be entirely reached in this life, and remains as a hope for futurity. The mind in contemplating God has three distinct aspects, stages or grades--the senses, giving empirical knowledge of what is without and discerning the traces (_vestigia_) of the divine in the world; the reason, which examines the soul itself, the image of the divine Being; and lastly, pure intellect (_intelligentia_), which, in a transcendent act, grasps the Being of the divine cause. To these three correspond the three kinds of theology--_theologia symbolica, theologia propria_ and _theologia mystica_. Each stage is subdivided, for in contemplating the outer world we may use the senses or the imagination; we may rise to a knowledge of God _per vestigia_ or _in vestigiis_. In the first case the three great properties of physical bodies--weight, number, measure,--in the second the division of created things into the classes of those that have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and goodness of the Triune God. So in the second stage we may ascend to the knowledge of God, _per imaginem_, by reason, or _in imagine_, by the pure understanding (_intellectus_); in the one case the triple division--memory, understanding and will,--in the other the Christian virtues--faith, hope and charity,--leading again to the conception of a Trinity of divine qualities--eternity, truth and goodness. In the last stage we have first _intelligentia_, pure intellect, contemplating the essential being of God, and finding itself compelled by necessity of thought to hold absolute being as the first notion, for non-being cannot be conceived apart from being, of which it is but the privation. To this notion of absolute being, which is perfect and the greatest of all, objective existence must be ascribed. In its last and highest form of activity the mind rests in the contemplation of the infinite goodness of God, which is apprehended by means of the highest faculty, the _apex mentis_ or _synderesis_. This spark of the divine illumination is common to all forms of mysticism, but Bonaventura adds to it peculiarly Christian elements. The complete yielding up of mind and heart to God is unattainable without divine grace, and nothing renders us so fit to receive this gift as the meditative and ascetic life of the cloister. The monastic life is the best means of grace.