that he thinks he was so favored, or because it
is a work to which both heaven and earth have set their hand, showing
him, as Emerson observes, "all imagination," or, as James Russell Lowell
says, "The highest spiritual nature which has expressed itself in
rhythmical form."

There are two methods of representing man's supreme happiness, relative
and absolute: one is to depict nature at her best, untouched by sin, and
to show man free from every defect and blemish, in the full perfection
of his being. Naturally the imagery in this case is the imagery born of
finite human experiences. The other method describes, as we said, not
scenes of happiness but transcendent conditions of the soul as it is
brought into ultimate communion with Supreme Goodness--the finite
possessing and enjoying the Infinite. Here the human mind, let us repeat
it, finds earthly images powerless to translate its thought, for it hath
not entered into the heart of man to conceive the glory of the spiritual
world. These two methods Dante follows successively.

His Eden on the summit of Purgatory is literally the earthly Paradise of
Adam and Eve. It is pictured in moving imagery as man's "native country
of delights," a "lofty garden" of ineffable loveliness, high above all
the physical and moral disturbances of earth, its waters, its winds, its
flowers and its music all coming from supernatural sources, its bliss
springing from the perfect harmony of man's animal, intellectual and
spiritual powers in full and perfect accord with reason. It is Paradise
Regained by man's climbing the mountain of Purgatory, and its
significance is understood if we remember that Dante would teach us
that the present life can be made dual, a life worth while in itself,
full of service and godliness as well as a preparation for the unending
life of Heaven.

For Dante there must be, also, the Celestial Paradise where man's
supernatural destiny will be realized in joys which the eye has not seen
and in music which the ear has not heard. His Paradiso has been called
the Ten Heavens, but in reality there is in his plan only one Heaven,
the Empyrean, the abode of the angels, of the blessed spirits and of
God. It is high above the planets and the stars, beyond time and space.
The Church has never answered the question: Where is Heaven?
Theologians, however, have put forth various opinions. "Some say,"
writes Father Honthein, that "Heaven is everywhere, as God is
everywhere, the b