orld from afar off, just as, when we proceed to God by the way of
abstraction, we deny Him, first all bodily and sensible attributes,
then intelligible qualities, and, lastly, that _being_ (_esse_) which
keeps Him among created things. This, according to Dionysius, is the
best mode of union with God."

Bonaventura resembles Albertus in reverting more decidedly than the
Victorines to the Dionysian tradition. He expatiates on the passivity
and nakedness of the soul which is necessary in order to enter into
the Divine darkness, and elaborates with tiresome pedantry his
arbitrary schemes of faculties and stages. However, he gains something
by his knowledge of Aristotle, which he uses to correct the
Neoplatonic doctrine of God as abstract Unity. "God is 'ideo
omnimodum,'" he says finely, "quia summe unum." He is "totum intra
omnia et totum extra"--a succinct statement that God is both immanent
and transcendent. His proof of the Trinity is original and profound.
It is the nature of the Good to impart itself, and so the highest Good
must be "summe diffusivum sui," which can only be in hypostatic union.

The last great scholastic mystic is Gerson, who lived from 1363 to
1429. He attempts to reduce Mysticism to an exact science, tabulating
and classifying all the teaching of his predecessors. A very brief
summary of his system is here given.

Gerson distinguishes symbolical, natural, and mystical theology,
confining the last to the method which rests on inner experiences, and
proceeds by the negative road. The experiences of the mystic have a
greater certainty than any external revelations can possess.

Gerson's psychology may be given in outline as follows: The cognitive
power has three faculties: (1) simple intelligence or natural light,
an outflow from the highest intelligence, God Himself; (2) the
understanding, which is on the frontier between the two worlds; (3)
sense-consciousness. To each of these three faculties answers one of
the affective faculties: (1) synteresis;[231] (2) understanding,
rational desire; (3) sense-affections. To these again correspond three
_activities_: (1) contemplation; (2) meditation;[232] (3) thought.

Mystical theology differs from speculative (i.e. scholastic), in that
mystical theology belongs to the affective faculties, not the
cognitive; that it does not depend on logic, and is therefore open
even to the ignorant; that it is _not_ open to the unbelieving, since
it rests upon faith and