Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

296 Conclusion. CHAP. xr.
result, though it be consciously only a waiting in readiness
to catch some idea when it may turn up, is, for the time
that it is such a waiting, and previous to its reward, a
painful void and hollowness of the mind. But such is
the attitude which is required for true analytical thought,
or the mind s examination of itself. For the ideas which
are the contents of that inward world, wandering in and
out of darkness, emerging for an instant and then lost
again, and carried about to and fro in the vast obscure,
are too subtle and elusive to be subject matter of regular
and active pursuit ; but must be waited and watched for,
with strength suspended and sustained in readiness to catch
and fasten on them when they come within reach ; but the
exertion being that of suspended and sustained, rather than
of active and employed, strength. And if this line of
thought in general is opposed to the tastes of the mass, so
that even a moderate degree of application to it is too
much for them, and even that lower insight into this de
partment of truth, which minds of average ability may
gain, is a part of knowledge into which they are not
admitted, by what a wide and immeasurable interval are
they separated from the great analytical minds which have
appeared in the world, who, with unwearied patience and
keen exertion of the intellectual eye, have caught sharp
glimpses of the great ideas and processes of the human
reason, quick and momentary sights, which, impressed
by their vividness upon the memory, and thence transferred
to paper, have enabled them in a certain sense to bring
the human mind to light, to mark its main outlines, and
distinguish its different perceptions or ideas; by which
genuine and authentic originals they have then tested
current popular and second-hand truths.
This, then, is the reason why
than have to an accurate perception of their own ignorance
as human creatures. For this correcter and truer percep
tion of ignorance is the correlative of a correcter and
truer knowledge. Of the human mind there is a luminous
and there is a dark side. The luminous side is that on
which it
clearly perceives and apprehends truths, either by
\
more have not attained