- he writes these unfeeling words about Madame Guyon: "They appear to me resolved to shut her up far away in some good castle," &c.

How is it he does not perceive that in practical questions, far more important than theory, he differs in nothing from those whom he treats so badly? The direction, in Bossuet, as in his adversaries, is the development of the inert and passive part of our nature, expectans, expectavi.

For me it is a strange sight to see them all, even in the midst of the middle age, crying out against the mystics, and then falling into mysticism themselves. The declivity must, indeed, be rapid and insurmountable.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the profound Rusbrock and the great Gerson imitate precisely those they blame; and in the seventeenth, the Quietists Bona, Fenelon, even Lacombe and Madame Guyon's director speak severely and harshly of the absolute Quietists: they all point out the abyss, and all fall into it themselves.

No matter who the persons may be, there is a logical fatality. The man who, by his character and genius is the farthest removed from passive measures, he who in his writings condemns them the most strongly, even Bossuet, in practice, tends towards them like the others.

What signifies their writing against the theory of Quietism? Quietism is much more a method than a

DEVOUT DIRECTION INCLINES TO QUIETISM. 121

system: a method of drowsiness and indolence which we ever meet with, in one shape or other, in religious direction. It is useless to recommend activity, like Bossuet, or to permit it, like Fenelon, if, preventing every active exercise of the soul, and holding it, as it were, in leading strings, you deprive it of the habit, taste, and power of acting.

Is it not then an illusion, Bossuet? if the soul still seems to act, when this activity is no longer its own, but yours. You show me a person who moves, and walks; but I see well, that this appearance of motion proceeds from your influence over that person, you yourself being, as it were, the principle of action, the cause and reason of living, walking, and moving.

There is always the same sum of action in the total; only, in this dangerous affinity between the director and the person directed, all the action is on the side of the former; he alone remains an active force, a will, a person; he who is directed losing gradually all that constitutes his personality, becomes what? a machine.

When Pascal, in his proud contempt for reason, engages us to become stupid*, and bend within us what he calls the automaton and machine, he does not see that it will only be an exchange of reason; our reason having herself put on the bit and bridle, that

*

Montaigne says, also, grow stupid; but not for the profit of authority: he has another sense, and a different intention. See Pascal, ed. Faugère, vol. ii. p. 168.

G

of another man would mount, ride, and guide it at his will, as he would a horse.

If the automaton should still possess some motion, how will they lead it, according to the probable opinion, for the probabilism of the Jesuits reigned in the first half of the century? Later, when its motion ceased, the paralysed age learned from the Quietists that immobility is perfection itself.

The decay and impotency which characterised the latter years of Louis XIV. are rather veiled by a remnant of literary splendour; they are, nevertheless, deeply seated. This was the natural consequence, not only of great efforts which produce exhaustion, but also of the theories of abnegation, impersonality, and systematic nullity, which had always gained ground in this century. By dint of continually repeating that one cannot walk well without being supported by another, a generation arose that no longer walked at all, but boasted of having forgotten what motion was, and gloried in it. Madame Guyon, in speaking of herself, expresses forcibly, in a letter to Bossuet, what was then the general condition: "You say, Monseigneur, there are only four or five persons who are in this difficulty of acting for themselves; but I tell you there are more than a hundred thousand. When you told me to ask and desire, I found myself like a paralytic who is told to walk because he has legs: the efforts he makes for that purpose serve only to make him aware of his inability. We say, in com

mon parlance, every man who has legs ought to walk: I believe it, and I know it; however, I have legs, but I feel plainly that I cannot make use of them." *

* A letter of the 10th of February, 1694, Bossuet's Works, vol. xii. p. 14. (ed. 1836). Compare the very sad confessions of the sister of Mans, ibid., vol. xi. p. 558., March 30. 1695, and those of Fenelon himself on the 8th of November, 1700, vol. i. p. 572. (ed. Didot. 1838).

CHAPTER X.

MOLINOS'* GUIDE;- THE PART PLAYED IN IT BY THE HYPOCRITICAL AUSTERITY; IMMORAL -MOLINOS APPROVED OF AT ROME, 1675.

DIRECTOR;
DOCTRINE.

SPANISH MOLI

MOLINOS CONDEMNED AT ROME, 1687.-HIS MANNERS
CONFORMABLE ΤΟ HIS DOCTRINE.
NOSISTS.-MOTHER AGUEDA.

THE greatest danger for the poor paralytic, who can no longer move by himself, is, not that he may remain inactive, but that he may become the sport of the active influence of others. The theories which speak the most of immobility are not always disinterested. Be on your guard, and take care.

Molinos' book, with its artful and premeditated composition, has a character entirely its own, which distinguishes it from the natural and inspired writings of the great mystics. The latter, such as Sta. Theresa, often recommend obedience and entire sub

* Miguel Molinos, a Spanish theologian, born in 1627, in the diocese of Zaragoza, settled in Rome, where he acquired a great reputation for piety and skill in directing consciences. In 1675 he published, with the approbation of five doctors, his work entitled "The Spiritual Guide;" in which he professed to direct souls in the way of perfection. He died in prison in 1696. His followers are here called Molinosists.-TRANSL.