limitations of humanity; entincturing our attitude and our actions. And
in the degree in which we thus appropriate it, it will be given out by
us again to other men.

All this, of course, says again that which men have been constantly told
by those who sought to redeem them from their confusions, and show them
the way to fullness of life. "Seek first the Kingdom of God," said
Jesus, "and all the rest shall be added to you." "Love," said St.
Augustine, "and _do_ what you like"; "Let nothing," says Thomas à
Kempis, "be great or high or acceptable to thee but purely God";[130]
and Kabir, "Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world!
consider it well, and know that this is your own country."[131] "Our
whole teaching," says Boehme, "is nothing else than how man should
kindle in himself God's light-world."[132] I do not say that such a
presentation of it makes the personal spiritual life any easier: nothing
does that. But it does make its central 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