such pains, it does not alter the effects of 
 the evil upon our nerves and muscles. There is 
 one part, however, of our organisation which is more 
 nearly affected by the soul and its operations, and 
 that is our nervous system. Across its plexus the 
 interchanging influences of our physical and moral 
 being are for ever coming and going. It is the seat 
 of those states of degeneration and nervous disease, 
 which have attracted so much attention of late years. 
 
 As for nervous diseases, a certain critic has 
 attempted, with the aid of recent psychological and 
 medical theories, to prove that the most marvellous 
 phenomena in the lives of the saints are due to them 
 and to nothing else. Her task has been the easier 
 as, by an error, excusable in the ignorant and less 
 pardonable in the learned, these extraordinary pheno- 
 mena have long been considered the dominating 
 characteristic of sanctity. The saint was a man in 
 whom the supernatural alone acted, and acted by 
 means of an apparent upsetting of the ordinary 
 
 E
 
 66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 course of nature. Therefore, men argued, if only 
 science can be made to explain these so-called 
 wonders by means of known pathological laws, the 
 whole theological edifice sustained by the virtues of 
 the saints will come down with a run. There was 
 no longer any need to imitate Voltaire, to turn all 
 evidence into ridicule and to bring accusations of 
 hypocrisy against the most disinterested heroes of 
 humanity. A natural explanation lay ready to hand 
 the facts, as facts, might be accepted : it was only 
 necessary to explain l them and to wind up with 
 a tribute to the artless simplicity of the "faith of 
 the Middle Ages." It is a fixed idea in certain 
 quarters that the " Middle Ages " alone had faith 
 as well as a monopoly of simplicity, coarseness, and 
 ignorance. 
 
 As an instance of what we have been saying, two 
 doctors have been discussing the life of St Vincent 
 Ferrier, in the Revue Scientifique. 2 He was a very 
 celebrated " thaumaturgus " and one of those to 
 whom tradition has ascribed the most miracles. Our 
 two critics do not attempt to compare the degrees of 
 authenticity of the different stories. They take them 
 
 1 I use the word "explanation" of what hardly deserves the 
 name. Some persons regard it as an axiom that in order to explain 
 a fact one has only to bring it into relation with other already 
 properly established facts. But to establish a fact and to explain 
 it are two different things; and very often more general facts, by 
 which it is sought to explain other facts, remain themselves un- 
 explained. This is precisely the case with regard to the facts we 
 are dealing with at present. 
 
 2 Sept. 6, 1893. Article by Drs Corre and Laurent, entitled 
 " La Suggestion dans 1'histoire."
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 67 
 
 all together in a lump, and are evidently extremely 
 delighted to come upon a sort of retrospective veri- 
 fication of their theories. They do not deny the 
 facts, but they class them all as instances of lucidity 
 or second sight, telepathy, hallucination, suggestion, 
 or fascination. We are left to discover for ourselves 
 (this essay being of a psychological character) what 
 place these phenomena may have occupied in the 
 mental and moral life of the saint. 
 
 Not only is it a fact that these phenomena are, by 
 no means, one and all the distinguishing character- 
 istics of sanctity, but many of them are to be found 
 in both saint and sinner alike. Fortunately there 
 are certain differences between the two cases, which 
 it will be of interest to notice. 
 
 Penetration of the thoughts of others and what 
 we call second sight is by no means a rare pheno- 
 menon in the saints. In St Catherine of Siena it was 
 almost continual. It was very frequent in St Vincent 
 Ferrier, and, according to the distinct evidence of her 
 nuns, St Theresa had only to pass near one of them 
 in order to guess her desires and temptations. By 
 this means she was able to dispel them in some 
 cases, and in others to gratify them by a definite 
 refusal or promise of the desired permission. Is this 
 kind of divination possible to ordinary mortals ? If 
 they are in the habit of living with another person 
 and sharing their thoughts and feelings, certainly 
 it is. A husband and wife are often struck with 
 the same idea in matters concerning themselves and 
 their children. A master can often guess what his 
 inattentive pupil is thinking or dreaming about, if
 
 68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 he has known him for a long while and if he is 
 able to interpret the meaning, under given circum- 
 stances, of a pose, a gesture or a look. Certain 
 nervous conditions may very possibly, with or with- 
 out preparation, add exceptional keenness and deli- 
 cacy to this kind of tact or clairvoyance. 
 
 We touch upon more mysterious ground than 
 hitherto when we come to mental suggestions, a 
 kind of experience which has been so persistently 
 brought to light during the last fifteen years. It 
 seems certain that hypnotised subjects divine many 
 things. The brain, closed to the influences of the 
 outer world, is acted upon solely by the hypnotiser. 
 All their impressionability seems to be reserved for 
 the invisible influences they receive from him. They 
 not only obey his explicit and spoken commands but 
 even silent suggestions made from a distance. 
 
 Is this the case with the saints? Hardly, for 
 St Catherine of Siena, St Vincent Ferrier and St 
 Theresa divine the thoughts, not of those who domi- 
 nate them, but of those whom they dominate. They 
 are, rightly, to be compared not to the hypnotised 
 but to the hypnotisers. But the latter, even Charcot 
 himself, whose experiences in this line have created 
 so general an interest, are the ' divined ' and not the 
 diviners. Experimenters at the Salpetriere have even 
 been accused of themselves producing, by involuntary 
 action on their part, a great many of the disorders 
 which appear in their patients. 1 It is not unlikely 
 
 1 As I have said in a paper, dealing with this particular subject : 
 "The person who is hypnotised, like the natural somnambulist, is 
 endowed, for the time being, with an exquisite sensitiveness and
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 69 
 
 that the saints, upon whose souls worldly impres- 
 sions have only a slight and passing effect, are gifted, 
 in matters concerning conscience and the spiritual 
 life, with a delicate sensitiveness to which the ordi- 
 nary run of men are strangers. This transfer of 
 sensitiveness, as it were, is only what one should 
 expect to find. What is more, the saints do not 
 use their powers of divination in insignificant and 
 everyday matters. They come into play only when 
 their sympathies as directors, reformers and apostles 
 are aroused. Such a condition as this, manifested, 
 as it is, by means of a superhuman charity, is no 
 mere exchange of sensations between two nervous 
 systems, one of which is disordered and overstrained 
 by illness. It is the effect of a sympathetic charity 
 which dominates the entire being and which is itself 
 full of the Divine Spirit. 
 
 The above remarks will, we hope, help to explain 
 certain facts in the life of M. Olier. 1 The first has 
 reference to a lady, in all probability, Mademoiselle 
 du Vigean. M. Olier, although at a great distance 
 from her, was aware of a temptation which prompted 
 her to abandon her religious vocation. He also 
 knew of her delivery from this temptation and tfiis 
 is the account he gives of the way he came to know 
 it. " In order to set me at rest about a trouble 
 
 delicacy of perception. Even from a distance, he is conscious of 
 and is moved and acted upon by infinitely slight currents, in much 
 the same way as a rheumatic patient in Europe is affected by the 
 first beginnings of a change in the temperature, which have only 
 really taken place, as yet, in America." "Hypnotism and 
 Suggestion": see the Correspondant, May 10, 1891. 
 1 See Lettres de M. Olier, Paris : Lecoffre, I. 367.
 
 70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 which was causing me great pain, the Blessed Virgin 
 explained to me the state of a soul, then in Paris, 
 and who was, I feared, in doubt about her vocation. 
 I saw her in a great state of delight and most extra- 
 ordinary joy and jubilation ; so much so that I said 
 to M. de Bretonvilliers : I am no longer anxious 
 about Mademoiselle du V. ; she is in a state of great 
 peace and joy. Two days later, I received letters 
 from her, describing her state of mind, which was 
 in every way similar to that which I had felt and 
 experienced interiorly, in myself." In other words, 
 the holy priest had, while thinking of this person, ex- 
 perienced a state of trouble or joy which convinced 
 him that this state corresponded to the state of soul 
 of the person for whom he was praying. In the 
 same way, certain magnetisers who are more worthy 
 of belief, tell us that when the true somnambulist 
 thinks she has discovered the trouble from which 
 the person who consults her is suffering, she has 
 always first experienced it in herself. A slight 
 suspicion of it reaches her which sets her over- 
 excited imagination working. She vividly pictures 
 to herself a state which, whether it be a reality or an 
 illusion, becomes the starting point for a movement 
 in an inverse direction. The thought of the som- 
 nambulist recurs to the person she has in her mind, 
 and she attributes to him the same suffering or joy 
 which she has just experienced in herself. It may 
 be so. I do not vouch for the truth of this theory, 
 although I admit that it is not utterly impossible. 
 But the partial resemblance between the two states, 
 even when granted, does not exclude differences:
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 71 
 
 the class of subjects acted upon is different ; the 
 agents who produce the two states are different ; 
 the end sought is different and the results obtained 
 are also very different. We see this from the account 
 of the close union of thought which existed between 
 M. Olier and Marie de Valence. " I was conscious in 
 myself," says M. Olier, " of the presence of this soul, 
 who made me experience her state and interior dis- 
 positions, making known to me the design of God, 
 which was that I should become a sharer in her 
 spirit and her life." l His biographer confirms these 
 words, by explaining to us how the fruit of the union 
 between these two souls was that one communicated 
 to the other the same intense devotion to one of the 
 mysteries of our faith. 
 
 It will hardly be matter of astonishment after this 
 to find that some persons see and hear things which 
 are taking place at a great distance. 
 
 Many perfectly well authenticated instances of 
 this are to be found in the lives of the saints. B. 
 Raymund of Capua tells us that, while in Genoa, he 
 distinctly heard the words of the message which St 
 Catherine of Siena sent him from her death-bed in 
 Siena. 2 " I heard a voice which was not in the air, 
 speaking words which reached my mind and not my 
 ears, but of which I was more distinctly aware, 
 interiorly, than if they had been spoken by an exterior 
 voice. I do not know how to describe this voice, if 
 that may be called a voice which has no sound. 
 This voice spoke words and conveyed them to my 
 mind. . . ." On the other hand, those who assisted 
 1 Letters, I. 429. 2 In his Legend, iv. 4.
 
 72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 at the saint's death-bed repeated her words and 
 Raymund recognised them as the very same words 
 that had reached his soul. 1 
 
 The vision of St Theresa is still more wonderful. 2 
 On July 26, 1570, while in prayer, she was trans- 
 ported to the high seas, where she was present, 
 in spirit, at the death of forty priests and novices 
 of the Society of Jesus, who were massacred by 
 corsairs on the ship which was taking them to 
 Brazil. She heard the voices of the victims and, 
 amongst them, she recognised that of her kinsman, 
 Francis Serez Godoi'. When the vision disappeared, 
 she told Father Balthazar Alvarez what she had 
 seen. A month later, when the news of the mar- 
 tyrdom became officially known in Spain, Father 
 Alvarez recognised the accuracy, down to the small- 
 est details, of the account given him at the time by 
 the saint. 
 
 It is impossible to deny that very similar facts are 
 related in the history of hypnotism, suggestion and 
 all kindred phenomena. One has only to read the 
 very careful accounts published by the Psychical 
 Research Society, which reckons among its members, 
 past and present, Prof. Balfour Stewart, Mr Glad- 
 stone, Mr Ruskin, Lord Tennyson and Mr Alfred 
 Wallace, and amongst its correspondents in France, 
 M. Taine and MM. Th. Ribot and Charles Richet. 
 This Society has accepted as conclusively proved 
 
 1 "Tell him that he is never to lose courage. I will be with 
 him in the midst of all perils if he falls I will help him to rise 
 again." 
 
 2 See Bollandists, Nos. 502, 509, 510.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 73 
 
 seven cases of the appearance of individuals alive 
 at the time, but absent, in reality, from the place 
 where they were seen. In these seven cases there 
 is an entire absence of any trace of charlatanism, 
 madness or even chronic nervous disorder. Even so 
 incredulous a mind as Scherer is forced to admit 
 that these researches were conducted with caution, 
 care and discernment, and he adds that the facts 
 he is engaged in analysing are of such a nature as to 
 greatly enlarge the scope of our psychological ideas. 
 Are we then to suppose that the phenomena related 
 in the lives of the saints serve only to confirm the 
 truth of the discoveries made by the psychologists of 
 our own day, or that vice versa, the purpose of 
 the latter is to obtain credence for the tales of 
 hagiographers ? Both are plausible assertions, but 
 they are both calculated to offend those who prefer 
 to attribute to supernatural agencies every single 
 action of God's most favoured servants. But this 
 latter opinion is neither that of the Church nor of 
 the saints themselves. It is an undoubted fact that 
 nature is constantly mingling itself with the super- 
 natural through the whole of their lives. St Theresa 
 expressly says so over and over again. We have every 
 reason for believing that cases of second sight and 
 of interior sight occur both with the saints and with 
 persons in no way better than ourselves. As regards 
 the latter, to what extraordinary combination in the 
 effects of natural laws these phenomena which they 
 may have experienced perhaps once in their lives 
 are due, no one as yet knows. There is no evidence 
 to shew that they were invalids or even nervous
 
 74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 subjects like those whose cases are studied in hos- 
 pitals. The present comparison is therefore of no 
 avail for establishing the likeness between sanctity 
 and nervous disease. And yet, on the other hand, 
 the phenomena recorded by purely psychological 
 societies have apparently no useful end in view. 
 They are due to no patriotic, humanitarian, fruitful 
 inspiration, to use the word in its strictly natural 
 sense. They are merely singular occurrences, as 
 yet unexplained, like many another before them, 
 which must have passed unobserved by our ancestors. 
 But in the saint clairvoyance is not to be dis- 
 associated from the sanctity which precedes and 
 follows it and which gives it all its significance. 
 There is a connection between this marvellous gift 
 and the whole life of its possessor, his intimate 
 friendships, his mission in the Church and the cares 
 of his apostolate, which justifies us in regarding it 
 as a result and a manifestation of his sanctity. 
 
 The same may be said of revelations, which are 
 often accompanied by visions and apparitions of 
 Christ and the Blessed Virgin, or of some saint, 
 living or dead, to another saint. Legends are full 
 of them, it is true, but a considerable number come 
 to us on very trustworthy authority, as, for instance, 
 those which St Theresa relates of herself. From 
 a purely human point of view, I know of no evidence 
 worthy of credence on any subject, if we are to 
 reject that of the great Carmelite saint, which she 
 gives with so many precise distinctions and luminous 
 explanations. While analysing these phenomena, 
 she repeatedly tells us that they do not all come
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 75 
 
 from God, but that they are frequently caused by 
 the Devil and the weakness of our own nature. 
 Her great friend, St John of the Cross, insists even 
 more strongly on this point, that visions, revelations 
 and all exterior phenomena, like suspensions and 
 the stigmata, are graces which are subject to a 
 thousand dangers, imitations, and illusions. In the 
 words of a learned Jesuit commentator upon his 
 doctrine: 1 " If there is an author who is absolutely 
 incapable of stirring up the imagination in favour 
 of visions and revelations, that author is St John 
 of the Cross. He has a positive aversion for such 
 things, not only because the Devil and our own 
 imagination are able, by their means, to trick us in 
 a thousand different ways, but also because his 
 absorbing idea is to get rid of everything which is 
 not God Himself." 
 
 More than anyone else, St John of the Cross 
 has laboured to impress upon men the real teaching 
 of Catholic tradition, that phenomena of this kind 
 do not constitute sanctity. We may go further and 
 say that in those centres which produce saints, and 
 where saints are most honoured, these occurrences 
 always, in the first instance, create distrust and sus- 
 picion. What is feared is that they are either 
 caused by disease, or that they will end by producing 
 it on account of the too great strain to which they 
 subject the mental and physical organisation of the 
 person who experiences them. According to the 
 teaching of St John of the Cross, the least unfavour- 
 
 1 R. P. Aug. Poulain. La Mystique de St Jean de la Crot'x, 
 p. 44.
 
 76 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 able judgment that can be passed on them is that no 
 one ought to shew animus against or ill-treat persons 
 subject to these states. All that is necessary is to 
 warn them of the dangers they run and gently to 
 turn their attention to other things. We read in the 
 Ascent of Mount Carmel 1 that "these souls should be 
 led by the way of faith and be taught, by degrees, to 
 disregard these supernatural impressions. They 
 should learn to strip themselves of them for the sake 
 of their own greater profit in the spiritual life. It 
 should be explained to them that this way is the 
 better one and that one single action, one single 
 movement of the will proceeding from charity, is of 
 more value, and is more precious in God's sight than 
 all the good put together which they may hope to 
 derive from their revelations. What is more, many 
 who have never received these gifts have become 
 incomparably more holy than those who have re- 
 ceived them, in abundance, from Heaven." 
 
 St Jane de Chantal, 2 in one of the most inter- 
 esting of her letters, expresses a similar opinion. 
 She is speaking of a nun who had revelations and 
 ecstasies. Madame de Chantal, at first sight, 
 thinks there is something suspicious about them 
 for the very reason that they are so frequent. She 
 goes on to give an account of another girl, whose 
 apparent sanctity deceived her confessor, the nuns 
 and even the girl herself, for " she was the first to be 
 taken in ... there being no other fault in her, but a 
 certain pleasure she felt in imagining herself to be a 
 saint and the vain amusement she took in her own 
 1 II. 22. 2 Letters. Barthelemy edition, II. 499.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 77 
 
 vain imaginings." These increased to such an ex- 
 tent that sensible people began to suspect her, and 
 at last it was found out that there was nothing in 
 her but " a heap of false visions." Consequently, 
 the friend of St Francis of Sales comes to the 
 conclusion that in the case before her they ought to 
 shew " an absolute indifference and contempt for her 
 imaginary visions and to talk to her of the solid vir- 
 tues and perfections of religious life and in particular 
 of the simplicity of faith in which the saints lived, 
 without visions or revelations of any kind, being 
 satisfied with believing firmly in the revelation 
 contained in Scripture and in the doctrine of the 
 Catholic Apostolic Church." Benedict XIV. says 
 precisely the same thing when, after speaking of the 
 visions of St Catherine of Siena and of St Bridget, 
 he goes on to say : " Even though many of these 
 revelations have been approved, we cannot and we 
 ought not to give them the assent of Divine faith, but 
 only the assent of human faith, according to the dic- 
 tates of prudence, whenever these dictates enable us 
 to decide that they are probable and worthy of pious 
 credence." 
 
 What, we may ask, are we to go by in deciding 
 whether or no a revelation is worthy of pious cre- 
 dence ? First, the nature of the revelation or vision 
 itself, but far more the character of the individual 
 who is favoured with it. As we have seen by the ver- 
 dict given by St" Jane de Chantal, great frequency is a 
 suspicious sign, and it is easy to see why. Habitual 
 repetition suggests that, a new nature has taken the 
 place of the former slowly acquired condition of
 
 78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the person. This new nature is an entirely different 
 state in which the person is endowed with attributes 
 of another order which manifest themselves by a 
 sort of interior necessity. A metamorphosis of the 
 description is open to two hypotheses. Either there 
 has been a disturbance, entirely pathological in kind, 
 like mental alienation, which creates a radical change 
 in the nature of the sick person, or else there has 
 been a glorious transformation. Now, even in the 
 case of the greatest saints and of the most sublime 
 spiritual states, nature, though greatly strengthened, 
 is still there, and sin is still possible. Saints tell us 
 so themselves and they add that God bestows these 
 favours as He pleases, either as a reward or as a trial 
 or for the good of the Church, that He withdraws them 
 when He chooses, for reasons known only to Him- 
 self, and that they are gifts " the real value of which 
 will only be made known to us in the next world." l 
 But because habitual or frequent repetition suffices 
 to render these phenomena suspicious, we are not to 
 assume that rarity is an infallible sign of their being 
 genuine. Sometimes a revelation is made to an 
 ignorant, simple person or to a child which hardly 
 knows its catechism. The contrast between the 
 unexpected wonder and the simplicity and want of 
 culture of the recipient, attracts the Church's notice. 
 She waits, however, to see what course events will 
 take and it is upon the character of the results 
 that she bases her judgment. At other times the 
 character alone of the person will ensure, first of 
 all respect, and then a reasoned acceptance of the 
 1 See St Theresa, III. 97 and 549.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 79 
 
 truth of the revelation. In cases of this latter kind 
 we may say that it is the proved sanctity of the 
 person which reassures men's minds as to the truth 
 of the phenomena rather than the phenomena them- 
 selves which gain credence, be they revelations, 
 prophecies, visions or any other visible favour. The 
 same is true of miracles. 
 
 This latter assertion may be a surprise to some, 
 but it is nevertheless in strict accordance with the tra- 
 dition handed down by the saints and the sovereign 
 pontiffs. Everyone is familiar with the Epistle of 
 St Paul in which he says that it is of more im- 
 portance to possess charity than to be able to move 
 mountains. The following beautiful passage in one 
 of St Gregory's letters to the monk, Augustine, 
 is less well-known. " Remember that the gift of 
 miracles is not given to thee for thyself, but for 
 those whose salvation is confided to thee. There 
 are miracles worked by the lost and we do not even 
 know if we ourselves are among the elect. God 
 has given us but one only sign by which we may 
 recognise His elect, and that is that we love one 
 another." Elsewhere the holy Pontiff distinguishes 
 between two classes of miracles corporal miracles, 
 which are miracles properly so called, and spiritual 
 miracles, which are virtues carried to the pitch 
 of perfection and heroism. He says, "Corporal 
 miracles, though they are a witness to sanctity, do 
 not create it ; spiritual miracles, which take place in 
 the interior of the soul, are not exterior witnesses to 
 a virtuous life, but they create it. The wicked may 
 attain to the former; the latter can be enjoyed by
 
 80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the good alone. Therefore, dear brethren, do not 
 attach value to that which we share with the lost, 
 but love those other miracles of charity and piety 
 of which I have told you. They are the more safe 
 as they are more hidden, and they are the more 
 rewarded by God because they serve less to win us 
 glory from men." 
 
 Centuries later, Benedict XIV. makes the same 
 remark, that miracles may be a sign of sanctity, 
 but that they are not its chief and essential sign. 
 He draws attention to the fact that the Old Testa- 
 ment saints worked most of their miracles during 
 their life-time while the saints of the New Testament 
 work most of theirs after death, that is to say, when 
 they have been finally confirmed in grace. He goes 
 on to say that "When enquiry is instituted for 
 the purpose of beatification or canonisation, no ex- 
 amination is made of miracles until after the heroic 
 virtues or the martyrdom of the servant of God 
 have been proved. These virtues are the first and 
 most decisive witness to sanctity ; visions, prophecies 
 and miracles are of only secondary importance, and 
 they are absolutely ignored if proof of heroic virtues 
 is not forthcoming." 
 
