Abbot Butler has written an extremely fascinating book on a subject of enthralling interest. The mystical life is the highest of all practical sciences in the sense that of all others, it matters most to a human being on earth. A purely speculative knowledge of God, however profound, is wisdom, but it is not to be compared in this life with love of God, since here below the mind only thinks God, whereas the will goes out to grasp Him. The mind for ever remains within the logical order, but the will whose every act is based on love seeks to get hold of the reality—that is to say, its term or rest is the ontological. In heaven the converse is true as regards the taking hold of God : the will of a truth will attain its supreme satiety in cleaving to God, but it is the mind, first and foremost, that takes hold of God, the will cleaving to the reality made captive by the mind.

In the Beatific Vision, we hold as true that which Hegel perversely endeavoured to apply to this world, namely, the identity of the logical and ontological orders. In the Beatific Vision alone are ‘thought’ and ‘thing’ identified; for the ‘thought’ of God in the created mind is the ‘reality’ of God Himself. When Hegel formulated his astounding philosophy, he was unknowingly formulating one of the most profound doctrines of Thomistic theology concerning the Beatific Vision.