It is the answer made by the whole supple, plastic self, rational and instinctive, active and contemplative, to any or all of those objective experiences of religion which we considered in the first chapter; whether of an encompassing and transcendent Reality, of a Divine Companionship or of Immanent Spirit.

Such a response we must believe to be itself divinely actuated.
Fully made, it is found on the one hand to call forth the most heroic, most beautiful, most tender qualities in human nature; all that we call holiness, the transfiguration of mere ethics by a supernatural loveliness, breathing another air, satisfying another standard, than those of the temporal world.

And on the other hand, this response of the self is repaid by a new sensitiveness and receptivity, a new influx of power.

To use theological language, will is answered by grace: and as the will's dedication rises towards completeness the more fully does new life flow in.

Therefore it is plain that the smallest and humblest beginning of such a life in ourselves--and this inquiry is useless unless it be made to speak to our own condition--will entail not merely an addition to life, but for us too a change in our whole scale of values, a self-dedication.