 When in this way we examine into the personal 
 life of the saint, we see that these extraordinary 
 occurrences and the miracles are not purely acci- 
 dental manifestations of his virtue, and that it is 
 not even a sufficient explanation if we consider the 
 latter to be the foundation upon which all else re- 
 poses. We have already seen that in the saint 
 there is a constant interchange of influences going
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 81 
 
 on between his outer and inner activity, which in- 
 fluences place their seal upon these mysterious 
 powers, the existence of which it is impossible to 
 deny. The same is true of miracles, whether they 
 be of an unmistakable kind or of that other sort 
 which men try to explain away by identifying them 
 with certain rare but natural exhibitions of the 
 power of ascendancy due to an irresistibly inspired 
 prestige and confidence. 1 
 
 Besides the fact that his revelations are few and 
 far between, the saint, as a rule, works but few 
 miracles. The best authorities are agreed on this 
 point, but we will only instance the Bollandists. In 
 their life of their founder, St Ignatius of Loyola, 
 they declare that he worked so few miracles, that 
 it became a question whether he had ever worked 
 any at all, and after quoting the passages from St 
 Gregory the Great, given above, they add, "What 
 miracles did St Augustine work, or St John Chrysos- 
 tom, St Athanasius, St Gregory Nazianzen and St 
 Gregory of Nyssa? Very few. . . . St Augustine 
 used to say that it was a far better thing to convert 
 a sinner than to raise a dead man to life." 2 
 
 " But," it may be asked, " do you believe that 
 saints were able at will to work or not to work 
 miracles ? " " No, I do not." " Well then, if, as you 
 think, God really acts in them, why should this 
 higher intervention be limited either as to the 
 
 1 The two kinds are easy to distinguish. In the second category 
 we may place the cure of a great number of diseases, but not the 
 sudden cure of the blind, and still less the raising of the dead. 
 
 ' 784, E 787, c. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 number or the greatness of the wonders which it 
 works ? " My answer is, that it is no business of 
 ours either to increase or diminish the effects of this 
 intervention, and I may also remind my questioner 
 that our Lord Himself complained of those who 
 asked wonders of Him before believing, and that 
 His having done so is a lesson for us. It is a lesson 
 which the saints who asked God to work this or 
 that miracle by their means had learnt and cer- 
 tainly applied to themselves. Let us listen to what 
 they themselves have to say and let us learn from 
 them what were their maxims and traditions on the 
 subject. 
 
 First and foremost, the saint holds that the gift 
 of miracles is absolutely worthless, that it is either 
 an illusion or else the greatest possible danger to 
 its possessor, if it is not completely under the con- 
 trol of two virtues which are of far greater value : 
 charity and humility. No one will be surprised, I 
 think, that I place these two virtues side by side, 
 for there is nothing so inimical to the love of our 
 neighbour as self-complacency and, still more, pride. 
 For this reason the saint fears that the frequency 
 of so great a gift may increase the frequency of the 
 temptations likely to accompany it. And yet his 
 humility is, in a way, safeguarded, for, as we shall 
 have reason to remember more than once, later on, 
 the very sublimity of his intercourse with God and 
 the very intensity of the love to which he strives 
 to correspond, enable him to measure the depths 
 of the misery of our fallen nature. If he has been 
 raised so far above it, his ideals have also been
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 83 
 
 proportionately raised, and therefore it is that the 
 consciousness of the gift of which he believes him- 
 self wholly unworthy is so frequent a source of 
 anxiety to him, especially during the active portion 
 of his life : no slight proof, by the way, of the genuine- 
 ness of the miracle itself. 
 
 The following story is told by the latest biographer 
 of St Bernard. " One dark thought tormented him, 
 and that was the recollection of the miracles he had 
 worked. At last he spoke out to his travelling com- 
 panions : ' How can it be,' he said, that God should 
 use such a man as I am, to work these wonders. 
 Generally speaking, real miracles are worked by 
 great saints ; false miracles by hypocrites. It seems 
 to me that I am neither the one nor the other.' 1 
 Nobody dared give him the answer that was in the 
 minds of all, for fear of offending his modesty. All 
 at once the answer to the riddle seemed to strike 
 him. ' I see,' he said, ' miracles are not a proof of 
 sanctity, they are a means of gaining souls. God 
 worked them, not to glorify me, but for the edifica- 
 tion of my neighbour. Therefore, miracles and I 
 have nothing in common with one another.' " 
 
 So much for humility. As for charity, the saints 
 would fear to wound it, especially if they obtained 
 or even desired one of these useless wonders which 
 do not directly serve for the edification of one's 
 neighbour. 
 
 Thus enlightened by personal experience, no one 
 is more on the watch than the saint, to detect false 
 sanctity and to avoid contagion from it. When St 
 1 Abb6 Vacandard. Vie de St Bernard, vol. II. 232.
 
 84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 Theresa first began to receive Divine favours and to 
 be led by " extraordinary ways," she was tormented 
 by the thought that she was like a certain poor Clare 
 who, for thirty years, excited the admiration of all 
 Spain, 1 but who, in the end, confessed that she had 
 criminally deceived almost the whole of Christendom. 
 She not only governed the poor Clares of Cordova, 
 but she became the oracle of the convents in Spain. 
 Princes, kings, and even bishops, consulted her on 
 the affairs of their kingdoms and dioceses. She 
 apparently revealed the most hidden secrets and 
 made known events that were taking place at a 
 distance. For instance, she saw Francis I. taken 
 prisoner at Pavia, and Rome sacked by the Imperial- 
 ists. Her predictions were accompanied by wonders 
 that had nothing in common with the miracles of our 
 Lord in the Gospel, for they filled men with astonish- 
 ment, without enlightening souls or strengthening 
 hearts. The deluded populace admired it all and 
 Magdalen became more and more inflated with 
 pride at the increasing veneration felt for her. 
 On great feast days she went into ecstasies and 
 was often lifted two or three feet from the ground. 
 At last, one day in the year 1546, a ray of Divine 
 grace touched the heart of this woman. To the 
 consternation of everyone, she went and threw her- 
 self at the feet of the Visitor of her Order and 
 confessed that she had shamefully betrayed the con- 
 fidence of her sisters and the public by means of 
 sacrilegious tricks and the help of the Devil. . . . She 
 confirmed her first avowal. . . . She was sent out of 
 1 Magdalen of the Cross, a poor Clare of Cordova.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 85 
 
 the city to end her days as a penitent, far away 
 from the cloister which she had disgraced. These 
 events made a great impression on everybody. All 
 Spain was horrified, says the writer from whose 
 account we have been quoting. 1 
 
 How different was the conduct of St Theresa. Far 
 from seeking these supernatural gifts, she felt " more 
 and more anxious," " her fears increased " (the words 
 are her own) in proportion as she felt that what was 
 taking place within her was above the capacity of 
 nature. It was only after years of trial and struggle 
 and by comparing reiterated experiences, that, re- 
 assured on the score of her own good faith, and 
 vanquished by love, she gave way without fear and 
 consequently without reserve. She was sure of 
 God's love and sure of herself, and from that time 
 onward there was no gift that she did not accept 
 and describe and explain for the glory of the Church 
 and the good of souls. She used them gratefully 
 and we may even say, simply and familiarly, in the 
 same way as she did those natural gifts of heart and 
 mind which she had received in such abundance. 
 
 Few indeed of the saints have attained to the 
 same state of clear and peaceful possession which 
 this saint enjoyed during the last five years of her 
 life. St Jane de Chantal had to endure spiritual 
 trials in her old age, and had great difficulty in 
 overcoming them. This difference it would hardly 
 be right to say, this inferiority does not in the very 
 least take away from her reputation as the foundress 
 of many convents and the directress of so many 
 1 Life of St Theresa, by a Carmelite, I. 145.
 
 86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 nuns, who was so well able 1 to shield other superiors 
 from the dangers which accompany extraordinary 
 gifts, and what she calls " the traffic in revelations." 
 How forcibly she reminds one of them, that at the 
 last day, many a prophet and worker of miracles 
 will be declared a worker of iniquity. She is not 
 speaking of false miracles and false prophecies, but 
 of miracle-workers and prophets "who have not been 
 meek and humble of heart," after the example of 
 our Divine Master. 
 
 With regard to visions, revelations and miracles, 
 it is certainly true to say that they are mainly 
 due to an agency from above. Sanctity is discern- 
 ible chiefly in the manner in which the person ac- 
 cepts these gifts and in the use he makes of them. 
 It is apparently not quite the same in the case of 
 those phenomena which are the consummation of so 
 many efforts and desires in the life of sanctity, and 
 which lead, through different degrees of prayer, to 
 union, rapture and ecstasy. It will be well, therefore, 
 if we now endeavour to penetrate into those hidden 
 depths which are lighted up for us by the inner ex- 
 periences of the saints themselves. There we shall 
 probably discover the source of the part which 
 nature plays in the wonders we have been con- 
 sidering above; for, as Benedict XIV. 2 tells us, 
 visions and revelations are, as a rule, only given 
 to those who have already experienced ecstasies 
 and raptures. 
 
 Is every saint an ecstatic and is every ecstatic a 
 saint ? It is very certain that every ecstatic is not 
 
 1 See Letters quoted, I. 500. 2 De Canon. SS. t III. 49.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 87 
 
 a saint. Alfred Maury, a well-read man, and a 
 psychologist, who has often treated of these sub- 
 jects, delivers himself as follows: "Theologians 
 consider ecstasy to be one of the most signal favours 
 which the Creator can bestow on a creature, and 
 Rome has placed most of those who have experienced 
 it on the list of saints." Nothing could be more 
 untrue than the above remark. It is a common- 
 place saying in theology, that, in the canonisation 
 of saints, no heed is taken of ecstasies, or, at least, 
 they are never approved of as specially miraculous, 
 unless they are accompanied by some unquestionably 
 supernatural sign. But with the help of Benedict 
 XIV. and the saints, whose experiences he sums up, 
 let us enquire a little further into things. 
 
 In his treatise on beatification and canonisation 
 he distinguishes three kinds of ecstasy: natural 
 ecstasy, which is a malady; diabolic ecstasy, and 
 divine ecstasy. 
 
 In order to discern one from the other, it is neces- 
 sary to watch the symptoms which precede the 
 phenomenon, those which accompany it, and the 
 results of whatever kind which follow upon it. 
 
 If the ecstasy recurs periodically and at stated 
 intervals, if, in course of time, the ecstatic be- 
 comes paralysed, or is struck with apoplexy or 
 any similar disease ; if the ecstasy is followed by 
 lassitude, inertness of the limbs, heaviness of mind, 
 intellectual density and loss of memory; if the 
 countenance becomes pale and livid, and spiritual 
 depression ensues, then we may be sure that the 
 ecstasy was a purely natural one. We may be
 
 88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 still more certain of it, if, in consequence of earthly 
 desires being aroused, the person becomes subject to 
 fits of grief and fear. 
 
 Diabolic ecstasy may be recognised if the subject 
 is a man of bad life, or, if the attack is accompanied 
 by excessive distortion of the limbs, by a disorderly 
 (and not, as in the case of Divine ecstasy, a merely 
 unusual) bodily disturbance, and still more if these 
 movements are in the slightest degree unseemly. 
 We may suspect diabolic ecstasy if the person can 
 bring on or arrest the attack at will, if he speaks 
 like a man whose mind is affected, if it appear as 
 though someone else were speaking with his mouth 
 (quasi alms loquatur per euni), if, after apparent 
 alienation of mind, he is unable to repeat what he 
 has said, and lastly, if the seizure comes on 
 frequently in public places, and in the presence 
 of a crowd of spectators. 
 
 The absence of all of the above symptoms is a 
 testimony in itself to the Divine character of the 
 ecstasy. All doubts will vanish if the words of the 
 ecstatic tend only to excite others to the love of 
 God, and if, when consciousness returns, he shews 
 himself to be more and more strengthened in charity, 
 humility, and peace of mind. 
 
 Once admit that an ecstasy is Divine and it is easy 
 to see how much it owes to a supernatural agency. 
 If, as our religion teaches us, the least virtue re- 
 quires the help of grace, how great must be the 
 grace required to produce states such as these. 
 There are, however, spiritual causes which effect 
 a sort of personal preparation for this sublime
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 89 
 
 state. Benedict XIV. tells us of three: intensity 
 of admiration, greatness of love, and strength of 
 exaltation or joy. This does not sound very much 
 like the state of collapse which many people con- 
 sider to be the chief characteristic of ecstasy. 
 However, I foresee an objection. I shall be told 
 that I ought to distinguish between the preparation 
 for the attack and the attack itself; that, in all 
 probability, while the attack is preparing, the 
 vivacity of the feelings produces a great increase 
 of brain activity beyond the ordinary powers of 
 nature, but that this is precisely the reason why 
 this state of exaltation should be followed, as a 
 necessary consequence, by a state of complete ex- 
 haustion, and that the immobility of the body is a 
 clear indication that the functions of life are, for the 
 time being, at a standstill. 
 
 The experiences of the saints provide us with an 
 answer to this objection. In all accounts given by 
 them we are able to distinguish between two orders 
 of faculties or operations. That the inferior opera- 
 tions, even breathing, are suspended, is true. It is 
 also true that this state of body may, according to 
 the natural constitution and temperament of the 
 person, be accompanied by phenomena which are 
 absolutely similar to those produced by the different 
 kinds of ecstasy doctors study and diagnose in their 
 patients. But in the words of St Theresa, while the 
 soul is asleep, as regards earthly things, it is awake 
 to the things of heaven. " I have noticed," she says, 
 " that the soul has never more light to understand 
 the things of God, than in this sort of rapture."
 
 90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 "It is true," she adds, "that if anyone asks me 
 how it is that, while our faculties and senses are 
 as much suspended (in their operations) as if they 
 were dead, we are able to hear or understand 
 anything, I can only answer that this is a secret 
 which God has reserved, with many another, to 
 Himself." She is none the less positive that during 
 a rapture, the soul feels itself to be illuminated: 
 " The understanding stays its discursive operations, 
 but the will remains fixed in God by love ; it rules 
 as a sovereign." It is then that the apparent 
 vacuum in the mind is filled up by visions. They 
 are sometimes purely intellectual visions, which are 
 rather an intense realisation of the presence of God 
 and of the ineffable effects which it produces on the 
 soul. More often they are visions of the imagination 
 and inward sense. The latter, though no doubt 
 more liable to illusions, are more in keeping with 
 the weakness of our nature, for when the vision 
 ceases, the soul, with the help of the images which 
 still remain in the mind, is more able to recall the 
 vanished scene. 1 
 
 We must not lose sight of these two character- 
 istics of ecstasy in the saints : the sleep of the 
 senses and the awakening of the higher faculties. 
 If the former alone is present, it is a sign of false 
 ecstasy ; if the latter accompanies it and because it 
 does so, we recognise Divine ecstasy. 
 
 1 According to St Theresa, intellectual visions last longer, and 
 when they are thus protracted, the state which accompanies them, 
 cannot properly be called ecstasy. See III. 504, 511. Cf. 
 Benedict XIV. III. 49.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 91 
 
 However, someone may say that facts which are 
 caused by the Devil or by a special intervention of 
 Divine power are outside the sphere of science and 
 have nothing whatever to do with psychology. This 
 is a mistake. We shall be careful to keep well 
 within the limits of the controversy, but still it is 
 quite possible to avoid all discussion as to the nature 
 and origin of the mysterious occurrences and yet to 
 study how the human soul conducts itself, during and 
 after the occurrence itself. A miracle does not arrest 
 all the laws of nature in the subject in whom it is 
 worked. The rod of Moses caused water to flow from 
 the rock, but the water, thus miraculously produced, 
 was subject to all the laws of weight and hydraulic 
 action. The Labarum of Constantine, once it had 
 appeared in the skies, shone according to physical 
 laws and was seen according to the law of optics, 1 
 etc. 
 
 And so too, with regard to the extraordinary 
 phenomena in false and true mysticism alike, the 
 best authorities are agreed that in both cases there 
 exists a fixed process, a connected whole, with which 
 the unexpected occurrence blends itself without de- 
 stroying the economy of nature nearly as much 
 as is supposed. It is highly probable that this oc- 
 currence is the culminating point in a series of 
 states 2 as well as the starting point in a series of 
 others, and the same may be said of certain decisive 
 actions in everyday life, which are dependent upon 
 a more than ordinary exercise of our free-will. In 
 
 1 See Appendix. 
 
 2 This does not mean that they produce it of themselves.
 
 92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 like manner, modern pathology teaches that although 
 the germ of disease may come from outside, it is 
 none the less received by a prepared organism which, 
 according to the manner in which it is disposed, either 
 preserves and develops, or else eliminates it. Now 
 take the case of the false mystic. Unable to control 
 his imagination, excessive in his austerities, and there- 
 fore subject to melancholy, covetous of exceptional 
 favours, undisciplined in prayer, more anxious to 
 love and especially to think himself beloved, than 
 to exercise himself in humility and patience, he, in 
 a way, deserves to become the victim of illusions, 
 and when they occur he does his best to prolong 
 their disastrous effect upon his faculties. The true 
 mystic, on the contrary, is humble and prudent and 
 careful to preserve a just balance in all things. He 
 is convinced that he ought to offer as well as ask, 
 to give as well as receive, and therefore he " devotes 
 himself to the service of God with manly courage." l 
 He will not acknowledge the Divine nature of his 
 own visions, excepting in so far as they enable him 
 to advance in virtue. He knows very w r ell that, in 
 the matter of his own perfection, however large a 
 share in it he may ascribe to the action of God, he 
 can never attain to it without personal effort. He 
 perseveres in his efforts in spite of all the obstacles 
 he encounters both in himself and in others. 
 
 .He is well aware of these obstacles, for in this, 
 
 no less than in other things, it is astonishing to see 
 
 with what certainty, good sense and accuracy, the 
 
 saints have detected, treated, and cured false ecstasy. 
 
 1 St Theresa.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 93 
 
 They know the symptoms well. That mixture l of 
 physical weakness and dreaminess, that prostration 
 of strength increased by a collapse of will-power, 
 that melancholy in which the soul is either beguiled 
 or tyrannised over by fixed ideas, those illusions of 
 the imagination in which an ordinary fainting fit 
 is mistaken for an ecstasy, that half wished-for state 
 of delusion which is the offspring of a mysticism in 
 which pride has too large a share, or of desires, ill- 
 sustained by a defective energy and prudence. The 
 saints have described all this, dreading it both for 
 themselves and for those they had to direct. 
 
 It is really quite amusing to watch contemporary 
 psychologists, those who confuse mysticism, of what- 
 ever kind, with sanctity, and endeavour to prove 
 that all the marvellous gifts of the saints are so 
 many illnesses to which mystics are subject. They 
 discover a whole heap of things which the saints 
 have all along known of and admitted. Human 
 nature is ever the same. In the present day, as in 
 every age, there are persons with diseased minds, 
 who, instead of dreaming of earthly love and great- 
 ness, become enamoured of the melancholy joys of 
 an imaginary intercourse with angels and the Deity. 
 They are to be met with in all pious circles. Priests, 
 whom they torment with their scruples and general 
 unreasonableness, know them well. Why should 
 
 1 In his Life of St Francis of Assisi (2 vols., Paris : Lecoffre), 
 M. 1'Abbe le Monnier gives the following as the saint's own words 
 on the subject : " We must needs use great discretion in the way 
 we treat our brother, the body, if we would not have it excite in 
 us a storm of melancholy." II. p. 395.
 
 94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 we hide the fact that there are some in convents, since 
 St Theresa and St Jane de Chantal tell us that they 
 found many in their own communities. They are con- 
 stantly warning us against that evil system, which 
 begins by unrestrained enjoyment of certain sensible 
 spiritual joys, is continued by a half voluntary depres- 
 sion of spirits, is increased by want of nourishment, 
 followed by growing physical weakness, until it ends in 
 a kind of ecstasy which contains nothing but dangers. 
 
 The error we are endeavouring to correct consists 
 in supposing that because this innocent but melan- 
 choly imitation of sanctity exists, therefore it is the 
 habitual state of real saints. This kind of reasoning 
 is on a par with the logic of those who imagine that 
 because certain intemperate habits are common 
 among third-rate authors and artists, therefore, as a 
 necessary eonsequence, these habits are a component 
 part of true genius. 1 
 
 I have no wish to deny that these disorders of the 
 nervous system, these violent attacks of pain, alter- 
 nating with insensibility, followed by complete pros- 
 tration of strength, are sometimes to be met with 
 in the lives of the saints. Several have given us 
 an account of their sufferings in this respect. They 
 speak quite openly and enter into the minutest 
 
 1 For instance, Lombroso, having met at Bergamo a man called 
 Zola, who, according to him, was "a swindler and a man of 
 genius," proceeded to draw from that fact a conclusion in favour 
 of his theory that genius, crime and madness are all akin. The 
 best of it is that he wrote a letter to the well-known novelist 
 informing him of the discovery. (This letter was published in the 
 Archives tfanthropologie critninelle de Lyons.') He honestly 
 thought Zola would be flattered. See my Psychologic des grands 
 hommes, 2nd edition.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 95 
 
 details. For instance, St Theresa describes cata- 
 lepsy with great accuracy she is speaking from 
 memory and from personal experience. 1 But, unlike 
 false mystics, the saints do not attempt to hide the 
 real nature of their sufferings. They neither turn 
 them to account for purposes of self-glorification, nor 
 do they make them serve as excuse for sitting down 
 to a life of perpetual grieving and idleness. They 
 often, it is true, recognise in them the handiwork of 
 the Devil, who is allowed to try them as he tried the 
 holy man Job. But frequently it is merely that 
 weak nature has given way. They do not make a 
 medical analysis of their case. 2 They are humble 
 enough to admit that their nerves are not more in- 
 vulnerable than their lungs or their stomach. They 
 are perfectly aware that their symptoms denote ill- 
 ness pure and simple, and if the disorder continues 
 for any length of time they set to work to seek a 
 remedy for it. 
 
 And what kind of remedies do they go in for ? St 
 Theresa goes straight to the point she never beats 
 about the bush and the most modern of doctors 
 will find no fault with her remedies on the score of 
 sentimentality. What advice does she give ? 3 She 
 has already spoken of those persons who, by reason 
 of their austerities, prayers and night-watches, or 
 
 1 See her Life, by herself, ch. xx. 
 
 2 St Theresa, however, shews a complete grasp of the subject. 
 As I have said elsewhere, she was far in advance of the science 
 of her day, in the way she distinguished and analysed the four 
 different kinds of melancholy recognised by science in the present 
 day. Article on Neurasthtnie in the Quinzaine, Feb. r, 1897. 
 
