After these Treatises on individual virtues, he passes to the consideration of those virtues which concern, not men as a whole, but only _certain classes of men_.[26] And first of all he treats of those _Gifts_ which are bestowed upon certain men not so much for their own benefit as for the good of others--viz., of Prophecy, of Ecstasy, of the Gift of Tongues, and of the Gift of Miracles. He then discusses the two kinds of _operations_ or "lives"--the _active_, namely, and the _contemplative_--which find a place in the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. These treatises in reality constitute a commentary on 1 Cor. xii. 4-11. _Question_ CLXXIX., _On the Division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative_, is here given; as also _Question_ CLXXX., _On the Contemplative Life_; _Question_ CLXXXI., _On the Active Life_; _Question_ CLXXXII., _On the Comparison of the Active with the Contemplative Life_. S. Thomas then proceeds to treat of _various states of life_--viz., of the state of perfection, of the Episcopal and of the Religious state. Only one question raised in this connection concerns us here: _Whether_, namely, _Contemplative Religious Orders are superior to Active Orders?_ (_Question_ CLXXXVIII. 6). Each _Question_ is, as will be seen from the _Table of Contents_, divided into _Articles_. The framework of what is termed an "article" of the _Summa_ is familiar to those who use that work, but it may not be amiss to explain S. Thomas's method in brief fashion. Each "article" is couched in the form of a question, thus: _Has contemplation its joys?_ And the Saint at once sets forth in succession three, sometimes more, arguments which seem to militate against the view he himself holds. These are commonly known as the _objections_. He then gives us a short paragraph opening with the words: _Sed contra_, or _But on the contrary_; and in this paragraph he gives some authority, generally that of Holy Scripture or one of the Fathers, for the view he is going to hold. This paragraph is generally known from its opening words as the _Sed contra_; there is no argument in it save from authority. He then proceeds to discuss the question from the standpoint of pure reason. This portion is known as the _Corpus articuli_, or _Body of the Article_, and in it the Saint presents his reasoning in clear, precise fashion. It will be apparent, of course, that many questions cannot be answered with a categoric _yes_ or _no_, but the precise sense in which certain terms in the discussion are to be used has to be clearly ascertained; according to the diverse ways in which they may be understood the answer will be affirmative or negative. It is important for those not familiar with S. Thomas' works to grasp this point; they must not, for instance, presume that because the opening "objections" seem to uphold one point of view S. Thomas is therefore going to hold the precise opposite. A good example of this