If you wish to attribute any goodness to those who are thus transformed in God, they will object to it, not being able to find anything in themselves that can be named, affirmed, or heard. They are in a complete _negation_. It is this which causes the difference of terms and expressions employed by writers on this subject, who find a difficulty in making themselves understood, except by those whose experience accords with their own. Another effect of this negation is, that the soul having lost all that was its own, God having substituted Himself, it can attribute nothing either to itself or to God; because it knows God only, of whom it can say nothing. Here all is God to the soul, because it is no longer a question of seeing all _in_ God; for to see things in God is to distinguish them in Him. For instance, if I enter a room, I see all that is there in addition to the room itself, though it be placed within it; but if all could be transformed into the room itself, or else were taken out of it, I should see nothing but the room alone. All creatures, _celestial_, _terrestrial_ or _pure intelligences_, disappear and fade away, and there remains only God Himself, as He was before the creation. The soul sees only God everywhere; and all is God; not by thought, sight, or light, but by an identity of condition and a consummation of unity, which rendering it God by participation, without its being able to see itself, prevents it seeing anything anywhere; it can see no created being out of the Uncreated, the only uncreated One being all and in all. Men would condemn such a state, saying it makes us something less than the meanest insect; and so it does, not by obstinacy and firmness of purpose, but by powerlessness to interfere with ourselves. You may ask one in this condition, "Who leads you to do such and such a thing? Is it God who has told you to do it, or has made known to you His will concerning it?" He will reply, "I know nothing, and I do not think of knowing anything: all is God and His will; and I no longer know what is meant by the will of God, because that will has become natural to me." "But why should you do this rather than that?" "I do not know: I let myself be guided by Him who draws me." "Why so?" "He draws me because I, being no longer anything, am carried along with God, and am drawn by Him _alone_. _He_ goes hither and thither: _He_ acts; and I am but an instrument, which I neither see nor regard. I have no longer a separate interest, because by the loss of myself I have lost all self-interest. Neither am I capable of giving any reason for my conduct, for I no longer have a conduct: yet I act infallibly so long as I have no other principle than that of the Infallible One."