32. By the study of the situation of the spirits, one learns that happiness or unhappiness in the spiritual life is experienced according to the degree of perfection or imperfection one has obtained; that each one suffers the direct and natural consequences of his own faults; in other words, that he is punished where he has sinned; that these consequences last as long as the cause which has produce them; that thus the culprit would suffer eternally if he persisted eternally in his fault, but that suffering ceases with repentance and reparation. Now, as our joy and sorrow are within our own grasp, each one can, by virtue of his free will, prolong or shorten his sufferings, as the sick suffers from his excesses as long as he indulges in them.
