larger question, about the alleged pathological character of all
distinctively religious exaltation, I believe that no greater
mistake could be made than to suppose that the religious life
flourishes best in unnatural circumstances. Religion, from a
biological standpoint, I take to be the expression of the racial
will to live; its function (from this point of view) is the
preservation and development of humanity on the highest possible
level. If this is true, a simple, healthy, natural life must be the
most favourable for religious excellence--and this I believe to be
the case. Poor Suso certainly did not lead a healthy or natural
life. But in his case, though the suppressed natural instincts
obviously overflow into the religious consciousness and in part
determine the forms which his devotion assumes, we can never forget
that we are in the company of a poet and a saint who will lift us,
if we can follow him, into a very high region of the spiritual life,
an altitude which he has himself climbed with bleeding feet.

The simple confidence which at the end of the dialogue he expresses
in the value of his work is, I think, amply justified. "Whoever will
read these writings of mine in a right spirit, can hardly fail to be
stirred to the depths of his soul, either to fervent love, or to new
light, or to hunger and thirst for God, or to hatred and loathing
for his sins, or to that spiritual aspiration by which the soul is
renewed in grace."

Sect. 7. RUYSBROEK

[Note: the Ruysbroek selection has not been reproduced in this
electronic edition. An electronic text of a larger collection of
Ruysbroek's works may be available.]