XL THE SUPERNATURAL LIFE (a) how it comes to the soul The ground of the map is now sketched in. The end of the road of life is Heaven, and death is a gateway on the road. God has given us means of knowing all that mass of Truth by which we know what God and man are, what life and death mean, what conduct will bring man to heaven. Yet truth and law by themselves do not say all. Man’s destiny is above his nature and therefore nothing in his nature will fit him for it. Something must be added to his nature to elevate it. Since what he has to do is to live the life of heaven — a life which his nature as such does not possess the power to live — he must receive the necessary powers from outside. And, as we have seen, he must receive them in this life. These powers, which enable the soul to live a life above its nature, flow from the possession of the Supernatural Life. In this chapter and the next, the Supernatural Life will be discussed. In this, the main question will be the way in which the soul receives it : in the next, the question will be what its effects are in the soul. First, then, as to the way the soul receives it. In an earlier chapter, our Lord’s phrase “I am the Life ” io6