The divisions of the apprehensions and acts of the intellect.

In order to describe specially the profit and the loss, which

the notions and apprehensions of the intellect occasion in the

soul with respect to Faith, the means of this Divine union,

hensions, natural and supernatural, so that the intellect may be directed with greater accuracy into the night and obscurity of faith. This I shall do with the utmost brevity

possible. There are two ways by which these notions and intelligent

it is necessary to distinguish here between all these appre-

acts enter into the understanding: one is natural, the other supernatural. The first includes all the means by which the intellect receives knowledge, whether through the channel of the bodily senses, or by reflection. The second comprises all that is beyond the natural powers and capacity of the

. intellect. Some supernatural knowledge is corporeal, and

some spiritual. The former is of two kinds: one of them enters the intellect through the exterior bodily senses; and the other through the interior bodily senses, comprehending all that the imagination may grasp, form, and conceive. The spiritual supernatural knowledge is also of two kinds; one distinct and special; the other confused, obscure, and general. The first kind comprises four particular apprehensions, communicated to the mind without the intervention of any one of the bodily senses. These are visions, revelations, interior voices, and spiritual impressions. The second kind, which is obscure and general, has but one form, that of contemplation, which is the work of faith. The soul is to be led into this by directing it thereto through all the rest. I shall begin my instructions with the first of these, showing how the soul is to be detached from them.