32.  “Our reason,” said Fenelon, “is derived from the clearness of our ideas.”  But our wisdom, we might add—­in other words, all that is best in our soul and our character, is to be found above all in those ideas that are not yet clear.  Were we to allow our clear ideas only to govern our life, we should quickly become undeserving of either much love or esteem.  For, truly, what could be less clear than the reasons that bid us be generous, upright, and just; that teach us to cherish in all things the noblest of feelings and thoughts?  But it happily so comes to pass that the more clear ideas we possess, the more do we learn to respect those that as yet are still vague.  We must strive without ceasing to clarify as many ideas as we can, that we may thus arouse in our soul more and more that now are obscure.  The clear ideas may at times seem to govern our external life, but the others perforce must march on at the head of our intimate life, and the life that we see invariably ends by obeying the invisible life.  On the quality, number, and power of our clear ideas do the quality, number, and power depend of those that are vague; and hidden away in the midst of these vague ones, patiently biding their hour, there may well lurk most of the definite truths that we seek with such ardour.  Let us not keep them waiting too long; and indeed, a beautiful crystal idea we awaken within us shall not fail, in its turn, to arouse a beautiful vague idea; which last, growing old, and having itself become clear (for is not perfect clearness most often the sign of decrepitude in the idea?), shall also go forth, and disturb from its slumber another obscure idea, but loftier, lovelier far than it had been itself in its sleep; and thus, it may be, treading gently, one after the other, and never disheartened, in the midst of those silent ranks—­ some day, by mere chance, a small hand, scarce visible yet, shall touch a great truth.

33.  Clear ideas and obscure ideas; heart, intellect, will, and reason, and soul—­truly these words that we use do but mean more or less the same thing:  the spiritual riches of man.  The soul may well be no more than the most beautiful desire of our brain, and God Himself be only the most beautiful desire of our soul.  So great is the darkness here that we can but seek to divide it; and the lines that we trace must be blacker still than the sections they traverse.  Of all the ideals that are left to us, there is perhaps only one that we still can accept; and that one is to gain full self-knowledge; but to how great an extent does this knowledge truly depend on our reason—­this knowledge that at first would appear to depend on our reason alone?  Surely he who at last had succeeded in realising, to the fullest extent, the place that he filled in the universe—­surely he should be better than others, be wiser and truer, more upright; in a word, be more moral?  But can any man claim, in good faith, to have grasped this relation; and do