"For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed: and I am brought to nothing, and I knew not. I am become as a beast before Thee; and I am always with Thee. Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by Thy will Thou hast conducted me; and with glory Thou hast received me. For what have I in Heaven? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? For Thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away; Thou art the God of my heart; and the God that is my portion for ever. For behold they that go far from Thee shall perish; Thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to Thee. But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: that I may declare all Thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion."[354] IV Does the Contemplative Life consist solely in the Contemplation of God, or in the Consideration of other Truths as well? S. Gregory says[355]: "In contemplation it is the Principle--namely, God--which is sought." A thing may come under the contemplative life in two ways: either primarily, or secondarily--that is, dispositively. Now primarily the contemplation of Divine Truth belongs to the contemplative life, since such contemplation is the goal of all human life. Hence S. Augustine says[356]: "The contemplation of God is promised to us as the goal of all our acts and the eternal consummation of all our joys." And this will be perfect in the future life when we shall see God face to face--when, consequently, it will render us perfectly blessed. But in our present state the contemplation of Divine Truth belongs to us only imperfectly--namely, _through a glass and in a dark manner_; it causes in us now a certain commencement of beatitude, which begins here, to be continued in the future. Hence even the Philosopher[357] makes the ultimate happiness of man consist in the contemplation of the highest intelligible truths. But since we are led to a contemplation of God by the consideration of His Divine works--_The invisible things of God ... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made_[358]--it follows also that the contemplation of the Divine works belongs in a secondary sense to the contemplative life--according, namely, as by it we are led to the knowledge of God. For this reason S. Augustine says[359]: "In the study of created things we must not exercise a mere idle and passing curiosity, but must make them a stepping-stone to things that are immortal and that abide for ever." Thus from what we have said it is clear that four things belong, and that in a certain sequence, to the contemplative life: firstly, the moral virtues; secondly, other acts apart from that of contemplation; thirdly, the contemplation of the Divine works; and fourthly--and this is the crown of them all--the actual contemplation of the Divine Truth.