hearing of the ear, but
now mine eye seeth Thee; _therefore_ I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes." The proper effect of the vision of God is surely that
which Augustine describes in words already quoted: "I tremble, and I
burn. I tremble, in that I am unlike Him; I burn, in that I am like
Him." Nor is this only the beginner's experience: St. Paul had almost
"finished his course" when he called himself the chief of sinners. The
joy which uplifts the soul, when it feels the motions of the Holy
Spirit, arises from the fact that in such moments "the spirit's true
endowments stand out plainly from its false ones"; we then see the
"countenance of our genesis," as St. James calls it--the man or woman
that God meant us to be, and know that we could _not_ so see it if we
were wholly cut off from its realisation. But the clearer the vision
of the ideal, the deeper must be our self-abasement when we turn our
eyes to the actual. We must not escape from this sharp and humiliating
contrast by mentally annihilating the self, so as to make it
impossible to say, "Look on this picture, and on _this_." Such false
humility leads straight to its opposite--extreme arrogance. Moreover,
to regard deification as an accomplished fact, involves, as I have
said (p. 33), a contradiction. The process of unification with the
Infinite _must_ be a _progressus ad infinitum_. The pessimistic
conclusion is escaped by remembering that the highest reality is
supra-temporal, and that the destiny which God has designed for us has
not merely a contingent realisation, but is in a sense already
accomplished. There are, in fact, two ways in which we may abdicate
our birthright, and surrender the prize of our high calling: we may
count ourselves already to have apprehended, which must be a grievous
delusion, or we may resign it as unattainable, which is also a
delusion.

These truths were well known to Tauler and his brother-mystics, who
were saints as well as philosophers. If they retained language which
appears to us so objectionable, it must have been because they felt
that the doctrine of union with God enshrined a truth of great value.
And if we remember the great Mystical paradox, "He that will lose his
life shall save it," we shall partly understand how they arrived at
it. It is quite true that the nearer we approach to God, the wider
seems to yawn the gulf that separates us from Him, till at last we
feel it to be infinite. But does not this convi