“Then,” said Hircan, “there would be more manifest fools among men and women than ever there were.” “Do you call it folly,” said Oisille, “to love virtuously in youth and then to turn this love wholly to God?” “If melancholy and despair be praiseworthy,” answered Hircan, laughing, “I will acknowledge that Pauline and her lover are well worthy of praise.” “True it is,” said Geburon, “that God has many ways of drawing us to Himself, and though they seem evil in the beginning, yet in the end they are good.” “Moreover,” said Parlamente, “I believe that no man can ever love God perfectly that has not perfectly loved one of His creatures in this world.” “What do you mean by loving perfectly?” asked Saffredent. “Do you consider that those frigid beings who worship their mistresses in silence and from afar are perfect lovers?” “I call perfect lovers,” replied Parlamente, “those who seek perfection of some kind in the objects of their love, whether beauty, or goodness, or grace, ever tending to virtue, and who have such noble and upright hearts that they would rather die than do base things, contrary and repugnant to honour and conscience. For the soul, which was created for nothing but to return to its sovereign good, is, whilst enclosed in the body, ever desirous of attaining to it. But since the senses, through which the soul receives knowledge, are become dim and carnal through the sin of our first parent, they can show us only those visible things that approach towards perfection; and these the soul pursues, thinking to find in outward beauty, in a visible grace and in the moral virtues, the supreme, absolute beauty, grace and virtue. But when it has sought and tried these external things and has failed to find among them that which it really loves, the soul passes on to others; wherein it is like a child, which, when very young, will be fond of dolls and other trifles, the prettiest its eyes can see, and will heap pebbles together in the idea that these form wealth; but as the child grows older he becomes fond of living dolls, and gathers together the riches that are needful for earthly life. And when he learns by greater experience that in all these earthly things there is neither perfection nor happiness, he is fain to seek Him who is the Creator and Author of happiness and perfection. Albeit, if God should not give him the eye of Faith, he will be in danger of passing from ignorance to infidel philosophy, since it is Faith alone that can teach and instil that which is right; for this, carnal and fleshly man can never comprehend.” (6)