 3 III. 402, 403.
 
 96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 even only on account of the delicacy of their con- 
 stitution, " are unable to receive any spiritual con- 
 solation, without being overcome. Directly they 
 experience a certain joy in their souls, their bodies 
 become weak and faint. . . . They give way to a 
 feeling of intoxication which increases as nature gets 
 weaker and weaker. They persuade themselves that it 
 is a rapture, but what they call rapture is mere waste 
 of time and health. I knew a person who remained in 
 this state for eight hours. Her confessor and many 
 other persons had been deceived. . . . But another 
 person, 1 to whom God had given light, recognised the 
 snare. Her advice was listened to, the poor ecstatica 
 was made to diminish her penances, to sleep more and eat 
 more, and with the help of these remedies she was cured." 
 As for the saint herself, she does not wish to be 
 cured. 2 Why should she ? for first of all this tem- 
 porary weakness of body caused by ecstasy is only 
 partial with her and those like her, and secondly, 
 it is in itself only a very short intermediate stage 
 between two periods of intense spiritual activity. It 
 is preceded by great energy of desire and followed 
 by great energy of action. It is true that, dur- 
 ing the holy ecstasy itself and immediately after 
 it, the body is left without strength, but this is 
 not because it has lost its powers of itself, but 
 rather because the soul has "taken them away." 
 And if the soul has taken them away, the result is 
 
 1 The saint herself. 
 
 2 I am of course referring to her mystical experiences taken as 
 a whole, and to her spiritual intercourse with God, not to the 
 attacks of fever and other sufferings to which she was subject and 
 for which she allowed herself to be treated just like anyone else.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 97 
 
 not by any means pure loss, as we have already 
 seen. They are drawn off from the body and con- 
 centrated in a piercing intuition, in a complete and 
 most generous offering of the whole being and in 
 acts of most ineffable desire. From this, as from 
 a source, they slowly filter back through the different 
 faculties, which they fill with delights, until they reach 
 even the body, giving back to it far more than had 
 been taken away from it, for "though the body is 
 often infirm and full of suffering before ecstasy, it 
 comes out of the ecstasy full of health and admirably 
 prepared for action." 1 This is the state produced 
 by really Divine ecstasy. The soul in the end finds 
 herself more free, more full of peace, and stronger, 
 and the body shares in this complete recovery of 
 health. 
 
 But was this a special favour reserved to St 
 Theresa? Was it the result of her Spanish tem- 
 perament and that original strength of constitution 
 which enabled her, in spite of her illnesses (and of 
 her doctors, some of whom were amazingly stupid), 
 to reach the age of seventy? No, for we notice 
 exactly the same thing in St Catherine of Siena, 
 who was delicate and died young. We know that 
 while in ecstasy she dictated or wrote many letters. 
 We also know which they are, as her confessor, 
 Raymond of Capua, and her secretaries kept count 
 of them. They are full of intelligence, firmness, and 
 courage, and also of the fervent piety of the true 
 contemplative. They are remarkable, too, for the 
 wisdom of the advice she gives in them, to the Pope, 
 1 St Theresa, her life, 208. 
 G
 
 98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the magistrates of Siena, and to princes. For in 
 one she treats of the duties of married people, in 
 another of justice, and they nearly all of them bear 
 reference to the maze of political difficulties from 
 which she succeeded, almost single-handed, in ex- 
 tricating her country and the Church. 
 
 It is not in other people alone that the saints have 
 been able to detect and expose false ecstasy. We 
 understand in our neighbours only what we have, in 
 some degree at least, experienced in ourselves. I 
 particularly wish to be rightly understood here. I 
 do not mean to say that there was a mixture of truth 
 and error in the saints, nor do I mean that they were 
 subject alternately to real and counterfeit ecstasy. I 
 only wish to say two things : first, that, as they 
 admit themselves, they were conscious, no doubt 
 to a lesser and lesser degree as they advanced in 
 life, but still they were distinctly conscious of what 
 they call the threats and power of the devil; and 
 secondly, that their ill-health often brought them to 
 the verge of those purely natural states into which 
 they saw others fall, for a longer or a shorter time, 
 or perhaps for life. 
 
 In other words, while the weak succumbed to the 
 danger, the saints triumphed over it. But they 
 triumphed at the cost of having realised the near- 
 ness of the evil and of having manfully fought 
 against it. 
 
 It was a favourite saying of St Theresa and St 
 Jane de Chantal that we must never judge of a 
 phenomenon, or a state of soul, or a way of life, 
 by its beginning, but only by its continuation and
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 99 
 
 principally by its end. An impulse may come from 
 nature, and yet rectify itself and end by leading us to 
 God; and again the impulse may be divinely inspired 
 and yet afterwards deviate. Man is responsible for 
 the rectification through humility as for the deviation 
 through pride, and this it is which gives its dramatic 
 interest to the lives of the saints. 
 
 Many, I know, will still be inclined to ask, " But 
 why is it that phenomena, so widely different in 
 character, shew themselves in saints and sinners 
 alike ? Why do evil doers have visions and work 
 miracles and why are God's elect brought in contact 
 with the devil ? " The simple reason is that without 
 heroism there can be no sanctity, and there can be 
 no heroism unless the victory is difficult 1 and costly. 
 Nothing can be more mistaken than the idea that 
 there is a gulf between the natural and the super- 
 natural, that no inspired person can make a mistake, 
 that no one, favoured with revelations, can mis- 
 interpret them ; and on the other hand, that no one 
 who has begun by yielding to morbid or diseased 
 impulses, can ever, with the help of good will, 
 transform them into truly spiritual desires. The 
 saint has, at first, to pass through many states 
 which bear a superficial resemblance to illness or 
 evil. He is well aware that this resemblance, 
 though unreal or doubtful at first, may, if he gives 
 way to melancholy, vanity, and desire for a too 
 sensible enjoyment of the favours he has received, 
 increase and become real. On the other hand, 
 however slight the difference may appear in the 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 100 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 beginning, it may go on increasing until the soul 
 finds herself at the very opposite pole of psycho- 
 logical existence. 
 
 Therefore, I repeat again for the last time : in the 
 matter of revelations, prophecies, visions, miracles, 
 raptures, ecstasies and all kindred phenomena wit- 
 nessed in the lives of the saints, it is not the ex- 
 traordinary occurrence itself which is to be taken 
 as a proof of sanctity, but it is the effective sanctity, 
 the virtue which is in the heart and which manifests 
 itself by works, that determines the real nature 
 of the miraculous occurrence. It is true that the 
 saints learn by experience to recognise those revela- 
 tions which come from God. "The revelations 
 which are from God," says St Theresa, "are re- 
 cognised by the great spiritual treasures with which 
 they enrich the soul." l And again, " Every desire 
 which is from God is accompanied with light, dis- 
 cretion and wisdom." But elsewhere, the same 
 saint tells us : " When a soul is truly humble, even 
 if a vision came from the devil, it would do her no 
 harm. But if she is wanting in humility, a vision, 
 which had God for its author, would do her no good. 
 If instead of humbling herself for having received 
 such a favour she is puffed up by it, she will be 
 like the spider which turns all it eats into poison, 
 whereas, by humility, she might imitate the bee, 
 which converts all it takes into honey." 
 
 I am inclined to suspect that some one of my 
 readers, who is of a philosophical turn of mind will 
 say " Oh, yes, certainly. Sanctity, of course, is in 
 1 See her works, Vol. III., 4,100, 108.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 101 
 
 the will and heart of a person; humility is of far 
 greater value than prophecies, and charity than 
 miracles. But why not go further, why not admit 
 that the saints drew all these great spiritual gifts, 
 courage, light and wisdom, which they fancied they 
 derived from an exterior inspiration and super- 
 natural light, from their own inner consciousness, 
 and that it is only an excess of humility which 
 leads them to attribute these qualities to a mys- 
 terious intervention from above ? What they believed 
 to be the effect of visions and ecstasies was merely 
 the exterior reflection of their own purity and love 
 in a word, of their own perfection, acquired after 
 years of effort. We all of us, in this way, contain 
 in ourselves, in our own dispositions, whether gay or 
 sad, courageous or the reverse, the sources of that 
 joy or sorrow which we imagine comes to us from 
 outside, filling us, in spite of ourselves, with un- 
 expected emotions." 
 
 I am not writing a controversial treatise, and 
 therefore I shall not stop to demonstrate how 
 Christian doctrine and Psychological truth both 
 agree in teaching that interior things and exterior 
 things, the action of man and the action of that 
 which resists him or sustains and attracts him, are 
 inseparable one from the other. All I say is: if 
 you really believe that it is only humility which 
 makes the saint attribute to grace from on high, 
 that which is really the fruit of his own rich 
 nature, let us have one of two things. Either let 
 us hear no more about illness being the cause, 
 whether direct or indirect, of the visions of the
 
 102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 saints, or else be so good as to explain how so 
 great a degree of spiritual well-being, with its 
 attendant advantages, can possibly coincide with 
 what is neither more nor less than a state of 
 hallucination and disease. 
 
 We are now, I trust, in a position to understand 
 how it comes about that serious and honest minds l 
 
 1 I am referring, not only to doctors, but to a learned Jesuit, 
 Pere Hahn, whose work, "Hysterical phenomena and revela- 
 tions," published in the Revue des Questions Scientifiques of Brussels 
 (1883), was at first crowned by the Academy of Salamanca after 
 a public disputation and considered by the highest ecclesiastical 
 authorities in Spain as a great testimony in honour of St Theresa. 
 Pere Hahn's work was, nevertheless, placed on the Index. This 
 does not mean that it was formally condemned, but only that it 
 was considered to contain propositions insufficiently explained and 
 calculated to mislead certain minds. 
 
 The Congregation of the Index does not give the reasons for its 
 decisions, which are sometimes of a temporary nature and only 
 intended to point out that the work contains some things which 
 are dangerous, inopportune, or which need revision. But in the 
 present case, this is what we may fairly conjecture : 
 
 Pere Hahn's chief theory is that as St Theresa was on the one 
 hand subject to hysterical, and on the other to supernatural 
 phenomena, she became so well able to distinguish between the 
 two, that this twofold experience gives us, in her case, an unex- 
 pected and precious assurance of her accuracy. The experience 
 she had had of the former order of facts helps to convince us that 
 she is not mistaken when she describes the latter. She does not 
 confuse the two as she is in a position to distinguish between them, 
 and she distinguishes correctly. This theory was very acceptable 
 to the Jury at Salamanca and received a majority of votes. It is 
 not altogether unworthy of the reception it met with. Before 
 coming across Pere Hahn's work, I had myself advanced a 
 similar theory in my first articles in the Quinzaine. I will now 
 endeavour to put it in a more accurate, and if possible, more 
 acceptable form.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 103 
 
 have thought that they discovered signs of hysteria 
 in the saints. It is also clear, I hope, that they 
 made a very great mistake. We shall be forgiven, 
 perhaps, for insisting strongly on this point, for 
 herein lies the origin of the most subtle and diffi- 
 cult to meet of the many objections that have been 
 urged against the true character of the saints. 
 
 Hysteria is a disease, but it is not a disease which 
 is due to a merely accidental and passing weakness 
 of body. It is a tendency, and unfortunately an 
 
 If we turn, however, to the Revue des Questions Sctentifiques 
 and read the article itself carefully, it is sufficiently obvious, to 
 my mind at least, why the Index decided as it did. 
 
 The Congregation may, it is true, have thought that the 
 ordinary reader would be misled by the word hysteria, which 
 has so long been erroneously used to express a feigned intensity 
 of temperament, and it may have considered that the learned 
 Jesuit had, therefore, instituted a premature and inopportune 
 comparison. But the article contained two other and more 
 serious errors 
 
 In the first place, the writer does not distinguish clearly enough 
 between accidental phenomena which threaten illness, and the 
 illness itself when completely established and developed in all its 
 parts. A person can have pains and not be a confirmed gouty or 
 rheumatic subject ; or can be hard of breathing without being 
 asthmatic ; or can shew signs of the presence of sugar or albumen 
 in the system without diabetes or Bright's disease following as a 
 matter of course. The question lies entirely in this : Does he 
 resist or succumb to the first symptoms when they appear ? 
 
 Then again, Pere Hahn greatly exaggerates the number and 
 the nature of these accidental phenomena. The reader will agree 
 that this is so, when I say that he tells us that St Theresa (who 
 was so full of good sense and often of fun) had frequent attacks of 
 melancholy, and in proof of this assertion, he quotes her account 
 of the pain she felt on leaving her father's house to become a Car- 
 melite. A man must really be over-anxious to prove his case 
 when he sees symptoms of melancholia in so natural a grief as this.
 
 104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 extremely powerful one, to a chronic disorder which 
 affects the whole system. 1 During the last few 
 years, attempts, only partially successful, have been 
 made to establish some kind of order among those 
 innumerable nervous ailments which stop short of 
 madness, 2 and the following is the conclusion arrived 
 at with regard to the tendency which produces 
 them. 3 
 
 Healthy and normal vitality consists essentially in 
 the progressive unification of the faculties, that is to 
 say, in an ever-increasing co-operation and harmony 
 between their various activities, conditions, and 
 habits. The essence of morbid vitality and accord- 
 ing to present ideas, hysteria is its principal form 
 consists in the disassociation and disintegration of 
 these same faculties. Worn out by some drain upon 
 his strength, of which medicine has, as yet, discovered 
 
 1 The disorder can no longer be called chronic, and it never 
 really establishes itself, if it yields to medical treatment or 
 to a successful reaction on the part of the healthy faculties. But 
 if nothing occurs to stop it, it is bound by the law of its nature to 
 develop fully. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to check a 
 deviatioa which manifests itself by symptoms such as the follow- 
 ing : perversion of sensitiveness, prolonged anaesthesia, loss of 
 consciousness, modifications of the natural character, delirium of 
 various kinds, epileptic attacks alternating with periods of 
 lethargy. 
 
 2 I have not thought it necessary to examine into the theory 
 that saints and also great men are a species of lunatic. Some 
 paradoxes may be safely left to die a natural death. 
 
 8 Among the various works on the subject, I have selected two 
 volumes of M. Pierre Janet's : Etat Mental des hysttriques. Paris : 
 Rueff, for quotation. They are very full, very clear, and most 
 interesting. I intend to draw very largely upon them.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 105 
 
 neither the working nor the seat, 1 the hysterical sub- 
 ject is no longer able, or, at best, only very imperfectly 
 able to reduce his recollections to order, or place 
 them in their proper relations with his actual life. 
 These recollections return haphazard to his mind, 
 like an unruly crowd which declines to carry out 
 any operation with attention and discipline, and in 
 view of a given object. His will no longer acts in 
 connection with reasoned ideas. Sometimes he acts 
 in obedience to ideas suggested to him, which in 
 medical language means, ideas which come to him 
 suddenly from outside, without his knowledge or 
 the co-operation of his will. These awake in him 
 an irresistible impulse to pass from ideas to action. 
 His will is usually dormant, and responds neither to 
 reason nor to necessity. He can eat, digest, walk, 
 until the fancy takes him that he cannot, and then 
 he at once ceases to do any of these things, unless 
 unconsciously, in a moment of distraction, or when 
 under the power of a suggestion, which he can 
 neither co-operate with nor resist. Every somnambu- 
 list is therefore, in reality, an hysterical subject at 
 bottom, and every hysterical subject easily lends 
 himself to the phenomena of artificial somnambulism. 
 On the other hand, if he is told or he imagines that 
 some one part of his body is more sensitive to pain 
 than the other parts, he at once feels an extraordinary 
 pain in that part, which communicates itself to the 
 1 Professor Grasset of Montpellier makes out that this 
 phenomenon is infectious ; the nerve centres are poisoned and 
 therefore disturbed and disorganised. A destructive action is 
 set up owing to the presence of toxine microbes. This theory 
 has gained considerable ground.
 
 106 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 rest of his body. It is a case of self-suggestion 
 certainly, though he is utterly unconscious of it, 
 and he is as completely dominated by the idea as 
 if it had been objectively suggested by an operator 
 or a doctor. 
 
 In spite of these imaginary feelings, the field of 
 consciousness of the hysterical subject, to use a 
 technical expression, is narrowed. He continues to 
 have ideas, but these appear to be located in a region 
 which is new and superadded in him, and in which 
 everything seems to act automatically. There ensues 
 what is called a division of the personality. There 
 is the former personality, and the morbidly produced 
 personality. These two reveal themselves by turns, 
 bringing in their train their respective separate 
 recollections, and in turn mutually supplanting one 
 another. Meantime, one fixed idea works itself out 
 of this kind of struggle or anarchy, and what is often 
 taken for imagination, cleverness or force of will, is 
 merely passive obedience to this fixed idea. Under 
 its influence, the subject affects feelings to which he 
 is in reality a stranger. He acts as if these feelings 
 were real. " He acts," says Charcot, " with an 
 extraordinary cunning, sagacity and tenaciousness 
 but his only object is to deceive people, and he does so 
 without need or motive, and often unknowingly." " In 
 short," says M. Pierre Janet, " hysteria is a form of 
 mental disaggregation, characterised by a tendency to 
 a complete and permanent division of the personality." 
 
 After this, my readers will think that in trying 
 to refute the idea that the saints were hysterical 
 subjects, I am taking a leaf out of Don Quixote's
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 107 
 
 book and tilting at a windmill. And yet, without 
 going back upon Pere Hahn's article, I will just take 
 the following passage from the otherwise learned 
 work from which I have been largely quoting. M. 
 Pierre Janet gives us a passage from St Theresa 
 in which she owns that one day, wishing to read the 
 life of a saint, she read the same lines over four or 
 five times without being able to catch the sense, 
 and that she had to put the book down. " The same 
 thing," she says, "happened to me several times." 
 M. Janet tells us that this was a case of " aprosexy " 
 (or incapacity to fix the attention), and he continues : 
 " Hysterical subjects of our day follow in this as 
 in other matters the example of their illustrious 
 patroness. In fact, the best way of discovering 
 simple cases of " aprosexy " is to get them to read a 
 few lines attentively and then ask them to say what 
 they have understood of them." He instances the 
 case of a woman called Justine, whom he saw at the 
 Salpetriere, as another example of the same kind of 
 thing. 
 
 If the mental condition of a person is to be judged 
 of by accidents of this nature, brain doctors and 
 neurologists will be able to enjoy a very large practice 
 indeed. However, St Theresa and Justine were 
 unlike in more ways than one, and consequently 
 we shall be obliged to look a little more deeply and 
 thoroughly into the question. 
 
 Are we really to believe that the saint who has 
 sacrificed health, pleasure, riches, and worldly 
 honours in order to follow his vocation, and who sees
 
 108 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the latter confirmed by revelations and ecstasies, 
 is subject to the same suggestions as those which 
 are experienced by somnambulists and hypnotised 
 persons ? .We may at any rate safely assert that the 
 manner in which the saint experiences them is 
 different. As we have already said, these phenomena 
 excite suspicion in the minds both of those to whom 
 the subject confides his experience, and of those 
 whose office it is to decide as to their true nature. 
 But it is also certain that when the saints experience 
 these phenomena, they are themselves very far from 
 receiving them with the same unreasoning simplicity 
 with which the sick person accepts the idea which 
 has taken possession of his mind. The humility of 
 the saint causes him to fear. He thinks himself un- 
 worthy of such a favour and he resists it as the token 
 of a degree of love which he believes is utterly unde- 
 served by him. The biographer of Blessed Margaret 
 Mary gives the following touching account of her : 
 After her profession, her soul continued to be filled 
 with the same sweetness and consolation which she 
 had experienced in the novitiate. This caused her 
 surprise and she began to be uneasy. She had 
 espoused a God who had been crucified, annihilated, 
 despised and insulted, and she had no wish to be 
 treated otherwise than He was. She complained 
 to our Lord, "Oh my God," she said, "will you never 
 send me sufferings." 1 Like St Theresa, she accused 
 herself in confession of these graces, fearing that sin 
 had crept in in their wake. She would not yield to 
 her inclination, until she had received a reasoned-out 
 1 Mgr. Bougaud. Vie de Margutrite Marie, p. 136.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 109 
 
 and carefully explained permission to do so. Then, 
 and not before, did she give herself entirely up to it. 
 St Theresa was so perfectly conscious in herself 
 of the effects of these states that she not only 
 describes them for us, but also analyses, explains 
 and comments upon them. Her observations are 
 often of a deeply metaphysical nature and she 
 draws many very clear and precise psychological 
 distinctions. She does not deny the existence of 
 false visions, for she has experienced them herself, 
 but she is on this account all the more alive to the 
 contrast between the true and the false and the 
 better able to distinguish between them : " There- 
 fore," 1 she says, " there is an immense difference 
 between them and I do not doubt that even a soul 
 which has arrived at only the prayer of quiet, is 
 perfectly well able to distinguish one from the other. 
 These visions have each their characteristic marks, 
 the impress, as it were, of their author. I do not 
 think that a soul can be deceived, provided it is 
 humble and simple and that it does not desire to 
 be deceived. It is sufficient for a person to have 
 only once seen our Lord, to be perfectly able to 
 recognise a vision caused by the devil. The latter 
 may begin by causing a certain kind of pleasure, 
 but it will be in vain, as the soul rejects it with 
 a sort of instinctive horror. It sees that the love 
 which is offered it, is not chaste and pure, and the 
 enemy is soon detected and exposed. Therefore, I 
 say that the devil cannot injure a soul that is 
 at all experienced." * 
 
 1 Her life, p. 312.
 
 110 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 In place of devils, let us take, if you will, an 
 influence caused by disease, but even in cases of 
 this sort, 1 which are of a purely psychological 
 nature, neither St Theresa, nor the saints who 
 have resembled her, allow themselves to be duped. 
 Hysterical suggestion, so like in appearance to 
 demoniacal, is perfectly well-known to them. They 
 have watched its approach, recognised it and vigor- 
 ously repelled it, and they have been rewarded for 
 their energetic action, by the triumph, in them, of 
 a spirit which has absolutely nothing in common 
 with the former spirit. 
 
 The intellectual characteristics of this latter spirit 
 are, in the first place, very different from those of 
 the former, for its inspirations are recognised by 
 the subject, who reasons about them, consents to 
 them, and in a certain sense, wills them. In nervous 
 patients, suggestion, like hallucination, is depressing, 
 disorganising and sterile. In order to prove that 
 such were not the effects of the stigmata of St Francis 
 of Assisi, the revelations of St Theresa or the visions 
 of Blessed Margaret Mary, it will not be necessary 
 even to point to the marvellous fecundity of their 
 spiritual creations, still less to enter into an argu- 
 
 1 According to P. Bonniot, the two states resemble one another 
 pretty closely, and we may therefore (for the time being, at least) 
 carry on the discussion on purely psychological lines. " In the 
 one case," he says, "the devil acts upon the subject, in the other, 
 the experimenter, and this is about the only difference between 
 the two cases." "In like manner," he adds, "possessions are 
 cases of hypnotism, in which the evil spirit plays the part of 
 hypnotiser." I do not know whether this opinion is approved of 
 and final, but it is, in any case, most interesting and plausible.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 111 
 
 ment with those who deny that religion, rightly 
 understood and practised, is the greatest power 
 humanity has at its disposal. St Theresa herself, 
 with her wonderful insight and her still more 
 wonderful common sense, comes to our assistance 
 with a far more practical line of reasoning. 
 
