he who will can easily find. And although these opinions above
mentioned might be built upon a good foundation by human reason and by
no slight knowledge, yet the Truth was not seen by them, either from
defect of reason or from defect of instruction. Yet even by reason it
was possible to see that very numerous were the creatures above
mentioned who are not such as men can understand. And the one reason
is this: no one doubts, neither Philosopher, nor Gentile, nor Jew, nor
Christian, nor any one of any sect, that they are either the whole or
the greater part full of all Blessedness, and that those blessed ones
are in a most perfect state. Therefore, since that which is here Human
Nature may have not only one Beatitude, but two Beatitudes, as that of
the Civil Life and that of the Contemplative, it would be irrational
if we should see these Celestial Beings to have the Beatitude of the
Active Life, that is, the Civil, in the government of the World, and
not to have that of the Contemplative, which is the most excellent and
most Divine.

But since that which has the Beatitude of the Civil government cannot
have the other, because their intellect is one and perpetual, there
must be others beyond this ministry, who live only in contemplation.
And because this latter life is more Divine--and in proportion as the
thing is more Divine so much the more is it in the image of God--it is
evident that this life is more beloved of God: and if it be more
beloved, so much the more vast has its Beatitude been; and if it has
been more vast, so much the more vivifying power has He given to it
rather than to the other; therefore one concludes that there may De a
much larger number of those creatures than the effects tend to show.
And this is not opposed to that which Aristotle seems to state in the
tenth book of the Ethics, that to the separate substances the
Contemplative Life must be requisite; as also the Active Life must be