Many treatises have been composed to reveal the intricacies of the way to heaven in terms of the ‘three ways’. The division is hoary with age and inescapable in its simplicity. Wherever there is life there must be a beginning, it must grow and develop, and finally it must reach its fulfilment. The beginners, the progressing or proficients and the perfects make the ground plan for the purgative, illuminative and the unitive ways, and for all the other methods of measuring the supernatural growth of a soul in the life of God. But the majority of the treatises, which analyse the stages of the growing Christian, are devoted to one single aspect of Christian life.