 When first she began her method of prayer, she 
 found it a hard struggle to persevere ; " I own," l she 
 says, " that many a time I should have preferred 
 the hardest penance to the torment of having to 
 recollect myself in prayer. I made efforts against 
 myself, however, and God helped me. But in order 
 to conquer myself I had to make use of all the 
 courage I possess, which is not slight, so I am told." 
 
 This trial of her courage did not soon end. 
 " Such," 2 she says, " is our melancholy condition on 
 this earth. As long as our poor soul remains united 
 to this mortal body, it is a prisoner and shares the 
 infirmities of the body. It is affected by the weather 
 and by variations of health, and it often finds itself, 
 without any fault on its part, incapable of doing what 
 it would like to do. . . . Forcing only aggravates and 
 prolongs the evil. Such persons ought to under- 
 stand that they are ill." 
 
 But does she take pleasure in this state of de- 
 pression, as she calls it ? Is she going to let herself 
 fall into a state of complete prostration, of deadly 
 ennui, distaste for life, discouragement, fear and utter 
 despair, which, according to doctors, is the fate of 
 hysterical subjects? 3 Hardly; for listen to the advice 
 
 1 Her life, p. 85. 2 Her life, p. 114. 
 
 3 Pierre Janet. See work quoted above.
 
 112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 and the example she gives to persons who find 
 themselves in a like condition to hers. " A soul, how- 
 ever weak it may be, can always find occupation in use- 
 ful reading and works of charity." " Let them seek 
 recreation in holy conversation or go and breathe 
 country air. . . . One can always serve God, no matter 
 what condition one may be in. His yoke is light, and 
 it is of the greatest importance that the soul should 
 not remain depressed or sad. It should be led gently 
 for its greater spiritual profit." 
 
 The saint therefore goes on her way with renewed 
 courage. Her body may indeed resist and even 
 break down, but when reminded of her state of 
 health she replies, " What would it matter even if I 
 did die ! " " As a matter of fact," she tells us, " I 
 have felt much better since I began to treat myself 
 with less care and delicacy." 1 All this sounds ex- 
 tremely unlike the hysterical patient who, though 
 perfectly able to walk, eat, and lift weights, imagines 
 that he can do none of these things. It is an exactly 
 opposite state of affairs. If the saint listened only 
 to the dictates of nature, she would remain inactive, 
 incapacitated by the nervous spasms which shake her 
 whole being, crippled by infirmities or fever, checked 
 on all sides by violent antipathies, and lost in the flood 
 of wild and useless explanations which her wayward 
 imagination would be for ever suggesting to her. But, 
 on the contrary, she works on, and without relying too 
 much upon the marvellous cures she from time to 
 time obtains for herself and others, she insists that 
 suffering nature should contribute the amount and, 
 1 Her life, p. 126, cf. p. 177.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 113 
 
 what is more, the right quality of work which duty 
 requires. In her case, as in others, the imagination 
 may indeed act like a regular mill-clapper, " ever re- 
 volving and noisy," to use her own expression, but 
 she does not waste time idly listening to it, and 
 neglecting " to make the flour." She may have trials 
 but she is not led astray by them. She grinds the 
 corn the best way she can, trusting to God to come 
 to her assistance if she does her part and to enable 
 her to draw, not only merit, but increased moral 
 strength from this state of things. 
 
 The will, which in hysterical subjects is so para- 
 lysed, in her case unites itself even more closely to 
 God than the intelligence and the memory. " It is 
 not a spiritual sleep," she tells us, "but the will 
 acts alone." While the other faculties yield to 
 nature, the will secures for them a safe refuge in 
 God, to which, as the saint puts it so prettily, they 
 can return " like doves, which, misliking the food 
 they seek first on one side and then on the other, 
 hasten, after a fruitless search, to return to the dove- 
 cot." Elsewhere she compares the firm, patient will, 
 to the prudent bee which remains in the hive in order 
 to extract honey from the flowers which its com- 
 panions bring it (sic). " For if, instead of staying in 
 the hive, all the bees went out one after the other, 
 how could the honey be made ? " 1 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that great saints may ex- 
 perience phenomena of a pathological nature, which 
 a doctor of nervous diseases is sorely tempted to 
 consider his property. How is it that they contrive 
 1 Her life, p. 138, 149. 
 H
 
 114 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 to get the better of such incidental symptoms ? Do 
 these yield at last to the influence of the healthy 
 parts of their organisation? Possibly; but the victory 
 is due far more to the strong attachment of the will 
 to duty, to habits of self-control, and to the good use 
 they make of each painful and humiliating occurrence. 
 Temperament and character are, in this way, modified. 
 " Naturally," St Theresa tells us, "whatever I desired, 
 I desired with impetuosity, but now God so calms my 
 aspirations that when I obtain what I desire, I hardly 
 feel any joy at all. After passing through the most 
 terrible crises, which she describes with great fidelity 
 and minuteness of detail, she is more and more con- 
 firmed in a state of mind so utterly unlike hysteria 
 in its effects, as to be, apparently, its exact opposite. 
 
 Is it true to say that the spiritual states of the 
 saints cause " a narrowing of the field of conscious- 
 ness " ? Those who take account only of those 
 things which fill up three parts of the daily lives of 
 the majority of men, will unhesitatingly reply in the 
 affirmative. Does not the soul of the saint gradually 
 withdraw itself from all that interests and touches 
 us ? Is there not a " daily increase in the number of 
 things which it ceases to think about ? Are not 
 many of the saints to be rightly compared to the 
 occupants of a house, the doors and windows of 
 which are closed up one after the other, in order 
 that those inside may be compelled to think only of 
 heavenly things?" 
 
 Before this argument can be of any psychological 
 value, we must first prove that, in the mind of the 
 mystic, the ideas which he discards are not replaced
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 115 
 
 by any other ideas, that the interior life is more 
 empty and ideas suggested by the thought of the 
 next world are more barren of results, than are the 
 lives of the worldly and the ideas which this world 
 suggests. Next, tha desires for the glory of God and 
 the conversion of sinners, the direction of souls, the 
 foundation of an order, the care of a church, and still 
 more the reform of the Church Universal, do not call 
 for anything like the sustained energy that is needed 
 by men who seek only for fame and amusement. 
 
 Lastly, in lives such as these, is there a " division 
 of the personality " ? Some will say that there is, 
 and in proof they will instance those raptures after 
 which the soul, unable by its own strength to sustain 
 itself at such a height, falls back to earth. But in 
 these cases, there is no sign of the " division " which 
 reveals the presence of hysteria. Few souls have 
 been so possessed by the love of God as St Catherine 
 of Genoa, and few have passed through such a 
 martyrdom of soul and body as she had to endure. 
 And yet, her biographer tells us that " she did not 
 omit to perform punctually all the duties which are 
 a necessary part of ordinary life." And again : " She 
 had a husband whose character was strange and 
 irregular, and who caused her to suffer great misery, 
 but God enabled her to endure everything without 
 complaint, silently and with extreme patience." 
 How, we may ask, can these two sorts of lives 
 possibly combine and exist side by side ? And yet 
 they do, and their combination is the special work 
 accomplished by sanctity. St Catherine of Genoa 
 combined them so successfully in herself that she
 
 116 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 persevered in asking and finally obtained the con- 
 version of her husband. 
 
 All the saints, without exception, even those of 
 their number who were most inclined to mysticism, 
 agree in teaching that the roughest employments 
 and the humblest and most repulsive offices should 
 be the chosen lot of those who are favoured by 
 visions and ecstasies. Far from supplanting and 
 ignoring one another, these two existences are 
 fed and strengthened by contact with one another. 
 According to St Theresa, Martha and Mary do not 
 try each to supplant the other in the soul of the 
 saint, for " the soul knows very well that it ought 
 not to desire to be Mary till it has laboured with 
 Martha." 1 Even when it has been raised to the 
 state of Mary, " it is able, at the same time, to fill 
 the office of Martha. In this way, it combines the 
 active and the contemplative life, and while remain- 
 ing united to God, it is able to employ itself in works 
 of charity, in reading, and the duties of its state 
 of life." When the saint had finally attained to 
 the highest degree of union with God, she was far 
 from feeling herself less able to return to the things 
 of earth. She compared herself to a bird which, 
 when its wings have become strong enough to fly 
 to greater heights, is also better able to descend 
 quickly and safely. " Everything helped me to know 
 God better and to love Him better than ever before." 
 
 We have now pursued this comparison long 
 enough, and it has, I trust, enabled us to recognise 
 
 1 St Theresa. Her life, p. 230, cf. p. 166, 222.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA 117 
 
 some of the most wonderful characteristics of the 
 saints. 
 
 Unlike nervous diseases, sanctity is not a " dis- 
 integration " of the powers of the mind ; it is an 
 " aggregation " of the closest possible kind, which 
 derives its strength from a higher principle, under 
 the control of which it forms and sustains itself. 
 
 It is not a " narrowing of the field of conscious- 
 ness," but rather the opening-out of a wider field, 
 although it is true that this opening-out is at the 
 cost, if we may use the expression, of a narrowing 
 of the field of passing sensations and empty illusions. 
 
 Neither is it a "division of the personality," 
 although it certainly creates a new personality, and 
 that at the cost of great sacrifice and much suffering. 
 This new personality is not a medley of divided and 
 disordered parts. It exhibits a cohesion, a strength 
 and a unity above anything else which psychology 
 can shew us. This new personality also retains 
 whatever was best of the original personality, and 
 these surviving elements combine peacefully with 
 the new. 
 
 The truth of the above statements will be clearly 
 shewn when we come to study more in detail and 
 with greater precision, the various qualities of the 
 saints, their understanding, their love and their 
 aptitude for active work.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION. THE UNDER- 
 STANDING AND CONTEMPLATION 
 
 the extraordinary phenomena in the saint's 
 life, we now pass on to consider the more hidden 
 course of his existence, his daily trials and his un- 
 ceasing efforts. In so doing, we shall not, as it were, 
 descend the stream ; on the contrary, we shall ascend 
 to a source which tradition has ever taught us to 
 hold sacred. 
 
 The saint is a man of God and we must not be 
 surprised, therefore, to find that his faculties are put 
 to very hard work indeed, in order that everything 
 that impedes the service of God may be eliminated 
 and all that leads to and facilitates that service may 
 be increased and strengthened. The saints tell us 
 so themselves, over and over again. It is no exagger- 
 ation to say that their ideas on the nature of the 
 soul and on the harmony between its faculties, con- 
 stitute a complete psychology of the saints. This 
 theoretical psychology, of which their writings are 
 full, throws a valuable light upon the practical psy- 
 chology of their lives. 
 
 Of ecclesiastical teachers, St Augustine was the 
 first to divide the powers of the soul into three: 
 the memory, the understanding, and the will, and 
 
 118
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION 119 
 
 this division has been a familiar one to all those 
 who have come after him. It is referred to at every 
 turn by St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa, St John 
 of the Cross, and St Ignatius. 
 
 " His life is well-regulated," says St Catherine of 
 Siena, 1 " because he has regulated the three powers 
 of his soul : the memory retains the recollection of the 
 benefits he has received from God ; the understanding 
 strives to know His will ; and the will, to love Him." 
 " In this," she tells us elsewhere, " consists all 
 well-regulated life, both of soul and body, in every 
 place and circumstance in which we may find our- 
 selves. The powers of the soul must act in concert : 
 the memory must recall the thought of God's benefits; 
 the understanding must strive to know His will, and 
 the will must love Him to such a degree that it is 
 unable to love or desire anything apart from Him." 
 
 In like manner, St Ignatius insists, in his first 
 " Exercise," that we should meditate on the first sin, 
 the sin of the rebel angels. This exercise he divides 
 into three parts : the exercise of the memory to recall 
 the sin; the exercise of the understanding to " reflect 
 upon it in greater detail," and the exercise of the will 
 " to excite the consequent affections of the soul." 
 
 This threefold division is, of course, susceptible of 
 further subdivision, and it is far from necessarily 
 excluding those, for instance, which deal with the 
 great complexity of the will, or which distinguish 
 between the imagination and the memory, and so on. 
 Those who hold to it, do not, however, appear to take 
 very great account of the influence of the senses and 
 1 See "Letters," I. 261, 367.
 
 120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 of those exterior impressions, which, according to 
 modern ideas, are the source of all consciousness 
 and of all knowledge. With the saints, sentiment is 
 not a separate faculty, nor do they associate love 
 with that passive and emotional sentiment, which 
 gains in interest among our contemporaries in 
 proportion as it shews itself the more ill-regulated 
 and diseased. According to them, the will is no 
 arbitrary and negative force, and in placing it, as they 
 do, in such intimate relation with love, they wish to 
 point out that there is its mainstay and the source of 
 all its strength ; its mainstay, because, in their eyes, 
 a will that does not love or that does not love the 
 object most worthy of love, is a dead force, the 
 source of its strength because the love by which it is 
 upheld is stronger than death. In short, in their 
 brief but precise theories, the most prominent place 
 is given to the will, upheld by love and enlightened 
 by an understanding, which we must not be surprised 
 to find cares more for fidelity than originality. 
 
 All said and done, however, everything must begin 
 at the senses and at the imagination which preserves, 
 continues, renews and diversifies the impressions 
 conveyed by means of them. Is the saint a man 
 who despises imagination and labours to destroy it, 
 or, on the contrary, does he cultivate and make use 
 of it ? Allowances must first be made, for the 
 natural temperament of the saint, for his social 
 surroundings and the kind of study by which he 
 has developed his mind. It is not surprising to 
 find that St Jerome, St Francis of Assisi, St 
 Theresa and St Francis of Sales were by nature
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION 121 
 
 possessed of a far livelier imagination than St 
 Thomas Aquinas, St Jane de Chantal and M. Olier. 
 When this much has been granted, there still re- 
 mains the fact that the particular character of 
 Catholic dogma and morality, the study of Scripture, 
 the teaching of certain recognised spiritual works 
 (for instance, The Imitation), meditation, solitude, 
 community life and finally, tradition, must exercise 
 a lasting influence upon the cast of mind of great 
 mystics, a class to which, as we have seen, all the 
 saints belong. 
 
 The following passage is taken from the writings 
 of one of those contemporary philosophers who are 
 either genuinely interested in the psychology of the 
 saints or who fancy themselves to be so : " Love, 
 ecstasy, desire for perfection, the tendency to 
 materialise and to represent the Deity in concrete 
 form, such are the essential characteristics of 
 mysticism." l A set of incongruous elements 
 certainly, and, to say the least, of very unequal 
 importance. Love, undoubtedly, is an element of 
 mysticism, and desire of perfection follows upon 
 it. Ecstasy is, as we have seen, a less common 
 ingredient, and as for the tendency to materialise, 
 we are somewhat surprised to find it associated 
 with mysticism, the opposite word "spirituality" 
 being so very often used of the aspirations and 
 habits of mind of mystics. It will be of interest 
 to determine which of these two contradictory ex- 
 pressions is the right one. 
 
 As a rule, the saints do not despise any of God's 
 1 Paulhan. Les Caracteris. Paris : Alcan.
 
 122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 gifts "Let each one give us the benefit of her 
 intelligence to-day," St Theresa once said to her 
 nuns at recreation. "No one has too much" Quite 
 true, no one has too much, and the difficulty lies 
 rather in making a good use of what we have. 
 The imagination is especially liable to condemna- 
 tion, if on account of it we turn away from God, 
 and become attached to this earth. It then causes 
 us to anticipate, prolong and revel in the pleasures 
 of the senses, while in every aspect of nature it 
 affords us a foretaste or aftertaste of delights we 
 either desire or regret. This evil is too obvious for 
 it to be necessary that I should dwell upon it here. 
 
 Again, the saints hold that the imagination is 
 dangerous when, under pretext of drawing the 
 soul into the ways of God and of His love, it 
 represents Him under a form which is unworthy 
 of Him. But are not all sensible forms unworthy 
 of the Divinity ? Absolutely speaking they are, and 
 none realise this fact better than the saints them- 
 selves. According to them there are two reasons 
 why we should watch carefully over the pleasure 
 we feel in forms which take hold of the imagination. 
 To begin with, there is danger of the illusion which 
 mistakes the echo of voices, proceeding from these 
 inner depths where pride and sensuality thrive 
 almost unsuspected by the soul, which is a prey 
 to them, for heavenly inspirations. After countless 
 experiences, a St Theresa may end by distinguishing 
 clearly when the soul is speaking and when it is 
 listening, but it will cost, even one like her, not a 
 little to get as far as this. Therefore it is that
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION 123 
 
 St John of the Cross is so careful to warn souls 
 against the temptation of thinking that they are 
 listening when, in reality, they are only talking 
 to themselves. " There are persons," he says, 
 " scarcely able to meditate, who, when they hear 
 certain interior words, fancy that these must pro- 
 ceed from God. Their love of listening to these 
 words and the desire they have of hearing them, 
 makes them answer themselves, and then they 
 persuade themselves that these answers come from 
 God. These persons fall into great absurdities." l 
 Another extreme, which the saints are careful to 
 guard against, is that of identifying the action of God 
 with these sensible phenomena, and of thinking that 
 such phenomena are infallible signs of the union of 
 the soul with God. " All the images of the imagin- 
 ation," says St John of the Cross, " are confined 
 within very narrow limits ; and the Divine Wisdom, 
 to which the understanding ought to unite itself, is 
 infinite, absolutely pure and absolutely simple, and 
 it is not confined within the limits of any distinct, 
 particular or finite mind. The soul which desires 
 to unite itself to the Divine Wisdom must neces- 
 sarily bear some proportion and likeness to it, 
 and consequently it must shake itself free from 
 the images of the imagination which would give 
 it limits. It must not attach itself to any particular 
 form of thought, but it must be pure, simple, with- 
 out limits or material ideas, in order to approach, 
 in some degree, to God, who cannot be expressed by 
 any bodily likeness, or by any single finite conception." 
 1 Work already quoted, p. 131, cf. p. 82.
 
 124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 Here, certainly, we find a saint whose mysticism 
 does not consist in " materialising " or in " repre- 
 senting God under a concrete form." And we 
 may be equally sure that his doctrine (based as 
 it is, on personal experience) is that of all the 
 saints. When the author of the above fanciful 
 theory set to work to seek for examples, he fell in 
 with the life of Blessed Maria of Agreda, and he 
 was obliged, in spite of his theory, to admit that 
 whenever she felt that her visions and communi- 
 cations came through the senses and imagination, 
 whose effects she recognised in herself, she at once 
 turned away from them and " placed herself in a 
 state of indifference." She would not allow the 
 animal and sensitive part to enjoy the sweet fruits 
 of God's mercy, but endeavoured to leave it un- 
 satisfied. 1 If carefully read, the works of St 
 Theresa, St Catherine of Genoa, and those like 
 them, will be found to contain similar declarations 
 at every turn. 
 
 Are we therefore to understand that the saints 
 have succeeded in getting rid of every material 
 representation which either preceded or followed 
 the visions they were sometimes favoured with? 
 This was the contention of the quietists. One of 
 the errors contained in their theories and condemned 
 by the Church consisted in banishing from mental 
 prayer all recollection of the Sacred Humanity 
 which they held to be an obstacle to perfect con- 
 templation. No saint ever carried his spirituality 
 as far as this: the distinction between God, con- 
 1 Paulhan, work already quoted, p. 191.
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION 125 
 
 sidered in His eternal essence and God, known 
 in the mystery of the Incarnation, being the very 
 basis of Christianity. St Theresa, who not only 
 practically experienced, but who also understood 
 and explained the profoundest depths of the life 
 of sanctity, speaks, in regard to this matter, with 
 her usual sound good sense. 
 
 " It is doubtless a good thing," she says, " to set 
 aside material imaginings, since spiritual persons say 
 that it is so, but, in my opinion, this should not be 
 attempted before the soul is very far advanced, as 
 it is clear, that till then, it ought to seek the Creator 
 by means of creatures." 1 "To do otherwise," she 
 continues, anticipating Pascal, "is to act as if we 
 were angels." For this reason, she recommends the 
 sensible devotions practised by so many saints be- 
 fore her time : devotions to the infancy of our Lord, 
 to His wounds, His cross, and His blood; for what 
 is a " devotion " in reality but a reasoned applica- 
 tion of the imagination and the mind to one of the 
 mysteries which the believing soul desires to con- 
 template and meditate ? 
 
 Next to Christ, the imagination of the saints loves 
 to picture the sufferings, trials, consolations, and 
 triumphs of other saints, and to dwell upon the cere- 
 monies by which they are commemorated, and the 
 feasts by which their virtues are honoured and 
 symbolised. 
 
 Every event in history, every aspect of nature, 
 and above all, every miracle, reminds them of the 
 power of God, and these are so many steps by which 
 1 Her life, p. 229.
 
 126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 their human weakness is enabled to raise itself by 
 degrees to the eternal essence of the pure 
 spirit. 
 
 When once the imagination has consented to let 
 itself be purified and directed, sanctity allows it 
 flight enough to satisfy the most ardent natures 
 and the most enamoured of this world's delights. 
 Now, it is the infancy of Christ which, placed before 
 its eyes, shews it all the freshness of an age which 
 personifies innocence, weakness, and hope. Now 
 it can join with St Francis of Assisi as he sings 
 his Canticle of the Sun, and now again in the 
 Canticle of Canticles it can enjoy all the poetry 
 and make its own all those daring comparisons 
 and those aspirations of the soul towards God, those 
 tender dialogues and burning allegories and descrip- 
 tions, which to the superficial or prejudiced mind 
 do but suggest a revolt on the part of unrestrained 
 sensual passion. 
 
 With St Gertrude this loving effusion becomes 
 a sort of symphony in which all the senses take a 
 share. In her aspirations towards God, she appears, 
 as it were, inebriated by perfumes, spiritual potions, 
 gentle sounds and harmonies. But this apparent 
 indulgence of the senses leaves intact everything 
 that could be required by the purest metaphysics 
 and the most patient and disinterested charity. 
 Thus, both those who speak of a tendency to 
 materialise and those who see nothing but spiritual- 
 ity in mysticism are in one sense wrong, and in 
 another, right. The saint, undoubtedly, spiritualises 
 whatever comes to him through the senses and
 
 THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION 127 
 
 imagination, just as he strives to bring his nature 
 into touch with truth. 
 
