We have inevitably somewhat anticipated another matter, in which Catherine shows all the true Mystic’s affinities: the craving for simplification and permanence of the soul’s states,--her practice and teaching as to Quietude and Passivity. Pushed fully home, this tendency involves four closely related, increasingly profound, convictions and experiences. Utter unification of the soul’s functions, indeed utter unity of its substance: _i.e._ the soul does one single thing, and seems to do it by one single act; itself is simply one, and expresses itself by one sole act. Passivity of the soul: _i.e._ the soul does not apparently act at all, it simply _is_ and receives--it is now nothing but one pure immense recipiency. Immediacy of contact between the soul and God: _i.e._ there seems to be nothing separating, or indeed in any way between, the soul and God. And, finally, an apparent coalescence of the soul and God: _i.e._ the soul _is_ God, and God _is_ the soul.--Only the first two points, and then the closely related question of Pure Love, shall occupy us here; the last two points must stand over for our penultimate chapter. 1. _Distinction between experiences, their expression, and their analysis._ We have already studied the psycho-physical occasions, concomitants, and embodiments of Catherine’s keen desire for, and profound experience of, spiritual unification and passivity; and we can have no kind of doubt as to the factual reality and the practical fruitfulness of the state so vividly described by her. Here we have only to inquire into the accuracy of the analysis and terminology effected and employed by her, in so far as they seem to claim more than simply to describe the soul’s own feeling and impression as to these states thus experienced by itself. We have then to consider the nature and truth of what can roughly be styled Quietism and Passivity. Now here especially will it be necessary for us carefully to distinguish between the direct experiences, impressions, and instinctive requirements of the soul,--here all souls, in precise proportion to their depth and delicacy of holiness and of self-knowledge are our masters, and furnish us with our only materials and tests; and, on the other hand, the implications and analysis of these states, as, in the first instance, psychological, and then as requiring elucidation with regard to their ontological cause and reality by means of a religious philosophy,--here, psychology, and religious philosophy, especially also the discriminations and decisions of theologians and Church authorities as expressive of these ultimate questions, will be our guides.[122]