184 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
The first man was made a natural life, to rule over
all the creatures and beings of this world. The
life must therefore introduce desire into earthly
quality. Answer. Human life is placed in a
counterstroke to the divine will, in and through
which counterstroke God wills; and the earthly
creatures are placed in a counterstroke to human
life, in and through which counterstroke man was
to will. Man's will was with God's will to will,
and rule over all natural and creaturely life. Not
in animal but in divine essence was it to stand.
Though man was placed with life in Nature, yet
his nature was a temperament, and his life a
mansion of divine will.
15. But because life must stand during this
time in earthly essence, and cannot be rid of it,
we must look at the threefold nature of the life
according to the three principles; by which prin-
ciple of the life man may plunge into the super-
sensible being of God, and how this may be done.
1 16. Christ said : Without me ye can do nothing
(John xv. 5). No man can of his own power reach
the supreme ground, unless he sink his inmost
ground of the first principle, according to the life's
image-like nature, in the embodied grace of God ;
and, in accordance with the same ground, stand
still from his own being in divine hope, and give
himself up wholly with the will to God, in such a
way that his will no longer wills to spea^k according
to this ground, save what God speaks and wills
through this ground; then he is at the highest
goal.
17. If it be possible for him to stand still an hour