 With less freedom and charm than we find in St 
 Francis of Assisi, St Gertrude, St Theresa, and 
 St Francis of Sales, for there is more " method " 
 about him, St Ignatius of Loyola is careful to tell 
 us (Second Week) that it is a useful thing to exer- 
 cise the five senses of the imagination. " I will see 
 with the eyes of the imagination ; I will hear with the 
 help of the imagination ; I will taste with the help of 
 the imagination. . . ." 
 
 One and all of these saints, therefore, despite 
 the diversity of their temperaments, held firmly both 
 to the doctrine of the Incarnation and to those por- 
 tions of peripatetic philosophy which have been 
 incorporated into thomistic theology. l 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, we must distinguish between 
 various phases in the spiritual life of the saints. 
 The mystic dies and is born again. He dies to a 
 sensual, agitated, troubled world, liable to corruption 
 and destined to perish, and is born again to a trans- 
 formed world. To quote his own expression, he 
 passes through the night of the senses, after which 
 his purified eyes are opened to a more brilliant light. 
 This is substantially the allegory of the cave, that 
 sublime portion of platonic metaphysics in which 
 the purification of the senses is required as a pre- 
 paration for the illumination of the mind. What 
 is of importance to notice is that the saint will 
 return, later on, to sensible objects, to enjoy them, 
 in his own way, of course, but far more intensely 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 than other men. He will return with all the greater 
 alacrity, as the senses to which these objects appeal, 
 though formerly stained and disordered, were so, not 
 through their own fault or that of the objects them- 
 selves, but through the fault of the mind. " It is in 
 the mind," says St John of the Cross, " that the 
 disorders of the animal part of our nature take rise, 
 and from it that they derive their strength." l 
 
 The purification of the senses is accomplished by 
 means of the purification of the mind. When the 
 mind is healed, the senses which are animated by it 
 are deprived of their poison. We have just seen 
 that St Theresa taught that we ought first to seek 
 the Creator in creatures. She also tells us that 
 when once we have advanced far enough in perfec- 
 tion we shall be able to return to creatures through 
 the Creator, and that we shall then find them pure 
 and adorned with the beauty they possessed in days 
 of primeval innocence. Her great friend, St John 
 of the Cross, expressed the same idea in more ab- 
 stract language : 
 
 " God certainly does not wish to destroy nature ; 
 on the contrary he wishes to perfect it." " The 
 soul (when united to God) falls at first into a state of 
 great forgetfulness. With regard to exterior things, 
 it then shews so great a negligence and so great a 
 contempt of self that, lost in God, it forgets to eat 
 or drink, and it no longer knows if it has done a thing 
 or not, or whether or not it has been spoken to by 
 anyone. . . . But once the soul has become firmly 
 established in the habit of a union, which is its 
 1 St John of the Cross, Work quoted above, p. 282.
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 129 
 
 sovereign good, it no longer forgets reasonable 
 things, and things of moral and physical necessity. 
 On the contrary, it is more perfect when engaged 
 in works suitable to its state of life, although it 
 accomplishes them by the help of images and know- 
 ledge which God excites in a special manner in the 
 memory. All the powers of the soul are, as it were, 
 transformed in God." 1 
 
 From the imagination and memory we naturally 
 pass on to consider the intellect or the understanding 
 properly so called. 
 
 We must not expect too many miracles from God. 
 Sanctity may create an equality in love and devoted- 
 ness among souls, but it does not effect a similar 
 transformation among minds. To the end St Paul's 
 brain remained vastly superior to that of St Peter, 
 and yet who can tell which of these two saints 
 approached nearer to the Source of all light and 
 truth ? And in like manner, the least among the 
 companions of St Francis Xavier may have pos- 
 sessed a martyr's courage fully equal to his, but for 
 all that God was in no way bound to bestow upon 
 him a gift for the direction of souls such as the saint 
 enjoyed, any more than He is obliged to endow all 
 simple and pious monks with the metaphysical genius 
 of St Augustine and St Thomas or the creative 
 genius of St Vincent of Paul. 
 
 The understanding, therefore, is a faculty which 
 
 naturally varies greatly in quality among the saints. 
 
 Some saints have been comparatively simple-minded, 
 
 1 Work cited above, p. 146. 
 
 I
 
 130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 and, humanly speaking, very ignorant. It is the sight 
 of such as these, that creates the idea in many 
 people's minds that in the Church sanctity is in- 
 separably allied with a degree of mortification 
 calculated to restrain and stifle the gifts of nature. 
 Those of the saints who are credited with the 
 possession of genius are set down as persons whose 
 faith made them blindly obedient, and who became 
 saints by sacrificing their natural gifts and thus re- 
 ducing themselves by artificial means to the same 
 humble condition in which the rest were born and in 
 which they lived all their lives. This is an absolutely 
 mistaken idea. Ignorance had no more to do with 
 the sanctity of the youthful martyr than genius had 
 with the sanctity of St Thomas. The psychology of 
 the saints does not undertake, therefore, to make a 
 correct estimate of the degree of intelligence pos- 
 sessed by one or other of the souls of the Blessed ; 
 its object is rather to show how they used their 
 minds, whether great or small, and how these latter 
 developed under the influence of sanctity. 
 
 The saints distrust no kind of knowledge or science 
 in itself. As far as they are personally concerned, 
 they prefer the life of Christ and of the Church as 
 a subject of meditation, to the life of plants and 
 animals, or the constitution of minerals. But in 
 other people, or when required by their own voca- 
 tion in life to take up secular study, they despise 
 no kind of work or department of knowledge, for 
 everything has been made by God and everything 
 therefore can be studied with a view to His glory. 
 
 What the saints lay most stress upon with re-
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 131 
 
 gard to science, is the spirit in which men seek to 
 acquire and to teach it. Bossuet's well-known 
 saying puts their case in a nutshell " Woe to that 
 science that does not teach us to love." By love he 
 means action, action for the glory of God, for justice, 
 and for the relief of human misery. The saints con- 
 demn vainglorious science, for the vainglorious man 
 never loves. They also blame rash science, for rash- 
 ness is a form of pride. But when science is neither 
 rash nor vainglorious, the saints are keenly alive to 
 its merits, for they know that love and action require 
 to be directed by knowledge. The Gospel tells us 
 not to hide our light under a bushel, and St Paul 
 entreats his disciples : " This I pray you, that your 
 charity may more and more abound in knowledge 
 and in all understanding : that you may approve the 
 better things." 1 These words are often forgotten by 
 imprudent or idle souls, but a St Vincent of Paul 
 remembers them. It is he who has taught us to sub- 
 stitute forethought and organised charity for charity 
 which is impulsive, unreflecting, and unmethodical. 
 
 The saint, no doubt, is often a man of intuitive per- 
 ception. He was either born so or he has become 
 so, and it is customary to declare that flashes of 
 illuminating grace come upon him which take the 
 place of reflection and spare him the trouble of 
 thinking. I do not deny that inspirations may come 
 to him, and I do not care to know whether intuitive 
 minds, which jump to sudden conclusions, as dis- 
 tinguished from patient and reflective minds, are 
 more frequent among saints than among other men. 
 1 Phil. i. 9-10.
 
 132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 There are quite sufficient well-known cases of saints 
 who certainly hesitated and took time to make up 
 their minds. The saint who spends many days in 
 examining his own conscience and in getting others 
 to examine theirs does not think it necessary to 
 keep the whole world informed of his experiences and 
 methods of reasoning. Every now and then some 
 maxim or a few pregnant words escape him, in spite 
 of his humility and love of silence, which give us 
 some idea of the store he must have laid up of 
 thoughts and recollections. 
 
 Abbe le Monnier is right when he says that a 
 whole educational treatise is contained in the seven 
 words of St Francis of Assisi to Brother Elias : 
 " Watch, warn, labour, nourish, love, wait, fear." l 
 
 We may take it for granted that this power of 
 conveying great truths in very few words was not 
 possessed by the saint at the very outset of his 
 career, but that it was the result of a lifetime of 
 patient labour and of much sowing, cultivating, and 
 reaping, both in his own soul and in the souls of 
 others. 
 
 And yet, someone may object, the saint is not 
 troubled by doubts. If by doubts is meant doubts 
 about faith, I agree ; but if it is suggested that the 
 saint goes straight ahead, looking neither to the 
 right nor the left, in blind response to every in- 
 spiration that happens to seize him, this, I say, 
 is absolutely untrue. 
 
 In order to see this, we have only to compare the 
 
 1 The Latin is still more expressive : Vigila, admone, labora, 
 pasce, ama, expecta, time.
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 133 
 
 sceptic and the believer. The real sceptic believes 
 neither in a dispensing Providence, nor in a pre- 
 established order of things, nor in immutable laws. 
 He denies that either conviction or virtue rests upon 
 solid foundations. In his opinion, therefore, nothing 
 is impossible. His own desires and wayward imagina- 
 tion lead him to hope for everything, and, given the 
 circumstances, there is nothing he does not attempt 
 to prove, and, as a last resort, affirm to be true. He 
 is as little influenced by objections as he is deterred 
 by scruples. It is no paradox, therefore, to describe 
 the sceptic as a man who believes everything. 
 
 The believer, on the other hand, knows that he 
 has to reckon with certain things. He knows the 
 ground he is standing on, but he is also aware that 
 he is surrounded by a good deal else which he cannot 
 master, and which resists his best attempts at inves- 
 tigation. The more certain he is that there is an 
 established order of things, both solid and fruitful, 
 the more clearly he perceives an almost infinite vista 
 of untold possibilities. He knows that to deal with 
 them would be a matter of extreme difficulty to a 
 mere isolated passer-by such as he is, in this world 
 and, therefore, he makes up his mind to doubt 
 until he is certain that a fact bears the impress 
 of truth upon it. 1 
 
 The saint has a firmer hold on the truths of faith 
 
 1 St Catherine of Siena makes the following curious remark in 
 a letter to Queen Joan of Naples : " If you say : I still doubt : at 
 least remain neutral until you see clearly. . . . Seek explanations 
 and counsel from those whom you know for certain fear God " 
 (Letters, I. 218).
 
 134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 than even the ordinary believer, but he is, therefore, 
 all the more distrustful of the promptings of an 
 understanding that is imprudent, hasty, prejudiced, 
 and egotistical. The intellectual life of most saints 
 is a wonderfully interesting mixture of liberty one 
 might almost say audacity combined with a craving 
 for order and unity. Most people imagine that in 
 the Catholic Church this craving, which nothing 
 short of submission can satisfy, crushes the life 
 out of every other aspiration ; but, as a matter of 
 fact, we do not find that this is the case with the 
 most highly favoured of her children. The saints 
 certainly desire unity, and if absolute silence were 
 necessary in order to attain to it, silent they would 
 willingly become ; and if the sacrifice of their lives 
 were needed, they would gladly give them up. But 
 if speaking will help, they speak ; and if, instead of 
 giving way to others, they believe that they can, and 
 in the interests of truth ought to, make others yield 
 to them, they spend all their time, trouble, and prayer 
 to gain this latter end. Whatever doubts were at 
 first raised by prudence and humble self-diffidence, 
 vanish, and give place to faith which is not only 
 courageous but " violent," as the Gospel tells us 
 it ought to be. 
 
 St Paul wished at any cost to agree with St Peter, 
 but when he saw that he erred in adopting a line of 
 action, calculated to impede the conversion of the 
 Gentiles, he reproved him publicly, and, what is 
 more, gained him over to his own way of thinking. 
 St Bernard, St Catherine of Siena, and many another 
 saint, has acted in like manner with regard to the
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 135 
 
 popes. The Gospel says that St John outran St 
 Peter, and came first to the Sepulchre and looked 
 in, but that he would not be the first to enter. 
 Theologians say that his action was symbolical 
 of what habitually takes place in the Church. All 
 great saints, whether founders or reformers, were 
 in advance of the pope of their day. They did 
 not wait to take the initiative from him. What 
 they expected of him was final recognition and 
 permission to extend their work throughout the 
 universal Church. 
 
 Some one or more of my readers may perhaps be 
 astonished at what I am now going to say. It is 
 commonly supposed that, in the Church, all original 
 views, bold innovations, fruitful inventions, or in- 
 terest in intellectual problems, have emanated from 
 heresiarchs, while the saints, having done violence 
 to themselves in order to continue obedient to 
 authority, remain stationary and opposed to all such 
 things. Nothing can be further from the truth. 
 Were it not that the word heresiarch has come to 
 bear a very sinister meaning, we should be perfectly 
 justified in maintaining that the greatest heresiarchs, 
 that is to say, the boldest innovators, the most eager 
 searchers after truths not new in themselves, per- 
 haps, and in so far as they touch upon dogma, but 
 new at any rate to the generation which hears them 
 are the saints. Does not the Church derive the 
 very form of her teaching from the teaching of 
 her doctors, and is it not as true to say that the 
 saints make the Church as to say that the Church 
 makes and sanctifies the saints? In what then do
 
 136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 heresiarchs 1 (according to the sense now attached 
 to the word) differ from saints? In this, that the 
 former suppress, cut down, narrow, and impoverish; 
 their famous so-called "choice" of which they are so 
 proud consisting always in an exclusion, either of 
 grace to the seeming gain of liberty, or of liberty for 
 the sake of an apparent glorification of grace alone 
 in a suppression, that is to say, of one or other 
 of the two natures in Christ, etc. The saint, on 
 his side, makes choice of a truth which he then 
 develops, of a need of mankind or of the Church 
 which he intends to supply, or of a charitable work 
 which he wishes to begin; but in the process of 
 development he destroys nothing, on the contrary, 
 he causes one more shoot to bud forth from the 
 everlasting Tree. 
 
 We have seen that while they use their minds, the 
 saints do not omit to pray a great deal. This seems 
 rather an obvious remark to make, but still we may 
 ask, why exactly do they pray? Do they wish to 
 obtain a revelation which will enable them to dis- 
 pense with reflection and thought? Yet when these 
 revelations are granted (which would seem to be 
 
 1 The word " heresy " is now only used in an opprobrious sense, 
 but formerly it signified nothing more than a choice, a party, or 
 sect which might be either good or bad. This is the meaning of 
 the Greek ctfpea-is derived from alpoufMi, I take, I choose, I adhere 
 to. The philosophers gave the name of Christian heresy to the 
 religion of Jesus Christ. St Paul says that, as a Jew, he followed 
 the "heresy of the Pharisees" the most esteemed of any among the 
 Jews. If heresy had meant error in those days, the name would 
 have been more properly applied to the sect of the Sadducees 
 than to that of the Pharisees. Bergier : Diet, of Theology.
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 137 
 
 seldom enough) they appear to inaugurate rather 
 than end a period of anxiety and struggle for the 
 saint. The saints seem to pray chiefly in order 
 to rid their minds of everything that by running 
 counter to two or three essential predominant 
 ideas would serve to confuse, darken, and mislead 
 them. 1 
 
 They aim at possessing that single eye spoken of 
 in the Gospel the word single here signifies purified. 
 Purified therefore of what ? Of those causes of error 
 which logicians so carefully analyse. 2 What we want 
 is not so much to multiply demonstrations as to 
 clear away from before our eyes those veils which are 
 spread by want of simplicity, by anxiety, exaggeration, 
 obstinacy, self-love in a word, by passion. The false 
 mystic delights in analysing his own personal aspira- 
 tions, and in subtleties and mysteries. The true 
 mystic asks for light, and chiefly for light to recog- 
 nise the necessity of sacrifice. 
 
 I drew attention above to the contrast which 
 exists, up to a certain point, between Bossuet's ideas 
 and those of M. Olier. On this particular point, I 
 find that they are entirely of one mind in the com- 
 mon-sense view they take of the matter. Bossuet 
 applies to the saints our Lord's words to His Father 
 as given by St John : "The glory which Thou hast 
 given me, I have given to them" (St John xvii. 22). 
 He understands sanctity to be light given and re- 
 
 1 The Scriptures tell us that ' ' the soul of a holy man discovereth 
 sometimes true things more than seven watchmen that sit in a high 
 place to watch" (Eccl. xxxvii. 18). 
 
 2 See Appendix.
 
 138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 ceived. M. Olier, on his side, dwells on the inner 
 meaning of this idea when he tells one of his friends 1 
 not to allow his mind to be "perplexed" by the 
 new opinions (he is particularly referring to the Jan- 
 senists), which will cause him to lose "clearness of 
 mind " : "I pray our Lord to preserve it to you, as it 
 is one of the things most essential to perfect sanctity. 
 Clear light is a privilege reserved for heaven and for 
 those solitary souls whom God has delivered from 
 the world and its darkness. I beg of you not to let 
 your mind be troubled." He ends with a few words 
 which certainly justify me in what I said above of 
 his respect for common sense : " Do not strive after 
 high and extraordinary perfection." 2 
 
 This simplicity which seeks nothing underhand or 
 exceptional, which is guilty of no evasions but goes 
 straight to the point, is not only good for those who, 
 by their condition in life, and tastes, or rather vocation, 
 are far removed from scientific interests. It is quite 
 as precious a boon to those who cultivate science, 
 and they feel the need of it so keenly that when first 
 they start on the road to sanctity, they seek it to 
 the exclusion of all else. In his youth, St Philip 
 Neri, the future founder of the Italian oratory, sold 
 his books and gave the price to the poor. So did St 
 Dominic. The latest biographer of St Philip 8 is, how- 
 ever, obliged to add that " later on he will return to 
 his books and will no longer fear to combine his 
 
 1 Letters, I., p. 464. 
 
 2 This remark must be taken cum grano salts. I do not suppose 
 it needs any further explanation. 
 
 3 See Saint Philippe de Ntri by Countess d'Estienne. Paris : 
 Lecoffre.
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING 139 
 
 acquired sacred science with all that is best in 
 human learning." Many other saints have done as 
 he did. In their first fervour they discarded the 
 written for the living book, learning the secrets of 
 the spiritual life by means of detachment, humility, 
 and action, and only returning to science when their 
 will and their love had grown strong. For then they 
 were able to recognise the truth of St Theresa's 
 words : " Piety without science may fill souls with 
 illusions and inspire them with a taste for childish 
 and silly devotions." Therefore this saint loved 
 " men who were distinguished by learning," and she 
 warned souls against men who were only half- 
 educated as likely to their harm. She adds, " I 
 have found that, provided they are men of good 
 morals, they are better with no learning at all than 
 with only a little, for in the former case, at least, 
 they do not trust to their own lights but take 
 counsel of really enlightened persons." 
 
 The saints also frequently experienced the need 
 of a division of labour such as is required by dif- 
 ference of condition, sex, vocation and aptitude. 
 Everyone is not equal to carrying out the magni- 
 ficent programme laid down by Bossuet for the ora- 
 torians: "To devote themselves to the reading of the 
 Scriptures so that they may acquire the letter of it 
 by study, the spirit of it by prayer, its inner meaning 
 by solitude, its healing power by practice, its end 
 by charity, which is the goal of all things." But 
 what one saint cannot do alone, many may ac- 
 complish together for the good of all, and to the 
 profit of each one individually. If it is true that
 
 140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the religious orders have produced more saints than 
 life in the world, 1 one, at least, of the reasons is here 
 set before us. 
 
 We should be passing over a considerable portion 
 of the lives of our saints if we were to leave un- 
 noticed two apparently contradictory states which 
 are experienced by the greater number of them. 
 I mean, on the one hand, their spirit of reflection 
 and their habits of self-interrogation and self-judg- 
 ment, and on the other hand, their self-abandonment 
 to that so-called passive prayer in which they seem 
 to aspire not so much to perfection as to a suspen- 
 sion of the operations of reason. 
 
 Both these states are known to be of importance 
 in the life of the mystic, and they have provoked 
 endless discussion as much, and rightly, on theo- 
 logical as on psychological grounds. It is extremely 
 difficult to gain a proper understanding of the 
 different aspects under which the saint's faculties 
 display themselves. 
 
 Do the saints believe themselves to be forbidden 
 to study or reflect ? The question sounds a strange 
 one in the case of a religion which insists upon 
 meditation and still more upon confession preceded 
 by examination of conscience. But truth, which is 
 ever simple in itself, has, in this instance as in many 
 another, been strangely distorted. It will help us 
 to restore things to their right place if we read over 
 the two following articles of the Conference of Issy, 
 written out by Bossuet : 
 
 "XVI. Reflections upon ourselves, our actions and 
 1 See Appendix.
 
 CONTEMPLATION 141 
 
 the gifts we have received, which we see everywhere 
 practised by the prophets and apostles, for the pur- 
 pose of giving thanks to God for His benefits and 
 for other similar ends, are of use to all the faithful 
 and even to the most perfect souls. The doctrine 
 which tends to discourage this practice is erroneous 
 and nearly allied to heresy. 
 
 "XVII. No reflections are dangerous and bad, ex- 
 cepting those which cause us to look back upon our 
 actions and upon the gifts we have received with a 
 view to feeding our self-love, to finding support in 
 nature, or to becoming immersed in ourselves." 
 
 This is the twofold conviction of the saints. 
 They are careful to examine themselves and why ? 
 In order to discern by what spirit they are led and 
 to find out how far they correspond with grace and 
 how much share sensuality and self-love have in the 
 torments and the delights which agitate their souls. 
 Instead of avoiding self-knowledge and hiding what 
 they are from themselves, they look their gifts in the 
 face, and I do not say always, but at any rate fre- 
 quently, they gather from the sight an involuntary 
 conviction of their own sanctity. 
 
 And is this conviction incompatible with that 
 humility which is the groundwork of Christian 
 sanctity ? No ; and this is one of the most inter- 
 esting I might almost say dramatic incidents in 
 the spiritual lives of the saints. We have seen 
 the doubts which assailed St Bernard on the score 
 of his miracles. More than one of his fellow-saints 
 experienced the same, and more than one has been 
 obliged to yield to the evidence before his eyes,
 
 142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 and recognise with gratitude the gifts by means 
 of which God raised him to sanctity. St Francis 
 of Sales owned to Mme. de Chantal that his canoni- 
 sation was not impossible, and St Vincent of Paul 
 not only foretold his own canonisation but informed 
 the future Pope Calixtus III. that he would have 
 to pronounce the decree. 
 
 These, and such -like instances, have caused a 
 certain psychologist to remark that " pride and 
 humility thrive apace in the souls of the saints." 
 As well say they put out an eye in order to see 
 better, for these two qualities are absolutely incom- 
 patible one with the other. No; the saints do not 
 combine pride with humility. They combine per- 
 sonal humility with a clear knowledge of all that 
 God has done for them (fecit mihi magna qui potens 
 esf). It was not pride that made St Paul write as 
 he did. " I am the least of the apostles, who am 
 not worthy to be called an apostle. . . . But by the 
 grace of God I am what I am ; and His grace in me 
 hath not been void" (1 Cor. xv. 9, 10). Elsewhere 
 he says, with a magnificent simplicity, " Be ye fol- 
 lowers of me as I also am of Christ " (Ibid., iv. 16 
 and xi. 1). Many saints have imitated him in de- 
 scribing the wonders God worked in their souls. St 
 Catherine of Siena felt compelled to describe her 
 visions to her confessor, in order that he might judge 
 of her sins in the light of the graces she had received. 
 St Theresa did the same, and we are, therefore, able 
 to understand the otherwise surprising degree of 
 remorse she felt and the accusations of infidelity 
 she so constantly brought against herself. The saints
 
 CONTEMPLATION 143 
 
 realise both the gifts they have received and the 
 obligations these entail upon them. This knowledge 
 engenders not pride but thanksgiving and praise and 
 sincere and keen-sighted humility. 
 
