l implicit rather clearer, shows
us at once its difficulty and its simplicity; since it depends on the
consistent subordination of every impulse and every action to one
regnant aim and interest--in other words, the unification of the whole
self round one centre, the highest conceivable by man. Each of man's
behaviour-cycles is always directed towards some end, of which he may
or may not be vividly conscious. But in that perfect unification of the
self which is characteristic of the life of Spirit, all his behaviour is
brought into one stream of purpose, and directed towards one
transcendent end. And this simplification alone means for him a release
from conflicting wishes, and so a tremendous increase of power.

If then we admit this formula, "ever seeking and finding the
Eternal"--which is of course another rendering of Ruysbroeck's "aiming
at God"--as the prime character of a spiritual life, the secret of human
transcendence; what are the agents by which it is done?

Here, men and women of all times and all religions, who have achieved
this fullness of life, agree in their answer: and by this answer we are
at once taken away from dry philosophic conceptions and introduced into
the very heart of human experience. It is done, they say, on man's part
by Love and Prayer: and these, properly understood in their
inexhaustible richness, joy, pain, dedication and noble simplicity,
cover the whole field of the spiritual life. Without them, that life is
impossible; with them, if the self be true to their implications, some
measure of it cannot be escaped. I said, Love and Prayer properly
understood: not as two movements of emotional piety, but as fundamental
human dispositions, as the typical attitude and action which control
man's growth into greater reality. Since then they are of such primary
importance to us, it will be worth while at this stage to look into them
a little more closely.

First, Love: that over-worked and ill-used word, often confused on the
one hand with passion and on the other with amiability. If we ask the
most fashionable sort of psychologist what love is, he says that it is
the impulse urging us towards that end which is the fulfilment of any
series of deeds or "behaviour-cycle"; the psychic thread, on which all
the apparently separate actions making up that cycle are strung and
united. In this sense love need not be fully conscious, reach the level
of feeling; but it _must_ be an imperative, inward u