To PRETEND THEY DO NOT EXIST because we do not see them is like pretending that we never sleep because we have never caught ourselves asleep. There would be much more sense in the Angels exiling us from the world of nature on the basis of a majority vote. We have no monopoly on nature; not even on free will and intellectual knowledge in nature; we have big brothers far outstripping our puny powers, yet nonetheless brothers, a part and parcel of the created world that is so truly ours.

SEEING OURSELVES from the plant or animal level, we can with reason marvel at the nobility of men; if the animals were capable of such things, they would see us as godlike creatures. Looking up at the Angels from our level, we promptly shrink to our proper proportions: of all the created world, we have the least, the most earthbound, the feeblest of all created intelligence and love. Lest that be too humiliating, we can reflect that somewhat the same is true of the Angels: seen from our level, they are creatures so wondrous as to make men doubt their very existence; but seen from the heights of God they are so inadequate an image of His splendor as to be insignificant in comparison with the Infinite.