 But are there no dangers attached to this habit of 
 self-scrutiny ? There are ; and none knew this better 
 than the saints. They had practical experience of 
 these possible evil effects, and they inveighed against 
 them in language which has been wrongfully applied 
 to the habit of reflection in itself. St Jane de Chantal 
 experienced something very similar to what St Theresa 
 felt when she described so graphically the danger she 
 felt in herself, but which she conquered, of yielding 
 to sadness, melancholy, and nervous depression. " I 
 dare not read that letter over again," she writes, 
 " for fear of reopening the door to reflections and 
 thoughts about what is passing in my soul, owing 
 to the overactivity of my mind." This remark must 
 not be isolated from its context. The " activity " 
 she dreads is an activity which becomes a weakness 
 by reacting on itself, and which by contemplating 
 itself destroys simplicity and diminishes energy. 
 " Avoid useless reflections," she writes elsewhere. 
 Next to useless reflections come those which are 
 dangerous, because they arise from self-complacency, 
 self-love, and sometimes from a kind of laziness 
 which prefers to contemplate and analyse itself 
 rather than take the trouble to conquer its hesi- 
 tations >and langour. " Everything in its proper 
 season," is a lesson the great foundress is not in- 
 clined to let us forget. "In times of suffering, 
 suffer ; in times of action, act ; in times of joy,
 
 144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 rejoice humbly without fear of doing harm thereby 
 to anything. Such a thought can only arise from 
 self-love." No less dangerous than self-love, which 
 deceives the heart, is the imagination, which leads 
 the understanding and judgment astray. To pay it 
 attention is to encourage it, and, therefore, the saint 
 writes to one of her nuns : " I believe that what you 
 experience comes from God ; still, do not pay too 
 much attention to it for fear of self-complacency. 
 Do not examine too closely whether or not your 
 imagination may have a share in it ; one look is 
 sufficient to bring it into play." The saint is a 
 good psychologist ! And what deep knowledge of 
 the human heart is contained in the following 
 passage : " You tell me three things which augur 
 badly of our novice's frame of mind : that she is 
 attached to her own will and opinion, that she has 
 no simplicity, and that she is immersed in self- 
 contemplation. ... If she has a good head it will 
 only make her the more dangerous ; for great minds, 
 when not addicted to solid and mortified piety, 
 bring desolation upon a whole monastery and some- 
 times upon a whole order." l 
 
 If we now read over again the two articles of Issy, 
 we shall see that they are a very accurate resumd 
 of the united experiences of the saints, set forth 
 with all their known ability for putting things in 
 their right time and place, without exaggeration 
 or omission. 
 
 The same principle may be applied to the so-called 
 
 1 See Letters, edition already quoted, pp. 282, 420, 448, 
 476, etc.
 
 CONTEMPLATION 145 
 
 " passive " state of prayer, the prayer of quiet or union. 
 We must not forget that, even in the case of great 
 saints, this state is never more than temporary, nor 
 does it occur until late on in the life of sanctity. It is, 
 as it were, the repose in the working day of a good 
 labourer. It comes as the reward of prolonged 
 effort, the slowly acquired results of which it, as it 
 were, crowns; but it is not an end in itself, it stimu- 
 lates to further efforts which it makes more easy and 
 more fruitful. St John of the Cross tells us that for 
 a long time " images, ideas, knowledge, reasoning, 
 mental prayer, material objects which strike the 
 senses and imagination, are necessary to prepare the 
 soul for the interior life and perfection." Only quite 
 at the end does it become expedient to rise above 
 the kind of mental activity which is natural to us. 
 Between these two kinds of operation there exists 
 the same sort of difference as there is between a 
 thing that is in process of doing and a thing which 
 is already accomplished between what we desire to 
 acquire and what we actually possess. " Excepting 
 at such times as these . . . the soul should make 
 use, in her spiritual exercises, in all her actions and 
 works, of the memory and of meditation, in order to 
 increase both her devotion and the good she gains 
 from them. She must, above all, meditate upon the 
 life, passion, and death of our Saviour, in order that 
 her actions and life may become conformable to 
 His." 1 
 
 It is therefore as great a mistake to believe that 
 the saint necessarily and habitually suspends the 
 1 Edition already quoted, p. 145. 
 K
 
 146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 operations of his mind, as it is to think that great 
 men are somnambulists who unknowingly receive 
 suggestions and inspirations from the Unconscious. 
 People have readily enough accepted the theory that 
 inspiration in great men is accumulated thought 
 which gives itself out in flashes like the lightning 
 from clouds overcharged with electricity. May not 
 the so-called passive contemplation of great mystics 
 be likewise accumulated piety, active meditation, and 
 resolve ? 
 
 Bossuet tells us that not only do " spoken words," 
 which are the term of discursive operations and 
 efforts, necessarily precede this state of prayer, but 
 that even while it lasts, the state of passivity is by 
 no means universal or continuous. " The soul gives 
 itself as the spouse to her lover. It gives itself to 
 God as actively and freely as God gives Himself to 
 it, for God raises its power of free election to its 
 highest pitch on account of the desire He has to be 
 chosen freely. This is what St Clement of Alex- 
 andria means when he says that man predestines 
 God as much as God predestines man." l 
 
 Such then are "those operations which are higher" 
 than discursive operations. St Theresa treats of 
 them beautifully 2 when she speaks of souls who, 
 without losing (far from it) their recollection and 
 knowledge of mysteries, become capable of seizing 
 them " by a single look " and only appear unable to 
 speak about them, because they enjoy in complete 
 repose, everything that has been engraved upon 
 
 1 Bossuet, " On States of Prayer." Treatise I., Book VII. 
 
 2 See in particular " The Interior Castle," p. 499.
 
 CONTEMPLATION 147 
 
 their memory and made present to their minds by 
 previous meditations. But while they thus gather 
 into one single action the operations which have 
 gone before, they are not rendered incapable of 
 further reflections. Bossuet, at least, did not think 
 so when he wrote: "It would seem that the extreme 
 simplicity of this kind of prayer renders it less easy 
 of recognition in itself than in its effects." 
 
 Neither did St Theresa look upon it as the inmost 
 chamber in her Interior Castle, for the characteristic 
 feature of the progress she made during the last five 
 years of her life, was the possession and the exercise, 
 calm indeed, but more vigorous than ever, of that 
 " Apostolic strength," which she derived from her 
 raptures and visions.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 
 
 TT is an easier task to dispel prejudice by showing 
 that the saints are people who love very intensely 
 and whose love is, as it were, their very life. Before 
 attempting to do so, however, I wish to say a few 
 words on the subject of the "sensibility" of the saints. 
 Christian philosophy teaches that feeling, or what 
 St Thomas, who uses the word in a very general 
 sense, calls simply passion, belongs not to the soul 
 alone but to body and soul together (Passio per se 
 convenit composite 1 ) ; or, in other words, that the com- 
 plex phenomena of joy and pain, passion and emotion, 
 are determined by the joint influence of physical and 
 mental states. To my mind, it is impossible to deny 
 that a man's feelings are coloured to a great extent 
 by his habits of mind, good or bad education, trained 
 or untrained reasoning faculties, by the natural bent 
 of his imagination, his ideas, and above all by his re- 
 ligious beliefs. At the same time, it is equally certain 
 that these emotions are keen or languid, intense or 
 calm, according to the sensations we experience of 
 
 1 Some modern thinkers, in their attempts to combat purely 
 intellectualist theories, have returned to this tradition, adding to 
 it many certainly very interesting facts and some scarcely tenable 
 assumptions. See the Correspondent of April 2501, 1897. 
 148
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 149 
 
 physical disturbances, of correlated and sympathetic 
 movements, and of those many reflex operations 
 caused by the modifications of one organ affecting all 
 the others. 
 
 The emotional sensibility of the saints is subject 
 to these ordinary laws, and is therefore determined, 
 in the first instance, by natural temperament. As 
 women are usually more sensitive and emotional than 
 men, we must not be surprised to find that this rule 
 holds good of women saints no less than of ordinar y 
 women. According to Schopenhauer, " women pay 
 their debt to life, not by action, but by suffering," l 
 and if this dictum is correct, it must be especially 
 applicable to the heroines of the Church. It is so 
 obvious that physical constitution must largely ac- 
 count for this fact that I do not see any necessity of 
 going to work to prove it. What is of more interest 
 to determine is whether the key to all manifestations 
 of sensibility in the saints is to be found in the modi- 
 fications to which their physical existence was sub- 
 jected. 
 
 Some people think and their opinion has been 
 apparently confirmed by Claude Bernard that 
 sensibility is a faculty which is influenced solely 
 by the heart and brain and that the feelings are 
 absolutely independent of all the other organs of the 
 body. No one denies that the heart and brain are 
 the organs which have principally to do with the 
 feelings. A thought may involuntarily present itself 
 to the mind and be rejected, or it may be voluntarily 
 
 1 "And by love," adds M. Fouillee, and in my opinion he is 
 right.
 
 150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 admitted, retained and dwelt on, but in either case 
 the movements of the heart are affected and that 
 organ is subjected to a pressure, more or less great. 
 The result is that the bloqd is either given out 
 violently from the heart, causing a suffusion of blood 
 to the brain when the face becomes crimson ; or else 
 the blood is held back in the heart, circulation is im- 
 peded, the face becomes pallid, and the subject 
 generally goes off into a dead faint. 
 
 This is true certainly, but it is not the whole truth. 
 There are many other organs which help to modify 
 both our feelings and our sensations, for on the one 
 hand, whether by their healthy action or by their 
 secretions, they affect those nerves upon which the 
 harmonious action of the larger organs depends, and 
 on the other, they themselves suffer indirectly from 
 the movements of the heart when they are either 
 left without blood or receive it in too large quantities. 
 This was long ago noticed by an observer whose 
 opinion is certainly worthy of attention : l " The 
 experimental science of our days compels us to 
 determine more accurately the various elements of 
 this phenomenon, but by no means allows us to deny 
 its existence. Perhaps it even exaggerates its im- 
 portance when, on the strength of certain pathologi- 
 cal facts and experiments of the dissecting room, it 
 affirms that a more or less artificial anaesthesia of 
 the skin and the mucous membrane and other parts 
 can induce an apparent suspension of every sort of 
 emotional activity." 
 
 1 See Dr Sollier's article in the Revue philosophique of March 
 1894.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 151 
 
 Anyway our forefathers were right when they 
 attached so great an importance to the action of the 
 heart and gave a lesser share in the work to the 
 other organs. They were keen observers, though 
 they may have expressed themselves badly. 
 
 Were they right too when they declared the heart 
 to be the organ of the nobler feelings, of courage, 
 love, enthusiasm, of moral suffering generously ac- 
 cepted, and when they attributed feelings of secret 
 envy and jealousy and gnawing melancholy to the 
 influence of other organs? Apparently they were, 
 and a very possible explanation of the fact lies in 
 the most intimate connection existing between the 
 heart and the brain, which is the organ of those 
 higher impressions that are more directly con- 
 trolled and determined by the action of our free 
 will. 
 
 Human life, we must not forget, is a complexus 
 of actions and reactions in which body and soul 
 alternately modify one another. If it comprises 
 innate peculiarities of structure or tendency which 
 dispose us to one passion more than another, it 
 also comprises self-formed voluntary habits which 
 check or accelerate this disposition, and create more 
 or less powerful currents amongst these mixed 
 emotions. 
 
 Hagiographers constantly tell us, apropos of their 
 subjects, that anger, hatred and pain cause the 
 blood-vessels to contract, retard the action of the 
 humours, and produce obstructions; while hope, joy 
 and Divine love "which is ever well regulated," 
 expand the heart and the blood-vessels, "quicken
 
 152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 the circulation and raise the spirits." This was 
 the old way of speaking, and it is more in harmony 
 with modern physiological theories than people 
 generally suppose. 1 
 
 To go back now to our saints. If we remember 
 the kind of life led by the majority of them, we see 
 at once that their temperance, continency and aus- 
 terity must have had the effect of greatly simplify- 
 ing the movements of the physical and animal 
 parts of their organisation. 
 
 Over the door of each cell at the Grande Char- 
 treuse there is a Latin inscription. The first one 
 that I saw when I visited the place bore the 
 words "Estate sobrii, simplices et quieti" a beautiful 
 graduation of ideas, in which the first leads on, of 
 necessity, to the two others. The composer was 
 evidently of one mind with the greatest moralist of 
 antiquity, for twice over Seneca tells us that " luxury 
 feeds anger," and again, " what chiefly feeds anger 
 is luxury and self-indulgence." 2 Though seemingly 
 paradoxical, these words express a great truth and one 
 which I have often seen verified among the criminal 
 classes, where, in spite of the prejudices entertained 
 on the subject by worldly-minded persons, the chief 
 offenders are not those who suffer but those who 
 live in comfort. But we must not stray from our 
 subject. All I want to point out is that owing to 
 physiological reaction no less than to the combined 
 
 1 See Appendix. 
 
 2 Luxury is a relative term. What would seem homely enough 
 to a Parisian would excite pride and sensuality in a simple 
 villager.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 153 
 
 effects of habits to which all the faculties, and even 
 the mind, are subject, the allaying of the appetites 
 is necessarily followed by the allaying of a consider- 
 able amount of sensibility. 
 
 This rule does not apply in the case of the heart, 
 properly so-called, and of that kind of emotion which 
 is controlled by it. The account of the post-mortem 
 examination l on the body of St Philip Neri is a most 
 interesting document. In this case, the inferior 
 organs were atrophied, but the heart had increased 
 in size to such an extent that, in order to make 
 room for itself, it had forced up one of the ribs 
 and created a sort of artificial cavity. This would 
 account for the rapidity of his circulation and the 
 great heat of his body, which no extreme of cold 
 could affect, and we may be allowed to conjecture 
 that it would also account for those outbursts of racy 
 humour which were intermingled with his effusions 
 of ardent love, as, for instance, when he declared 
 that " there is nothing harder than living to the 
 man who really loves God." 
 
 It is a well-known fact that singular phenomena 
 in the physiological organ of the heart are very 
 frequent among the saints. I am not going to 
 discuss the more extraordinary of these cases, or 
 those which Catholic sentiment treats as genuinely 
 miraculous, like the piercing of St Theresa's heart 
 or those visions in which some mystics have felt as 
 if Christ gave them His Heart in exchange for theirs. 
 
 1 Performed by Cesalpino and two other celebrated surgeons 
 of the day. A similar account is given of the results of the post- 
 mortem examination on the remains of Pere de Condren.
 
 154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 It is open to anyone, of course, to believe that these 
 are mostly tricks of the imagination, which from a 
 corporal sensation conjures up a symbolical vision 
 and innocently believes it to be a reality. Still, the 
 person has experienced some physical change in this 
 part of the body, for, even were the miracle genuine, 
 it would call natural forces into play, and the results 
 of these material changes, whether in the heart itself, 
 or in organs which shew signs of an afflux of blood or 
 stigmata, have been frequently verified by authentic 
 official reports. 
 
 B. Angela of Foligno gives the following account 
 of herself : " When I saw Jesus Christ clearly, with 
 the eyes of my soul, poor, despised and suffering 
 as I had asked to see Him, I felt such a piercing 
 sorrow that I thought my heart would break." 
 
 Many sensitive people could say almost as much 
 of the effect produced upon them by any great trial 
 that has to come to them during their lives. St 
 Mary Magdalen of Pazzi had a more wonderful 
 experience. Our Lord appeared to her one day 
 and shewed her His Heart, and she was ever after 
 " obliged to unfasten her habit, or to burst forth 
 into torrents of words like songs, in order to 
 lessen the heat of the interior fire which consumed 
 her." 
 
 St Catherine of Genoa believed that she had a 
 wound in her breast, and she was often obliged to 
 keep her hand on her heart to quiet its palpitations. 
 Eighteen months after her death, her body was 
 exhumed and found to be incorrupt. The skin had 
 turned yellow, " with the exception of the skin over
 
 PEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 155 
 
 the heart, which was still quite red." Similar, and 
 even more wonderful phenomena were observed in 
 the case of the hearts of St Francis of Sales and 
 St Jane de Chantal. 
 
 There is no need for me to supplement the very 
 able and authentic accounts that have been pub- 
 lished of these marvellous occurrences. All I wish 
 to say is, that they shew that the sensibility of the 
 saints was of that warm, human kind which points 
 to a close connection between body and soul, between 
 the circulation of the blood and the movements of 
 the mind. 
 
 We see therefore, that in judging of the sensibility 
 of the saints, we must take account, less of their 
 capacity for joy or suffering, than of their will 
 to suffer in the interests of some one cause or 
 idea. Faith controls love and love controls those 
 mental images which excite the emotions and thereby 
 reveal the interior feelings of the heart. The world 
 readily believes that the mystic has lost all power 
 of feeling, because he is no longer moved by the 
 things of this earth, but the mystic himself considers 
 that his feelings were, so to say, dead during the 
 years which preceded his conversion, and that they 
 have been recalled to life by the action of grace. 
 " My heart was then so hard," says St Theresa, 
 " that I could read the whole Passion without 
 shedding a single tear. This want of feeling greatly 
 distressed me." She tells us again that "these 
 tears, which are, in a way, the result of our own 
 persevering efforts, helped by grace, are of im- 
 mense value, and it would be worth all the labours
 
 156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 in the world, to obtain even a single one of 
 them." 
 
 Does the saint who thus suffers with Christ, 
 cease to feel his own pains? Does he no longer 
 feel the movements of the passions like other men ? 
 This is sometimes the case, but, according to 
 Benedict XIV., it more frequently happens that the 
 senses are only under control and not extinguished. 
 The following words of St Bernard l can be used 
 both of physical martyrdom with its attendant 
 material tortures and of that moral martyrdom 
 which is endured by great souls. " Where, then, is 
 the soul of the martyr? It is in a place of safety, 
 dwelling in the Bosom of. Jesus. If it were dwelling 
 in its own, by self-scrutiny, assuredly the stabbing 
 sword would be seen and felt, the pain would be 
 unendurable, it would succumb or deny its Lord. 
 If it is an exile from the body, is it wonderful that 
 it does not feel the pains of the body ? This is not 
 the consequence of insensibility but of the force of 
 love." Non stupor sed amor, a definition at once 
 classical and strictly scientific, and one which will 
 help us clearly to distinguish between the psycho- 
 logical condition of the saints and that of all those 
 persons whose state bears an artificial resemblance 
 to theirs buddhist monks, fakirs, invalids, and 
 since we must mention them once more, hysterical 
 subjects. 
 
 M.Janet has called St Theresa " the patroness" 
 of hysterical persons, but did the thought of her 
 
 1 Sermon 61 (quoted by many of the saints, who probably 
 recognised in these words their own experiences).
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 157 
 
 and those like her, never recur to his mind when 
 treating of emotional perturbations? For though, 
 like his predecessors, he lays great stress upon the 
 fact that hysterical attacks are the means by which 
 " exaggerated and perverted " emotions manifest them- 
 selves, he is careful to point out that the dominant 
 idea in the mind of the hysterical subject, develops 
 in an unbalanced and disconnected manner. From 
 this latter remark he is led to another which is in only 
 apparent contradiction with it. Hysterical subjects, 
 he says, have really far fewer emotions than is 
 generally believed, " for their chief characteristic, 
 in this respect as in others, is a diminution in the 
 number of psychological phenomena. Persons suffer- 
 ing from hysteria are usually indifferent to every- 
 thing that does not bear reference to a small 
 number of fixed ideas. Although their emotions 
 are exaggerated and out of all proportion, they are 
 few and monotonous." 
 
 I am pretty sure that if St Theresa, who has 
 given us such an astonishingly accurate description 
 of the four kinds of melancholy, were to read these 
 lines, she would recognise the condition they de- 
 scribe as that of more than one of the nuns she 
 was obliged to nurse. 1 
 
 But who could possibly apply the above description 
 to natures so many-sided and richly endowed as those 
 
 1 Especially of the poor ecstatica whom she cured by making 
 her take more food. Compare M. Janet's recipe with St 
 Theresa's. He says, " With rest, better food and more sleep, the 
 sick person often improves, and then she regains the feelings 
 which had disappeared."
 
 158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 of St Theresa, St Jane de Chantal, St Bernard, and 
 St Francis of Sales. 
 
 Someone may answer: "All the same, great saints 
 were absolutely disabled by their emotions at the 
 sight of a crucifix, while they could hear that a 
 revolution had broken out and not turn a hair." It 
 may be so, but then many persons who make this 
 an objection against the saints, are themselves ready 
 to weep over a novel, while they remain quite un- 
 moved by the story of the Passion of Christ, which 
 He endured to save mankind. 
 
 However, the most subtle part of the accusation 
 levelled against the saints is really contained in these 
 words: "Hysterical subjects lose those social and al- 
 truistic feelings which are the most complex of all." 1 
 
 Do the saints lose these feelings? 
 
 In order to answer this question we must not only 
 continue our study of their outward characteristics, 
 but we must probe even still more deeply into the 
 hidden psychology of their lives. To begin with, 
 whom do the saints love ? The answer, of course, 
 will be, God. Nobody doubts that fact for a single 
 instant, and the tendency is, on the contrary, to ex- 
 aggerate it, and to say that the saints love nobody 
 but God. 
 
 We must not forget that in sanctity, as in all things 
 else, there is a gradual development. (Plato would 
 
 1 They ought to be, but the question is whether they really are. 
 It is terribly easy for a cynic like La Rochefoucauld to simplify 
 this complexity by attributing all our social inclinations to self- 
 love. If this ruthless moralist is right, I leave it to my readers to 
 decide which head the cap is most likely to fit : the average in- 
 dividual's or the saint's.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 159 
 
 call it a "dialectic" 1 and in the present day it would 
 be called an evolution.) It is a mistake to think that 
 the high-water mark of sanctity is reached on the 
 day the saint makes the sacrifices which are most 
 painful to nature. The monk, the religious, lives on 
 long after he has severed the last ties that bind 
 him to the world. It was not the only time that St 
 Jane de Chantal acted as a saint when she stepped 
 across the prostrate body of her son. On the con- 
 trary, her subsequent life of sanctity was the only 
 possible justification for such an action. St John of 
 the Cross has already told us that we must pass 
 through a certain night of the senses and memory 
 in order to enjoy that full light of the imagination 
 and mind which illuminates even the things of earth. 
 The saint has also to pass through a night of the 
 heart, but he does not remain in it. On the day 
 after her clothing, a nun 2 wrote as follows: "In 
 obedience to the rule of the noviciate, I have dropped 
 all my correspondence. Sacrifices of the heart and 
 universal detachment are what God chiefly requires 
 of us, poor women, who have nothing left on this 
 earth, neither country, home, parents or friends." 
 Having got that far, she pulls herself up and 
 continues, without even beginning a fresh sentence : 
 "or rather, I ought to say, the whole world is ours, 
 for, according to St Vincent of Paul, our love em- 
 braces the entire world." 
 
 i i.e., a. logical, as opposed to a physical unfolding ; the articu- 
 lated expansion of an idea rather than of an organism. [Ed.]. 
 
