ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 167
low he reveals himself in the heart of man, and
reproves wrong in the conscience, and draws that
which surfers wrong by suffering to himself. And
low the life of Reason, viz. the natural life, must
In suffering get a desire to return again into that
3ut of which it proceeded; and how it must
iesire to hate itself, and to die to the natural will,
in order that it may attain the supernatural.
7. Reason says : Why has God created a painful,
suffering life ? Might it not be in a better state
without suffering or pain, seeing he is the ground
and beginning of all things ? Why does he permit
the contrary will ? Why does he not destroy evil,
that only a good may be in all things ?
8. Answer. Nothing without contrariety can
become manifest to itself; for if it has nothing to
resist it, it goes continually of itself outwards, and
returns not again into itself. But if it return not
again into itself, as into that out of which it origi-
nally went, it knows nothing of its primal being.1
9. If the natural life had no contrariety, and .were
without a limit, it would never inquire after its
ground from which it arose; and hence the hidden
God would remain unknown to the natural life.
Moreover, were there no contrariety in life, there
would be no sensibility, nor will, nor efficacy therein,
also neither understanding nor science. For a
thing that has only one will has no divisibility. If
if find not a contrary will, which gives occasion
to it exercising motion, it stands still. A single
thing can know nothing more than a one; and
even though it is in itself good, yet it knows neither
1 Dr. Stirling's rendering of Urstand.