The misapprehension on this subject arises from the ambiguity of the word _world_. This word is generally used by ascetic writers not to designate the natural order, but the principles, spirit, and conduct of those who live for this world alone; who look not beyond this life; who take the earth not as a medium, but as the end, and seek only the goods this world offers. These are called worldly, sensual, or carnal-minded people, and as such contrast with the spiritually minded, or those who look above and beyond merely sensible goods--to heaven beyond the earth, to a life beyond the grave, a life of spiritual bliss in indissoluble union with God, the end of their existence, and their supreme good as well as the supreme good in itself. In this sense there is a real antagonism between this world and the next; but when the world is taken in its proper place, and for what it really is, in the plan of the Creator, there is no antagonism in the case; and to despise it would be to despise the work of God, and to neglect it would be not a virtue, but even a sin. This world has its temptations and its snares, and as long as we remain in the flesh we are in danger of mistaking it for the end of our existence, and therefore it is necessary that we be on our guard against its seductions. But the chief motive that leads souls hungering and bursting for perfection to retire to the desert or to the monastery is not that they may fly its temptations, or the enemies to their virtue, for they find greater temptations to struggle against and fiercer enemies to combat in solitude than in the thronged city; it is the love of sacrifice, and the longing to take part with our Lord in his great work of expiation that moves them. Simply to get rid of the world, to turn the back on society, or to get away from the duties and cares of the world, is no proper motive for retirement from the world, and the church permits not her children to do it and enter a religious order so long as they have duties to their family or their country to perform. {6} Nothing could better prove that the church does not suffer us to contemn or neglect the natural or temporal order, or regard as of slight importance the proper discharge of our duties to our families, our country, or natural society. The same thing is proved by the fact that the process for canonization cannot go on in a case where the individual has not fulfilled all his natural duties, growing out of his state or relations in society. _Gratia supponit naturam_.