But the peculiarly remarkable physical bias of Ignatius’s mind is still more strikingly developed in his writings. Other men have been equally active and persevering—other men have equalled him in mere bodily activity and suffering; but to Ignatius alone belongs the discovery of exercising the mind by converting his thoughts into actual realities, and rendering the creations of the imagination true existences. Herein appears the peculiarly physical tone of his mind, which could not rest content with mere spiritual contemplation, but must actually, as it were, see, feel, smell, taste, and hear the objects contemplated. The _Spiritual Exercises_ enjoin that the exercitant must, in his gloomiest hours, not only think upon, but actually _behold_, the vast conflagration of Hell; he must _hear_ its wailings, shrieks, and blasphemies; he must _smell_ its smoky brimstone, and the horrid stench of its filth and rottenness; he must _taste_ the saltness of the tears of penitence, and the bitterness of the rancour of the heart, and the loathsomeness of the worm of conscience; and he must _touch_ the very fire by which the souls of the reprobate are scorched. Thus each meditation must be, not mere thinking-on, or contemplation, but must be instinct with life—must be continued until the senses seem actually to see, taste, and feel the objects contemplated. So, in contemplating the passion of our Lord, the horrors of his death must be visibly present; we must _hear_ his last words; we must _listen_ to the shoutings of the populace; we must _watch_ the agony of the virgin-mother beholding the infamy of her blessed son; we must _see_ his quivering limbs, his death-like paleness, his tottering weakness under the burden of the cross, his bleeding side and pierced extremities. Merely to see these things in contemplation is trivial and inessential; we must, with certain interior senses, actually see, hear, taste, and smell, not only the personages and scenes on which the mind is dwelling, but the emotions which the scenes are calculated to excite. So again, we must taste and relish the suavity and lusciousness of the pious soul, and by a like internal sense of touch we must actually feel and kiss the very garments, places, and footsteps of the personages whose acts our minds dwell upon. This is justly called “the application of the senses” to the soul. It consists, in fact, in reducing to _quasi_-materialisms the visions of the mind; in giving to the exercitant’s thoughts, every reality short of such an actual-material existence as would render them visible to others—as they are, indeed, visible to himself. In this remarkable system for exciting the soul appears the utter incapacity of the mind of Ignatius to appreciate mere metaphysical activity. His soul could not apprehend the unseen, and dwell on the absent or far distant. It was necessary to his frame of mind that everything should be present, visible, tangible, real.