own weakness of will, when so many others whom he knew
and knew of had thrown off the shackles of sensuality and dedicated
themselves to chastity and the higher life, he heard a voice in the
garden say, "Sume, lege" (take and read), and opening the Bible at
random, saw the text, "not in chambering and wantonness," etc., which
seemed directly sent to his address, and laid the inner storm to rest
forever.[91] Augustine's psychological genius has given an account of
the trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed.

[91] Louis Gourdon (Essai sur la Conversion de Saint Augustine, Paris,
Fischbacher, 1900) has shown by an analysis of Augustine's writings
immediately after the date of his conversion (A. D. 386) that the
account he gives in the Confessions is premature. The crisis in the
garden marked a definitive conversion from his former life, but it was
to the neo-platonic spiritualism and only a halfway stage toward
Christianity. The latter he appears not fully and radically to have
embraced until four years more had passed.

"The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to
overcome that other will, strengthened by long indulgence. So these two
wills, one old, one new, one carnal, the other spiritual, contended
with each other and disturbed my soul. I understood by my own
experience what I had read, 'flesh lusteth against spirit, and spirit
against flesh.' It was myself indeed in both the wills, yet more myself
in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in
myself. Yet it was through myself that habit had attained so fierce a
mastery over me, because I had willingly come whither I willed not.
Still bound to earth, I refused, O God, to fight on thy side, as much
afraid to be freed from all bonds, as I ought to have feared being
trammeled by them.

"Thus the thoughts by which I meditated upon thee were like the efforts
of one who would awake, but being overpowered with sleepiness is soon
asleep again. Often does a man when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs
defer to shake it off, and though not approving it, encourage it; even
so I was sure it was better to surrender to thy love than to yield to
my own lusts, yet though the former course convinced me, the latter
pleased and held me bound. There was naught in me to answer thy call
'Awake, thou sleeper,' but only drawling, drowsy words, 'Presently;
yes, presently; wait a little while.' But the 'presently' h