 * See Life of Mother Marie de Sales-Chappuis (of the Visita- 
 tion in the Rue de Vaugirard), p. 353.
 
 160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 This young religious was speaking in the language of 
 the saints. Before St Vincent of Paul, St Catherine 
 of Siena used to say: "The reason why God's servants 
 love creatures so much is that they see how much 
 Christ loves them, and it is one of the properties of 
 love to love what is loved by the persons we love." 
 She constantly repeats the same idea. 1 We are 
 told by her contemporaries that she brought about 
 innumerable reconciliations, and that this was the 
 chief cause of the great influence she exercised over 
 the public affairs of her country. Many other saints 
 whose lives and actions were more hidden than hers, 
 have said the same thing, that when Christ crucified 
 takes possession of a soul He inspires it with a very 
 great tenderness for the humanity for which He died. 
 Sanctity demands complete detachment from all 
 pleasures which are derived from self-love. This is 
 a rule which admits of no exception, and it applies to 
 spiritual as well as earthly consolations. According 
 to the great mystics, the end and chief use of "dry- 
 ness and aridities " is to detach the soul, not from 
 spiritual benefits, but from a selfish and sensible love 
 of them. Once self-love is destroyed, the barrier is 
 done away with and not only is there no law of de- 
 tachment from all things, but the soul is enjoined to 
 love everything, provided that it does so " for the love 
 of God." 
 
 I foresee an objection. I shall be told that loving 
 
 the whole world really means loving no one and that 
 
 this universal love is precisely what kills the natural 
 
 affections. But is it loving no one to do as the saints 
 
 1 See "Letters," I. 237, II. 327.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 161 
 
 did when they deprived themselves of food and cloth- 
 ing for the sake of the poor, when they nursed the 
 sick and even kissed their wounds, when they enter- 
 tained pilgrims and strangers gratuitously, when 
 they found homes for orphans and children, and 
 braved the contagion of lepers and the plague-stricken 
 with no other protection than faith and prayer, when 
 they freed captives at the price of their own liberty, 
 and enfranchised slaves, when they defended negroes 
 against the tyranny of their masters and, like St 
 Catherine of Siena, assisted convicts at the hour of 
 death, when they founded refuges for young girls 
 whose poverty exposed them to evil, and opened their 
 arms to the afflicted and to sinners for whom they 
 felt all Christ's passionate pity and mercy ? There is 
 no priest, no apostle, no father worthy of the name, 
 who ought not to be able to cry out at every hour of 
 the day with St Paul " Who is weak and I am not 
 weak, who is scandalised and I am not on fire?" 
 Who suffers in any way and I do not suffer with 
 him? 
 
 Natural affection is, I think, equally strong in all 
 the saints, though their manner of shewing it varies 
 according to the condition of life in which they are 
 placed. Married saints are model husbands and 
 wives in the intensity of their human affection. St 
 Bridget, St Lewis, St Elizabeth of Hungary and St 
 Jane de Chantal found their earthly love no hindrance 
 to divine love very possibly the former led them on 
 to the latter, for every duty of our state of life which 
 we fulfil with all our heart, leads us nearer to God. 
 If the love of an earthly father teaches the child to 
 
 L
 
 162 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 understand the love of its Father in Heaven, why 
 should not a woman's affection for her earthly 
 husband lead her on to a more tender love of Him 
 who in mystical language is so often called the 
 Spouse of the Soul ? St Bernard l went so far as to 
 say, " Love begins in the flesh and ends in the spirit," 
 and St Catherine of Siena tells us emphatically that 
 nothing has so great an influence over the heart of 
 man as love, " for man was created by love and there- 
 fore it is his nature to love. Man was created body 
 and soul by love, for out of love God created him to 
 His own image and likeness and out of love his 
 parents gave him being." 
 
 When from the contemplation of her Heavenly 
 Spouse, the soul returns to earth and to her earthly 
 spouse, she returns with a love that is purified 
 certainly, but in no way diminished. The saints 
 apparently found it easy to reconcile these two kinds 
 of love, for in their daily lives they passed rapidly 
 and without long preparation from one to the other. 
 St Elizabeth of Hungary exerted all her ingenuity 
 in order to leave her husband as little as she could, 
 for, says a contemporary writer, they loved one 
 another above what it is possible to conceive (supra 
 quam credi valeaf). When she found out accidentally, 
 one day, that her husband had promised to join the 
 Crusade, her grief was so violent that she fainted 
 away. When left alone, she returned to her 
 penitential exercises as eagerly as if she had had 
 no love for anyone but God, but when her husband 
 
 1 Ep. II. Quoted in the new "Life of St Bernard" by Abbe 
 Vacandard, I. 183.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 165 
 
 "no one can have too much heart, and that if only 
 the intention is pure we should love every creature 
 on this earth." The former assertion I find re-echoed 
 by St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa, and also by 
 the stern founder of St Sulpice, M. Olier. Writing to 
 condole with the Marquis de F^nelon on the death 
 of his wife, he says : l " My dear child, your Madeleine 
 is loving you and waiting for you in the Bosom 
 of God. She knows that you cannot love her too 
 much." I venture therefore to affirm that when two 
 souls are united "in God" they cannot love each 
 other too much. This was M. Olier's opinion and 
 that of the saints also. 
 
 As regards the second assertion, that we should 
 love every creature on this earth, it is justified by 
 the simple affection shewn by the saints for animals. 
 Everyone is delighted, and rightly, by St Francis of 
 Assisi's expressions of tenderness for his little sisters, 
 the doves. The only mistake is, that people fancy 
 these are peculiar to himself, the effect of his gentle, 
 dreamy, innocent nature, which was far more affec- 
 tionate and poetical than is usual with the saints. 
 
 St Bernard, though fiery and awe-inspiring by 
 nature, and very severe to himself, was seized with 
 feelings of intense compassion at the sight of pain, 
 weakness and moral or physical infirmity. He could 
 not attend a stranger's funeral without shedding 
 tears. His kindness of heart shewed itself, say his 
 biographers, even towards animals and wild beasts. 
 If he saw a hare pursued by dogs, or a small bird in 
 danger of being caught by a bird of prey, he was so 
 1 Letters, I. 515.
 
 166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 touched with compassion that he could not help 
 making the sign of the cross in the air to ensure 
 the poor little creature's safety. 1 We see, therefore, 
 that that emotional sensibility which the saints at first 
 endeavour to diminish by refusing it the satisfaction 
 it craves for, returns to them later on, having gained 
 in richness and delicacy from the intensity of their love 
 and the unlimited area embraced by their charity. 
 
 This same sensibility makes them not indifferent to 
 those innocent pleasures which, according to Alfred 
 de Musset, help us to enjoy life, or at any rate, make 
 the burden of it easier to bear. They do not seek 
 them for themselves, but they endeavour to procure 
 them for others, especially for the young, or the sick 
 and afflicted. St Clare and St Theresa used to drag 
 themselves out of their beds in order to go and see 
 if any of their sisters, whose health caused them 
 anxiety, were warmly clothed enough. St Francis 
 of Assisi almost worked a miracle in order to pro- 
 cure " a good dinner " for his doctor, one day that 
 the monastery larder was nearly empty. On the 
 other hand, however austere to himself the saint 
 may be, he readily accepts a service from another, 
 when it is offered, merely thanking God for having 
 given him so kind a companion. 
 
 The friendships of the saints are therefore no 
 matter for astonishment, although a certain well- 
 known writer has expressed a wish to write a whole 
 book on the subject. Neither is it surprising that 
 " in the history of most of those saints who have 
 
 1 See Vacandard work quoted above, II. 514; also see 
 Appendix.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 167 
 
 reformed or founded religious institutions, we find 
 that the love and devotedness of a holy woman 
 exercised a great influence over their lives and 
 work." St Paula stands beside St Jerome, the 
 Countess Matilda beside St Gregory VII., St 
 Clare beside St Francis of Assisi, St Theresa 
 beside St John of the Cross, St Jane de Chantal 
 beside St Francis of Sales. 
 
 It is now time to turn to the consideration of that 
 love which transforms all other love the love of God. 
 
 I shall consider it under two aspects only in its 
 relation to suffering and in its relation to action, 
 for it is under these two aspects that the love of 
 the saints differs absolutely, not only from profane 
 love, which seeks its own enjoyment, but also from 
 the " quietist " love of false mystics. 
 
 " I have always recognised," writes M. Olier to a 
 holy woman his confidant at the time being called 
 Marie Rousseau, " that to suffer is the very essence 
 of being a Christian." l And yet he goes on to tell 
 her of his many troubles and of his dread of the 
 trials of life. He bore them, nevertheless, with 
 heroic courage, and in another letter, written shortly 
 afterwards to his director, he explains why he was 
 able to do so. " How easy it is," he says, " to love 
 in the midst of enjoyment. But to love in the midst 
 of suffering is hard, and in my opinion this is the 
 test of true love." 
 
 There are two ways of loving in the midst of 
 suffering. A person may accept sufferings with 
 1 Letters, I. 276, cf. ib. t 390.
 
 168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 resignation for the sake of obtaining future happi- 
 ness for himself or others. This is the first degree 
 to which the saints soon attained, and none sooner 
 than the writer whose words we have been quoting. 
 But from this acceptance of suffering which is within 
 the reach of many philosophers and men of heroic 
 character, he rose to a desire of suffering. Why 
 did he desire to suffer ? 
 
 There are degrees even of this latter state. Suffer- 
 ing may be desired, not as the reward of a kind of 
 self-interested devotion, but as a condition in which 
 we are brought nearer to the attainment of an 
 object which is, in itself, worth all the sacrifices 
 of which man is capable. " Become like to the 
 meek Jesus your Chief," writes St Catherine of 
 Siena to Urban VI., "whose will it is, that from 
 the beginning of the world until the end, nothing 
 great shall ever be accomplished without much 
 suffering." l 
 
 In spite of the heroism of her words, it is 
 likely enough that the saint was making some 
 allowance for a remains of human feeling in the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, and that she strove to turn his 
 love of glory to good account. But when the 
 saint rises to fresh heights he realises that all 
 great things are in reality accomplished by God 
 through the medium of man, and therefore as far 
 as he himself is concerned he desires suffering 
 solely as a means of destroying self-love and 
 everything that tends to separate him from the 
 Object of his love. We read in M. Olier's life: 
 1 Letters, I. 83.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 169 
 
 " I said interiorly : Lord, by suffering alone, can 
 I shew my love for Thee. Lord, how can I live 
 without expressing my love for Thee. Suffering 
 for Thy sake will shew Thee that I love Thee." 
 
 There is a human element even in heroism such 
 as this. 1 A brave soldier desires to fight for his 
 country's glory, and a statesman who is passionately 
 desirous of his country's greatness will grudge the 
 time wasted in the pleasures of society. Did not 
 Lord Palmerston declare ironically, but also with 
 a great deal of truth, that " Life would be endurable 
 were it not for its pleasures." Why should the 
 saints alone be considered mad when, full of zeal 
 for the kingdom of God, they cry out with St 
 Theresa : " Suffering alone can make life tolerable 
 to me. My greatest desire is to suffer. Often 
 and often I cry out to God from the depths of 
 my soul : Lord, either to suffer or to die is all I ask 
 of Thee." 2 
 
 And when the saint has thus accepted and desired 
 sufferings, he is not satisfied unless he courts them. 
 This is asceticism properly so-called. People get a 
 false idea on the subject and imagine that in the 
 
 1 I found the following remarkable lines in a dramatic leaflet of 
 Jules Lemaitre, Dlbats t Aug. n, 1895: "Oh! the wonderful 
 fertility of pain. It is suffering which makes Jocelyn's heart so 
 deep, so wide, so tender with great souls their capacity for 
 loving brings suffering, which is the sign and the measure of this 
 capacity, and then suffering, in its turn, increases and ennobles the 
 power of loving so that very soon such souls can only be filled 
 and satisfied by taking upon themselves, by charity, all the 
 sufferings of others." 
 
 2 Her life, 351. Cf. Olier, Letters, I. 390.
 
 170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 saints, asceticism comes from a distaste for life or 
 from a desire to mortify gross temptations of the 
 flesh. But asceticism, if we look out the etymology 
 of the word, means exercise. And in what way does 
 the ascetic exercise himself ? In bearing sufferings 
 patiently, then in seeking them in spite of his nat- 
 ural dislike of them, and finally, in acquiring a love 
 for them. Quite so, and this is the gradual advance 
 we described above. But when he suffers voluntarily, 
 the saint exercises himself in yet another way. He 
 exercises himself in willing and acting, and this 
 brings us back to the consideration that according 
 to the theoretical psychology of the saints, love and 
 the will are one and the same thing. 
 
 A superficial psychology, or one which deals only 
 with persons very far removed in character from the 
 saints, would have us believe that pleasure stimulates 
 action and that pain dulls it. Pain dulls action 
 when it saps the strength, when it is dreaded and 
 the person either cannot or will not turn it to good 
 account, or when effort would only end in creating 
 irreparable evil. But this is never the case with the 
 saints. With them sufferings may reduce the 
 strength of the body, but they do not weaken the 
 soul, for they are the fruit of the vigour of a soul 
 which loves and is desirous only of self-sacrifice. 
 Neither do sufferings dull action, for though they 
 are increased by it, this increase is precisely what 
 the soul most desires, as the highest degree of per- 
 fection to which it can attain on this earth. Finally, 
 they do no injury to the soul, for they are the most 
 efficacious means by which nature can be repaired
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 171 
 
 and restored to its ideal state. This state is attained 
 in its perfection only in the next world, but the soul 
 is cheered and encouraged by possessing a foretaste 
 of it here below. This foretaste produces in the 
 soul of the saint a certain joy l which never leaves 
 it, and this joy co-exists with sufferings which are 
 not only not dreaded but which are sought after and 
 encouraged. 
 
 Two apparently incompatible states are in this 
 way brought together in a union which is incompre- 
 hensible to those who only know commonplace 
 humanity in its dull mediocrity of useless existence 
 but which is perfectly intelligible and susceptible of 
 being scientifically explained to those who look at 
 psychology as a whole which takes in all the parts of 
 the human soul in their right order and excellence. 
 
 Action is therefore the culminating point in the life 
 of sanctity, but instead of having now arrived at 
 the term, we stand rather on the threshold of a com- 
 plete study of the saint's career ; for however sublime 
 his words or sentiments may be, it is by his actions 
 that men judge him and by his actions that even 
 sceptics are brought to honour and admire him. 2 
 
 As my limits are already reached, I will only 
 make a short summary of what I have been saying, 
 and conclude by shewing how, in the saints, aptitude 
 for action and the power of acting are closely con- 
 
 1 This joy has been proved to be so inseparably allied with the 
 state of sanctity that Benedict XIV. makes its presence one of 
 the necessary conditions for beatification. 
 
 2 This volume is to be followed by lives of the saints which 
 purpose to shew sanctity in action.
 
 172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP THE SAINTS 
 
 nected with those psychological phenomena we have 
 been considering above. 
 
 " He does much who loves much," says the author 
 of the " Imitation," and it is certainly true that love 
 itself that is to say, love considered as an impulse 
 of the soul which feels itself at once too rich and too 
 poor, and which seeks to give itself and thereby to 
 realise itself is active and well worthy of the follow- 
 ing description : " Love feeleth no burden, thinketh 
 nothing of labours, would willingly do more than 
 it can, complaineth not of impossibility because it 
 conceiveth that it may and can do all things " 
 (Im., Bk. III. chap. 5). 
 
 But we must not forget that " it is the property 
 of love to change the soul into the thing which it 
 loves," l and therefore those who have charge of 
 a soul are in fear of its safety until they have seen 
 what the object of its love is to be. As the soul 
 of the saint loves God and the Son of God, it is not 
 deterred from action, but on the contrary it is con- 
 strained to follow Him, carrying its own cross. 
 Like St Catherine of Siena, 2 it considers that its 
 neighbour has been given to it as a means of 
 proving its love for God. As it cannot serve God 
 directly, it serves Him indirectly to the best of its 
 ability, according to its state of life, in the person 
 of its neighbour who is dear to God. 
 
 If, in the accomplishment of its task, the soul 
 meets with sensible consolations, it receives them 
 with gratitude, but if they are denied to it, it re- 
 members that true love is shewn by gratuitous 
 1 Olier, Letters, II. 423. 2 Letters, II. 285.
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 173 
 
 labour and not by feelings of sensible devotion. 
 St John of the Cross and St Theresa both declare 
 that love is before all things strong and efficacious, 
 and that to love God means to serve Him in 
 humility, strength and justice. 
 
 Action is necessary to the saints on account of 
 their desire for suffering and also on account of 
 the kind of suffering they desire. They have no 
 love of passive suffering or sadness, and they can- 
 not find words enough in which to condemn it. 
 St Francis of Assisi calls it the " Babylonian " 
 malady, and St Catherine of Siena says that it is 
 brought on by Satan, who, when he sees that he 
 cannot tempt the soul to sensuality, which "destroys 
 constancy, and renders the heart narrow, weak 
 and cowardly," endeavours to excite "trouble, dis- 
 gust, sadness and scruples of conscience." M. Olier 
 also says that sadness inclines the soul to desire 
 sensible consolations which, although they appear 
 to come from God, are in reality born of sensuality 
 and self-deception. St Theresa tells us plainly, " I 
 fear nothing so much as to see my daughters lose 
 this joy of the soul, for I know, to my cost, what 
 a discontented religious is like." 
 
 The saints, therefore, love active sufferings, or to 
 use their own words, the pangs of travail. For a 
 single soul, for a city or a country, for an institution 
 which hatred would endeavour to suppress, for an 
 Order which is to be laborious, learned and chari- 
 table, for a church, they rejoice to feel those pangs 
 of spiritual child-birth, and in the language of all 
 true mystics, such child-bearing is the fruit and 
 token of love.
 
 174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 I am not asserting a paradox when I say that 
 the activity of the saints is nourished by contempla- 
 tion, although Renan has contrasted saints and men 
 of action with the intention of showing that the 
 former were idealists and men of prayer and con- 
 templation only. His mistake is shared by a good 
 many people, but it is none the less amazing on 
 that account. 1 
 
 There is, as we have seen, one faculty which remains 
 not only unfettered but strong and active, while the 
 saint is wrapt in the highest kind of contemplation, 
 and that is the intellectual will. The senses, memory, 
 imagination, reasoning powers, and the effective will 
 may be for a time paralysed, but the simple action 
 of the will which consists in the free gift of one's 
 self, is never suspended. All true mystics agree as 
 to this point. And again, psychological facts must 
 be judged of by their development and effects. Con- 
 templation is, we have seen, closely connected with 
 love, and what is more, with active love. It is the 
 fruit of an already intense and active love, and it 
 inspires and directs a love that is still more ardent. 
 In the midst of a life of action, St Gregory the 
 Great writes : " If we wish to reach the citadel of 
 contemplation, we must begin by exercising ourselves 
 in the field of labour. Whoever wishes to give 
 himself to contemplation, must first examine what 
 
 1 It is not shared by Henri Martin, who writes as follows of 
 Joan of Arc : " She was a serious child, already shewing signs 
 of that love of solitude and meditation combined with great 
 energy of action, which is characteristic of persons called to ful- 
 fil a great mission in life."
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 175 
 
 degree of love he is capable of ; for love is the lever 
 of the soul. It alone is able to raise the soul, to 
 detach it from this world and give it wings." 1 Here 
 work is made to precede contemplation and contem- 
 plation, in its turn, produces work and makes it 
 more efficacious. It is impossible for the purified 
 soul to contemplate the Passion of Christ without 
 feeling called to suffer with Him, in the same spirit 
 and with the same end in view the redemption of 
 mankind. 
 
 Contemplation is also a help to action, because it 
 forms, in the soul, as it were, a reservoir of ideas, 
 love, and energy, which when full is forced to over- 
 flow. " A duct-pipe," says St Bernard, " gives out 
 at once whatever it receives, a reservoir waits until 
 it is full." He goes on to add : " Unfortunately 
 there are in the Church very few reservoirs and 
 many duct-pipes, souls who desire to rule without 
 having learned to govern themselves." 
 
 Lastly, the active strength of the saints is due to 
 their state of mind and to their firm and enlightened 
 faith. They are, as I said before, certain of their 
 end, but prudent and circumspect in the means they 
 use to gain it. Here again, the saint and the 
 sceptic act very differently. The sceptic adopts any 
 means that come to hand, but he is quickly dis- 
 couraged, for he very soon begins to ask himself, 
 " What is the good of it ? " The saint neither 
 doubts nor hesitates, once he has begun to act, 
 precisely because, before acting, he has hesitated, 
 doubted and reflected. " When the soul acts purely 
 1 Moralia, vi. 37.
 
 176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 for the love of God," says St Theresa, " He allows 
 it to experience, I know not what sort of fear, when it 
 first begins to act." But she would have agreed 
 with St M. Magdalen of Pazzi, who says that the 
 servant of God " at the plough, never turns his head 
 to look back," and with the advice given us by St 
 Ignatius : "In times of desolation never to change 
 the resolutions made before the desolation began, 
 but to try and change the interior dispositions, that 
 is to say, the desolation itself." 
 
 Let us stop for a moment to consider this rule, 
 which is one of the wisest ever drawn up by a 
 director of souls. 
 
 What are these two states of consolation and 
 desolation ? There can be no better definition given 
 of them than we find in the Exercises of St Ignatius. 
 He sums up the teaching of tradition as the subjects 
 in the following words : " I call consolation, every 
 increase of faith, hope and charity and every kind 
 of interior joy which calls and attracts man to 
 heavenly things and to the salvation of his own soul, 
 rendering it quiet and tranquil in its Creator and 
 Lord. ... I call desolation all that is contrary. . . . 
 as darkness and disquiet of soul, an attraction to- 
 wards low and earthly things, the disquiet of various 
 agitations and temptations which urge it to diffidence, 
 when the soul finds itself without hope and without 
 love, slothful, tepid, and sad, and, as it were, separated 
 from its Creator and Lord." 
 
