Many people have a genuine desire for perfection and consistently strive to become better. Apart from the small failings which are inevitable, they keep up a constant and generous effort with a view to their spiritual progress. Good will is the last thing they lack. It is all the more important, then, that such people should not find that they have made a mistake as to the fundamental direction of their effort. In exhorting them to become increasingly more generous, one has not even begun to tackle the problem, for what they need is not exhortation so touch as direction. We should like to indicate here the main lines along which the spiritual life develops in accordance with prudence, in contradistinction to notions which are perhaps currently admitted, but which, in our opinion, have been insufficiently, examined.