By these experiences the knowledge of the soul becomes enlightened two ways: she knows what bliss is; she knows the full calamity of life away from God--in flesh, in this world: not that flesh is not a wonderful Idea, not that the world is not greatly to be admired for its beauties, but the reawakened spirit desires spirit-living, cannot be pleased with earth-living, cannot be satisfied with less than God Himself. So, then, the logical consequence is that this world becomes a place we desire to take leave of as soon as may be. Life here becomes a punishment: not that Perfect Love desires to punish, but that the soul now knows that any form of life in which she is restricted from continual access to Him is a disaster, a profound grief. XV If the soul looks to God to comfort her, asks for His help, and gets it--and since communication with God is dependent upon some degree of like to like,--it follows that the soul must maintain a readiness to "give" to fellow-souls: to fail in this is to fail in any sort of resemblance to God. Hence we see how carefully Christ enjoined upon us to "Give to them that ask": and in no niggardly way either, but wholeheartedly, for "God loveth the cheerful giver." If we say that we apprehend God by that which is not Mind, what reason have we for saying that it is not Reason which receives Him? Because for this living which God's touch causes us to share with Himself we find that Space, Infinity, and Eternity are required and Reason stands, and remains, uncomprehending and dumbfounded before all three. It is Spirit, the flash-point of the soul, which receives and transmits and which lives this living. As we have an heredity of flesh so we have also an heredity of Spirit which of its own nature comprehends the ways of God and the mode of God's living. In High Contemplation we find that if Reason attempts activity, nothing is consummated: she must submerge herself and wait: soon Reason discovers the wherefore of this--her activity is not the activity of That Other. Only by that which is like in activity can That Other be received: this "like" is not herself: finally she comes to know this "like" as a higher part of the soul--Spirit. When Spirit has received and given it to the soul, then it is afterwards the part of Reason to attack from every side that which has been received, to digest it, absorb it, and share it, in fact though not in act. According to the health and strength of Reason so we shall successfully deal with and use that with which the Spirit presents us. By comparison with the magnificent Spirit-Activity or Spirit-Intelligence the Reason is limited and frail as a new-born babe: this is no humiliation to Reason, since she should not be expected to accomplish that which is not her part. Why do not all men apprehend God? It is very questionable if all men desire to do so, because in the recesses of each man's soul lies the consciousness that there will be some great price to pay.