 So that what is called by the saints "the good 
 spirit," is that which causes joy even in the midst of 
 sufferings that are both accepted and desired, and
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 177 
 
 "the bad spirit" is that which causes doubt and 
 sadness even in the midst of sensible pleasures. 
 This is very unlike the " Bear and forbear " (sustine 
 et abstine) of the stoic. The saint tells his disciples 
 what he tells himself: "Mistrust a state of hope- 
 lessness and depression, because you are then under 
 the influence of a bad spirit, but when your heart is 
 light and you feel strong and joyous, go forward, for 
 God is with you." Is not this the' best possible 
 incentive to action ? For it is surely better to begin 
 by resolute action which is in time reinforced by a 
 feeling of manly joy, than to start with a feeling of 
 pleasure which is likely to become insipid and to 
 weaken the energy of the soul. 
 
 To come now to a practical conclusion : we must 
 make profit out of desolation as out of any other 
 punishment, trial or lesson, but we must also fight 
 against it by means of reflection and prayer and still 
 more by constancy to former resolutions made in 
 time of consolation. From a merely human point of 
 view, this rule, if followed, must carry us victorious 
 through useless regrets and moments of weakness. It 
 is to no purpose to object that there is danger of 
 confounding consolation and illusion, and that desola- 
 tion may sometimes be only a clearer sight of real 
 difficulties and obstacles, for the saints do not fall 
 into either of these errors. They have entertained 
 preliminary doubts when these were in any way 
 reasonable, for, as the Scriptures tell us, there is a 
 time for all things, a time for hesitation and a time 
 for decision. If there are difficulties when the time 
 comes for execution, there is all the greater need of 
 
 M
 
 178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 prudence and earnest prayer, not indeed for the 
 purpose of reopening the whole question, but in 
 order to obtain fresh light and strength which will 
 enable the soul to bring the work which it has begun 
 to a successful issue. Thanks to habits like these, 
 nothing is lost of the energy generated by the pres- 
 ence of faith, hope and charity in the soul. Nothing 
 is left to work itself off in sadness and doubt. It is 
 all spent and at the same time renewed by firm and 
 confident action. 
 
 This is what makes the optimism of the saints, 
 which is the only reasonable kind of optimism, the 
 greatest force which the world has ever known. 
 
 And how does it employ itself? The works of 
 charity scattered over the globe proclaim the answer 
 to this question, and they would proclaim it even 
 more loudly did the world not reject the love of 
 God's servants. St Bernard describes the active 
 life as follows : The active life consists in giving 
 bread to those who have none, in teaching the 
 word of wisdom to our neighbour, in bringing back 
 into the right path those who have gone astray, in 
 recalling the proud to charity and enemies to peace 
 and concord, in visiting the sick and burying the 
 dead, in ransoming captives and prisoners, and in 
 seeing that each one has what he requires." 
 (Treatise on the way to live a good life.) 
 
 What a field of action the above programme opens 
 out to the saints of all ages, including if we may be 
 allowed to say so the saints of the future ! Giving 
 bread to those who have none, means more than a 
 trifling charity. It means organising works and
 
 FEELING, LOVE AND ACTION 179 
 
 creating methods of association, as well as exercising 
 forethought, so that each man's daily sustenance 
 may be secured to him. Visiting the sick means 
 causing charity to co-operate with the science of 
 medicine and surgery, so that the wonderful power 
 possessed by the latter may not, as is often the 
 case, be nullified by the carelessness and misery 
 with which it has to cope. Making peace means a 
 restoration of those relations which once enabled 
 pastors of souls to intervene for the preservation of 
 the peace of families and Christian states, and which 
 would empower them to disarm ruthless competition 
 by enjoining everywhere the bona fide practice of 
 such conditions as would ensure a reasonable, humane 
 and moderate amount of labour. The number of 
 captives and prisoners to console increases in the 
 prisons in proportion to the growing number of 
 criminals who work for the universal destruction of 
 society. A saint who would found an Order recog- 
 nised by civil society might, in these days, effect the 
 conversion of these offenders and prepare them to 
 become useful members of a society which, as things 
 are now, only seeks to get rid of them after having 
 made them what they are. 
 
 Such is the active life of the servant of God, and 
 he has need of all the light, all the purity, reflection, 
 love and spirit of self-sacrifice, as well as of all the 
 joy of which, as we have seen, the saint's soul is 
 capable, to enable him to support the weight of his 
 increasing labours. 
 
 Two orders of evolution are working themselves 
 out on the earth. One of them is briefly described
 
 180 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS 
 
 by Ignatius of Loyola, under these three heads : the 
 Flesh, the World, and Satan. The Flesh, with its 
 lusts and its tendency to animal gratifications The 
 World, with its rivalries, quarrels and hatreds 
 Satan is the exterior suggestion to every one of 
 those cries which appeal to us and endeavour to 
 enslave us to our ruin. 
 
 The whole secret of the life of sanctity may be 
 summed up under three very opposite heads : the 
 Spirit, the Church, and Christ. The Spirit, which 
 is the master and controller of the Flesh which has 
 been reduced to its proper and subordinate condi- 
 tion the Church, which unites together all men of 
 good will Christ, our eternal model in whom we 
 are brought face to face with our own humanity, 
 restored and glorified.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Page 6. It may be contested whether ori&njs, as defined and de- 
 scribed in the Euthyphro, corresponds exactly to our English sense 
 of the word sanctity. So far as it only implies an obedient fulfil- 
 ment of the divine law, a loyal rendering of all religious dues, it 
 scarcely goes beyond piety (pietas}, or ' religion ' in the sense of 
 religiousness. But it can hardly be denied that in this dialogue, 
 and more explicitly elsewhere, 6<rt6T?;j is considered to involve a 
 certain likeness to the gods, a sharing of their nature and contem- 
 plative beatitude which is very analogous to the Christian notion 
 of saintliness. At all events M. Joly does not contend that the 
 special Christian conception, but only that the generic conception 
 of sanctity is common to all religions of note. 
 
 Page 38. Of course this proposition is not convertible. 
 ' Mysticism is the love of God ' ; but not all love of God is 
 mysticism, though indeed it contains the rudiments or elements 
 of mysticism in so far as all love, both human and divine, is a 
 principle of life and conduct which refuses the analysis of reason, 
 having instincts and intentions which enable it to leap to con- 
 clusions, speculative as well as practical, to which reason can 
 never even crawl. Still the word ' mysticism ' is reserved by 
 usage for an unwonted degree of such unitive insight, just as 
 sanctity is used only of extraordinary degrees of sanctification, 
 and heroism for a fortitude which seems superhuman. 
 
 Page 76. Our attention was called only at the last moment to 
 the error by which a letter of S. Francis of Sales (see ' ' Letters of 
 S. Francis of Sales to Persons in the World " ; translated by 
 Rev. Fr. H. B. Mackey, O.S.B. Book V. Letter XVII.) has 
 here been ascribed to S. Jane de Chantal. 
 
 Page 91. That is, of course, if we assume what we need not 
 
 181
 
 182 APPENDIX 
 
 assume, namely, the objectivity of such apparitions. It is plainly 
 indifferent whether the miracle be worked in the mind and 
 consciousness of the assembled crowd or in order of things 
 external to their mind, since there is no question of a reality, but 
 only of an appearance. 
 
 Page 99. In other words the higher vocation is the harder, and 
 the percentage of those who fail in it greater. Ampler faculties 
 and graces are not only apt but more liable to be diverted to 
 greater ruin. This is in the very nature of things and it is useless 
 to complain. An heresiarch or schismatic is often only a reformer 
 soured and gone bad through anger, impatience, pride, failure of 
 faith. Moses trembled on the verge once or twice ; Savonarola 
 more than trembled. God has a fair thought to utter in each 
 man's life, but if it be mouthed and marred in the utterance, then 
 is the discord shrill and strident with all the strength that was lent 
 for harmony. 
 
 Page 127. It is chiefly in its milder and more human conception 
 of the relation of the body to the soul, and consequently of the 
 senses and imagination to the intellect, of the passions and emotions 
 to the will, that the peripatetic philosophy is more in harmony 
 with the economy of the Incarnation than the platonic. The 
 latter is perhaps a more apt medium for expressing those dogmas 
 which concern the mysteries of the divinity and of the purely 
 spiritual order. The Christian religion has availed herself of both 
 one and the other according as she has found them in common 
 vogue. She commits herself to no sect or school of philosophy 
 except in respect to those common principles which are the 
 necessary product of the human mind ; but she uses philosophies 
 as she uses languages, to translate divine truths into them as 
 accurately as the limits of language will permit, and so to convey 
 her mysteries to the human mind of every age and country what- 
 ever be its tongue, whatever its forms of thought, its science, its 
 tradition, history, and legendary lore. 
 
 Page 137. It may be remarked that the whole scope and end of 
 that course of spiritual treatment to which St Ignatius of Loyola 
 subjects the soul during the weeks of " the Exercises " is to secure 
 a state of interior calm and indifference in order that the retreatant 
 may be able to make an election, either as to some particular
 
 APPENDIX 183 
 
 crisis or as to his general course of life, unbiassed by any excessive 
 like or dislike, and guided solely by the consideration of what will 
 most conduce to the one end for which he was created the glory 
 of God and the perfection of his own soul. "Spiritual Exercises," 
 he titles them, "that a man may set his life in order without 
 therein being determined by any disorderly affection." 
 
 Page 140. Whatever may be true of the percentage, it is 
 certainly not true that religious orders have produced absolutely 
 more saints than the secular state. If we speak of canonised 
 saints, i.e., of that small handful whose sanctity has by one 
 circumstance or another been brought under public gaze, it may 
 well be that a religious corporation will have the means and the 
 motive for forwarding a process which in other circumstances 
 would never have been heard of. Similarly, among canonised 
 saints the proportion of bishops to priests is very large, doubtless 
 because a bishop's office brings him into greater prominence and 
 affords opportunity for more striking action. Finally, against all 
 our antecedent expectations, the number of canonised men saints 
 is large compared with that of women ; but plainly for just the 
 same reason. 
 
 Page 152. There is much curious reading on this subject, such 
 as would have delighted Charles Lamb, in the first section of the 
 second part of the ' Summa ' of Aquinas, 1 which shows that it 
 was due rather to the defective instruments and methods at their 
 disposal than to any lack of observation or industry that the all- 
 inquiring schoolmen failed in the details of their physiology of 
 the emotions, while anticipating many of the leading ideas and 
 principles of the modern psychologists. 
 
 Page 1 66. It is much to be regretted that certain recent con- 
 troversies should have revealed a disposition on the part of some 
 to credit the Catholic religion with the sentiments and practices 
 of individuals or even nationalities professing that creed. This is 
 plainly illiberal and witless, unless it can be shown that such senti- 
 ments are the product and logical outcome of Catholic beliefs and 
 principles. It may well be that in combating the extravagances 
 
 1 Qq. 28, 33, 44, 48, etc. of Aquinas thicus, translated by Rev. J. 
 Rickaby, S. J.
 
 184 APPENDIX 
 
 of a purely emotional and unreasoning zoophily which is anxious 
 about vegetable boots and miteless cheese, and tends to deny any 
 special sacredness to human life which does equally belong to 
 "everything that hath breath," the apologists of sound sense have 
 insisted too exclusively on the negative side of animals ' rights, ' 
 leaving the positive to take care of itself ; it may be that they 
 have couched their arguments in a philosophy and terminology 
 not " understanded of a people" at best impatient of any philo- 
 sophy ; but this is an evil incident to every controversy and for 
 which the assailants and not the defenders of the received position 
 are answerable. Not only is there nothing in the principles of 
 Catholic teaching to countenance brutality or carelessness in 
 regard to animal suffering, but there is everything to encourage 
 a rational carefulness and consideration. It should however be 
 observed that a sensitive sympathy with physical suffering is a 
 growth of civilisation involving a high development of the imagin- 
 ation and a delicacy of the nervous system which we seek in vain 
 in savage or semi-barbarised peoples ; and which it is not one of 
 the direct effects of religion as such to produce. What seems to be, 
 and in us would be, cruelty, is in the animal or the child or the 
 savage mere bluntness of perception and coarseness of nerve. 
 This explains how those who are so kind and sympathetic in 
 some respects (namely, in regard to sufferings they perceive and 
 understand) are so seemingly heartless in others. It is not 
 wonderful then that those who in a way are good Christians 
 and kindly to their fellows should often exhibit brutality in their 
 treatment of animals, as is to be seen so commonly in Italy. It 
 is a defect of civilisation rather than of religion whose action on 
 civilisation is always indirect and often impeded by other con- 
 ditions over which it has no control. G. T.
 
 The Saints. 
 
 The Series is under the General Editorship of 
 M. HENRI JOLY, formerly Professor at the Sorbonne 
 and at the College de France, author of numerous 
 works upon Psychology ; and the authorised English 
 translations are having, and will continue to have, 
 the advantage of the revision of the Rev. Father 
 TYRRELL, S.J., who contributes to each volume a 
 Preface and, in some cases, a few Notes addressed 
 especially to English readers. 
 
 In order to give a true idea of the nature of the 
 volumes, the publishers give below some passages 
 from the letter addressed by the General Editor of 
 the Series to his collaborators. 
 
 " In a very remarkable letter upon the true method of 
 writing the lives of the Saints, Mgr. Dupanloup did not 
 hesitate to say that, ' there are very few lives of the Saints 
 written as they should be,' and he asks for this work, 
 ' Above and beyond everything else a love of the Saint, 
 then a profound study of his life and spirit from original 
 sources and contemporary documents, then the portraiture 
 of this soul and its struggles, and of what nature and grace 
 were in it ; all this traced with simplicity, truthfulness, 
 dignity, deep penetration and impressive detail, in such a 
 way that the Saint and his times may be faithfully repre- 
 sented, but nevertheless so that the presentation of the 
 contemporary facts of history may not blur the picture of 
 the Saint, who should always remain the most prominent 
 figure in his story ; true and authentic facts, briefly set 
 forth, but arranged with skill and cleverly disposed, in a 
 scholarly sequence preparing for and illuminating every-
 
 THE SAINTS 
 
 thing ; ' the precaution of ' making the Saint himself tell 
 his own story, without which everything living and in- 
 dividual is apt to disappear, and thus all Saints are made 
 to resemble one another ; . . . a style, in short, simple, 
 reverent, touching and penetrative.' 
 
 " That all these qualities have been often enough united 
 in works worthy of being studied we are very far from deny- 
 ing . . . but it has been in the case of quarto books or in 
 works in more than one volume. It has therefore been 
 thought opportune to present a living portrait of each of 
 the great Saints in a more restrained form, in order to draw 
 attention to it and perhaps to re-form the ideas of a much 
 larger circle of readers." 
 
 The following passage, taken from an article by 
 the English Editor in The Month for December 1897, 
 entitled " What is Mysticism ? " will also be of use 
 as a further indication of the spirit in which the 
 books are being written : 
 
 " The old time-honoured Saint's Life, with its emphasis 
 on the miraculous and startling features of the portrait, its 
 suppression of what was natural, ordinary, and therefore 
 presumably uninteresting, and consequently its abandon- 
 ment of all attempt to weave the human and divine into 
 one truthful and harmonious whole, showing the gradual 
 evolution of the perfect from the imperfect, to many minds 
 makes no appeal whatever. . . . All this points to the need 
 of what we might call a more subjective treatment of 
 Saints' lives than we have been accustomed to ; and it is 
 to this that the ' Psychologic des Saints' addresses itself. 
 We need less than formerly to be dazzled with the wonder- 
 ful, and more to be drawn to the lovable. We want to be 
 put en rapport with the Saints, to feel their humanity, to 
 interpret it by our own, and thereby to realise that no 
 miracle they ever wrought is comparable to the miracle of 
 what they were."
 
 THE SAINTS 
 
 The first volumes will be as follows : 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 By HENRI JOLY, formerly Professor at the 
 Sorbonne and at the College de France. Author 
 of " L'homme et 1'animal " ; " Psychologic des 
 grands hommes," &c. 
 
 S. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 By AD. HATZFELD, joint-collaborator with Arsene 
 Darmesteter in the " Dictionnaire General de la 
 Langue 
 
 S. CLOTILDA. 
 
 By GODEFROV KURTH, Professor at the Uni- 
 versity of Liege. Author of " Histoire poetique 
 des Merovingiens," " Clovis," &c. 
 
 S. VINCENT DE PAUL. 
 
 By PRINCE EMMANUEL DE BROGLIE, Laureat de 
 1' Academic 
 
 Further volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 LONDON : DUCKWORTH & CO.
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 TCRNBULL AND SPEAKS 
 
 EDINBURGH
 
 Messrs Duckworth & Co.'s 
 Announcements. 
 
 Extra Crown 8vo, price izs. 
 
 STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. By LESLIE 
 STEPHEN. A new Collection of Essays in 2 vols. 
 
 Crown 8z>0, price ys. 6d. 
 
 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THE 
 ORIGIN OF THE COSMOPOLITAN 
 SPIRIT IN LITERATURE. A Study of 
 the Literary Relations between France and England 
 in the i8th Century. By Dr JOSEPH TEXTE. 
 Translated into English by J. W. MATTHEWS, and 
 revised by the Author. 
 This work, which has recently been " crowned " by the 
 
 French Academy, will be the first of a small collection of 
 
 standard French criticisms upon matters concerning English 
 
 Literature. 
 
 ESSAYS ON FRENCH WRITERS. By V. 
 M. CRAWFORD. 
 
 Crown 8vo, price js. 6d. 
 
 WAR AND POLICY ON THE INDIAN 
 BORDER. By STEPHEN WHEELER, Author of 
 "The Ameer Abdur Rahman." 
 
 Mr Wheeler's book consists of an historical summary of 
 the relations of the Indian Government with the tribes on 
 the North- West and West Frontiers from Chitral to Balu- 
 chistan, with some account of the military expeditions 
 undertaken for the maintenance of peace on the border. 
 It also deals with the geography of the country and the 
 ethnology of the people ; with the history of the border 
 tribes previous to the British annexation of the Punjab and 
 Scinde, and with the political problems arising out of the 
 recent disturbances. An endeavour is made to trace the 
 origin and development of the Forward policy, and to form 
 an impartial estimate of the work achieved by men of the 
 Lawrence and Roberts schools respectively. 
 
 LONDON : DUCKWORTH & CO.
 
 Messrs Duckworth & Co.'s Announcements. 
 Crown 8vo, price 73. 6d. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF 
 HISTORY. By CH. V. LANGLOIS and CH. 
 SEIGNOBOS, of the Sorbonne. Translated by 
 G. G. BERRY, with a Preface by F. YORK 
 POWELL. 
 
 Of the French edition Literature (Feb. I2th, 1898) spoke 
 thus : " No effort so seriously methodical to fix the nature 
 and determine the difficulties of historical studies has ever 
 been made in France. Nor is there anything of the sort in 
 English or German at once so precise, so admirably concise, 
 and so logically complete. ... MM. Langlois and Seigno- 
 bos, with that clearness which seems inalienable from 
 French thought, but with none of that superficiality, that 
 wilful defect of vision which usually in French books is the 
 condition of French clearness does not Renan himself, in 
 the preface to ' L'Avenir de la Science,' note this ordinary 
 disability and this incomparable privilege of the French 
 tongue ? not only have been the first to systematise con- 
 cisely and clearly the scattered results of reflections upon, 
 and experience of, historical studies, but have also them- 
 selves formulated the principles of historical research with 
 a critical precision and competence which make these 
 remarkably compact and suggestive pages as useful an 
 essay in definition of a right historical method, as Kenan's 
 famous early book just cited was, and still is, for the culti- 
 vation of what he called 'historic psychology.' . . . This 
 book of M. Seignobos and M. Langlois is, as it were, a 
 solid monument of masonry raised on the high plateau to 
 which French scholars have been ascending now for thirty 
 years, and elevated there as a memorial of the victory of 
 the critical method. . . . The rigorous scientific treatment 
 of historical studies has not been more general and syste- 
 matic, however, in England than in France, and an ' Intro- 
 duction to Historical Studies ' that is adequate is bound to 
 be as warmly welcomed by students in Great Britain or the 
 United States as by students in France." 
 
 LONDON : DUCKWORTH & CO.
 
 Messrs Duckworth & Co.'s Announcements. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo, price 3^. dd. net. 
 
 LYRICAL BALLADS. By WILLIAM WORDS- 
 WORTH and S. T. COLERIDGE. 1798. Edited, 
 with certain poems of 1798, and an Introduction 
 and Notes, by THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 This Edition reproduces the text, spelling, punctuation, 
 etc., of 1798, and gives in an Appendix Wordsworth's 
 " Peter Bell " (original text, now reprinted for the first time) 
 and Coleridge's " Lewti," " The Three Graves," and " The 
 Wanderings of Cain." It also contains reproductions in 
 photogravure of the portraits of Wordsworth (by Hancock, 
 1798) and of Coleridge (by Peter Vandyke, 1795), now m 
 the National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 In preparation, uniform with the above volume. 
 
 STATE TRIALS, POLITICAL AND 
 
 SOCIAL. In 2 vols. Selected and Edited by 
 H. L. STEPHEN. 
 
 Further announcements will be made from time to time 
 of the issue in similar format of other books of which at 
 present no well annotated and otherwise sufficiently desir- 
 able editions exist. It is not intended to include herein, 
 as a rule, the oft-reprinted classics, except in so far as fresh 
 treatment of them may seem, on the whole, needful. 
 
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 Messrs Duckworth & Co.'s Announcements. 
 
 ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 MESSRS DUCKWORTH & CO. have pleasure in 
 announcing that they have arranged to issue a series 
 of books upon the English Public Schools. 
 
 No series of such School Histories exists, and the 
 publishers believe that many boys, while at school and 
 when leaving it, may like to possess an authentic ac- 
 count of their School, issued at a moderate price. The 
 Series will, it is hoped, appeal also to old Scholars, and 
 to all interested in the history of English education. 
 
 The volumes will be illustrated ; they will be printed 
 in small quarto; and will cost, as a rule, 53. each. 
 
 The first three will be : 
 
 A HISTORY OF ETON COLLEGE. By 
 
 LIONEL CUST, M.A., Director of the National 
 Portrait Gallery. 
 
 A HISTORY OF WINCHESTER 
 COLLEGE. By ARTHUR F. LEACH, M.A., 
 F.S.A., formerly Fellow of All Souls', Oxford; 
 Assistant Charity Commissioner. 
 
 A HISTORY OF RUGBY SCHOOL. By 
 
 W. H. D. ROUSE, M.A., sometime Fellow of 
 Christ's College, Cambridge. 
 
 To be followed by others. 
 
 LONDON : DUCKWORTH & CO.
 
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