10 LETTEBS OF ST. AUGTJSTINE. [ l e t. IV.
the more fu lly and intim ately one exercises him self in them ,
th e corresponding effect is s till more easily produced in the
m ind h y contact w ith truth. N ’ evertheless m y progress, lik e
our physical development, is so gradual, that it is difficult to
define its steps distinctly, ju st as though there is a very great
difference between a boy and a young man, no one, if daily
questioned from h is boyhood onward, could at any one date
say that now he was no more a boy, but a young man.
2. I would not have you, however, so to apply th is illu s
tration as to suppose that, in the vigour of a more powerful
understanding, I have arrived as it were at the beginning of
th e soul’s manhood. Eor I am y e t but a boy, though perhaps,
as w e say, a promising boy, rather than a good-for-nothing.
3?or although th e eyes of m y mind are for the m ost part per
turbed and oppressed b y the distractions produced by blows
inflicted through things sensible, they are revived and raised
up again b y that brief process of reasoning: " The m ind and
intelligence are superior to the eyes and the common faculty
o f s ig h t; w hich could not be the case unless the things which
w e perceive b y intelligence were more real than the things
w hich we perceive by the faculty o f sight.” I pray you to
help m e in exam ining whether any valid objection can be
, brought against this reasoning. B y it, m eanwhile, I find m y
self restored and refreshed; and when, after calling upon God
for help, I begin to rise to Him , and to those things w hich are
in the highest sense real, I am at tim es satisfied w ith such a
grasp and enjoym ent of the. things w hich eternally abide, that
I sometimes wonder at m y requiring any such reasoning as I
have above given to persuade me of the reality o f those things
w hich in m y soul are as tru ly present to m e as I am to
m yself.
Please look over .your letters yourself, for I own that you
w in be in th is m atter at greater pains than I, in order to
make sure that I am not perchance unw ittingly s till owing an
answer to any o f th em : for I can hardly believe that I have
so soon fixgiq under the burden o f debts which I used to
reckon a l so inufcerous; albeit, at the same tim e, I cannot
doubt that you havlr bad some letters from me tb w hich I
have as y et received no reply.