The fundamental error of mysticism is, that it discards this intermediary, as if it were a barrier and not a tie: it makes the infinite being the direct object of love. But such a love can be sustained only by superhuman efforts that end in folly. Love tends to unite itself with its object: mysticism absorbs love in its object. Hence the extravagances of that mysticism so severely and so justly condemned by Bossuet and the Church in quietism.[75] Quietism lulls to sleep the activity of man, extinguishes his intelligence, substitutes indolent and irregular contemplation for the seeking of truth and the fulfilment of duty. The true union of the soul with God is made by truth and virtue. Every other union is a chimera, a peril, sometimes a crime. It is not permitted man to reject, under any pretext, that which makes him man, that which renders him capable of comprehending God, and expressing in himself an imperfect image of God, that is to say, reason, liberty, conscience. Without doubt, virtue has its prudence, and if we must never yield to passion, there are diverse ways of combating it in order to conquer it. One can let it subside, and resignation and silence may have their legitimate employment. There is a portion of truth, of utility even, in the _Spiritual Letters_, even in the _Maxims of the Saints_. But, in general, it is unsafe to anticipate in this world the prerogatives of death, and to dream of sanctity when virtue alone is required of us, when virtue is so difficult to attain, even imperfectly. The best quietism can, at most, be only a halt in the course, a truce in the strife, or rather another manner of combating. It is not by flight that battles are gained; in order to gain them it is necessary to come to an engagement, so much the more as duty consists in combating still more than in conquering. Of the two opposite extremes--stoicism and quietism--the first, taken all in all, is preferable to the second; for if it does not always elevate man to God, it maintains, at least, human personality, liberty, conscience, whilst quietism, in abolishing these, abolishes the entire man. Oblivion of life and its duties, inertness, sloth, death of soul,--such are the fruits of that love of God, which is lost in the sterile contemplation of its object, provided it does not cause still sadder aberrations! There comes a moment when the soul that believes itself united with God, puffed up with this imaginary possession, despises both the body and human personality to such an extent that all its actions become indifferent to it, and good and evil are in its eyes the same. Thus it is that fanatical sects have been seen mingling crime and devotion, finding in one the excuse, often even the motive, of the other, and prefacing infamous irregularities or abominable cruelties with mystic transports,--deplorable consequences of the chimera of pure love, of the pretension of sentiment to rule over