While the active life is the life of the soul acting as the form of the body (that is, the life of the individual as a member of the human race), the contemplative life is the life of the soul in its purely spiritual reality,, the life of the person, the complete being, the ‘whole'. For by definition the ‘whole’ suffices to itself. It has all. It lacks nothing. The contemplative life is the perfect life: in itself it has neediof no assistance. It can be entirely solitary.
But, it being granted that the human person is a person created, a part of the divine ‘whole'; it being granted also that it has been multiplied by the Creator, are we not going to discover that the nature of the person implies an ‘order’ or organisation, a ‘spiritual society'? It is certainly true that there exists an ‘order’ of persons, and even an order of creatures purely spiritual—the angelic hierarchies. But it is only a question there of a ‘communicatio in forma', an analogical similitude, in the fact that all these creatures possess an intelligence which has for its final perfection the contemplation of God.