Practical Perfection Has Two Parts

This practical perfection, however, rests on a twofold system. Its first method is to know the nature of all faults and the way to cure them. Its second is to discover the order of the virtues, and to shape our mind by their perfection so that it obeys them, not as if it were forced and subject to some harsh rule, but as if it delighted in its own natural good and thrived on it, and climbed that steep and narrow way with real pleasure. For how will someone who has neither managed to understand the nature of his own faults nor tried to root them out be able to gain an understanding of the virtues, which is the second stage of practical training, or of the mysteries of spiritual and heavenly things, which belong to the higher stage of contemplative knowledge? It must be held that a person cannot advance to loftier heights if he has not climbed past the lower ones, and much less will he be able to grasp the things outside him if he has not managed to understand what lies within his own reach. But you should know that our effort must be made with a twofold aim: both to drive out vice and to gain virtue. And we do not gather this from our own guesswork; we are taught it by the words of him who alone knows the strength and method of his work. “Look,” he says, “I have set you this day over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, to lay waste and to destroy, to build and to plant.” He shows that four things are needed to get rid of what is harmful: to root up, to pull down, to lay waste and to destroy. But for doing what is good, and for gaining what belongs to righteousness, only to build and to plant. From this it is perfectly clear that it is harder to tear up and root out the long-established passions of body and soul than to bring in and plant spiritual virtues. [a]