The rationalistic objection to this suppression of what seems to be of the essence or integrity of matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds many a retort even in the realm of nature, where the passage to a higher grade of life so often means the stultifying of functions proper to the lower. As to the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual excellencies of marriage and virginity are combined, Catholic teaching is quite clear and decided; in this, as in other points, Patmore's untaught intuitions, and instincts--his _mens naturaliter catholica_--had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the Church had led only the more appreciatively sympathetic of her disciples, from time to time, as it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose says: "See, how He goes up with the Apostles and comes down to the crowds. For how could the crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot? They do not follow Him to the heights, nor rise to sublimities"--a notion altogether congenial to Patmore's aristocratic bias in religion as in everything else. Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic doctrine that appealed to his whole personality, offering as it did an authoritative approval, and suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams that were so sacred to him. As far as the logic of the affections goes, it was for the sake of this that he held to all the rest; for indeed the deeper Catholic truths are so internetted that he who seizes one, drags all the rest along with it under pain of self-contradiction.