Nor is Catholic tradition the only medium through which human life has exercised a formative influence upon Ruysbroeck’s genius. His worldly circumstances, his place within and reaction to the temporal order, the temper of those souls amongst which he grew—these too are of vital importance in relation to his mystical achievements. To study the interior adventures and formal teachings of a mystic without reference to the general trend and special accidents of his outer life, is to neglect our best chance of understanding the nature and sources of his vision of truth. The angle from which that vision is perceived, the content of the mind which comes to it, above all the concrete activities which it induces in the growing, moving, supple self: these are primary _data_ which we should never ignore. Action is of the very essence of human reality. Where the inner life is genuine and strong the outer life will reflect, however faintly, the curve on which it moves; for human consciousness is a unit, capable of reacting to and synthesising two orders, not an unresolved dualism—as it were, an angel and an animal—condemned to lifelong battle within a narrow cage. Therefore we begin our study of Ruysbroeck the mystic by the study of Ruysbroeck the man: the circumstances of his life and environment, so far as we can find them out. For the facts of this life our chief authority will be the Augustinian Canon Pomerius, who was Prior and chronicler of Ruysbroeck’s own community of Groenendael. Born in 1382, a year after Ruysbroeck’s death, and entering Groenendael early in the fifteenth century, he knew and talked with at least two of the great mystic’s disciples, John of Hoelaere and John of Scoonhoven. His life of Ruysbroeck and history of the foundation of the monastery was finished before 1420; that is to say, within the lifetime of the generation which succeeded the first founders of the house.[1] It represents the careful gathering up, sifting, and arranging of all that was remembered and believed by the community—still retaining several members who had known him in the flesh—of the facts of Ruysbroeck’s character and career.