108 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

of a form is to speak of an intelligible essence. Spi-
ritual virtue is centred on its own essence and this is a
Divine Quality. This means that spiritual virtue imp-
lies a kind of knowledge. According to Ahmed ibn
al-‘Arif it is to be distinguished from virtue in the
ordinary sense by the fact of being pure from any in-
dividual interest. If it implies a renunciation, that re-
nunciation is not made in order to obtain some later
recompense, for it bears its fruit within itself, fruit of
knowledge and beauty. Spiritual virtue is neither a
mere negation of the natural instincts—asceticism is
only the very smallest step to such virtue—nor yet, of
course, is it merely a psychic sublimation. It takes
birth from a presentiment of the Divine Reality which
underlies all objects of desire—noble passion is nearer
to virtue than is anguish—and this presentiment is in
itself a sort of * natural grace > which is a compensation
for the sacrificial aspect of virtue. Later, the progres-
sive unfolding and flowering of this presentiment is
answered by an ever more direct irradiation of the
Divine Quality of which virtue is the trace in man, and,
inversely, virtue grows in proportion as its divine model
is revealed. It is the kernel of intuition which gives to
spiritual virtue its inimitable quality and makes it as it
were a divine mercy. Through it the Intellect radiates,
not in a ““sapiential,”’ but in an *‘ existential > mode, in
beauty of soul or in the miraculous effects which the
affinity between a virtue and its divine model may un-
loose in the cosmic surroundings.

In its intellective wholeness knowledge is in essence