possible method of supernatural guidance which we shall call "blind
inspiration"--for though the feeling or impulse is from God, the
interpretation is from the subject's own mind. It is curious how St.
Ignatius applies this method to the determining of the Divine will in
certain cases--as it were, by the inductive principle of "concomitant
variation." A suggestion that always comes and grows with a state of
"consolation," and whose negative is in like manner associated with
"desolation," is presumably the right interpretation of the blind
impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective
assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what
we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are
sceptical, and believing when conscientious.

Another species of will-guidance recognized by saints, is not so much by
way of a vague feeling seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of
enforced decision with regard to some naturally suggested course of
conduct. And this, perhaps, is what is more technically understood by an
inspiration; as, for example, when the question of writing or not
writing something publicly useful, say, the records of the Kings of
Israel, rises in the mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but
not by him. Of course this "inspiration" is a common but not essential
accompaniment of "revelation" or "mind-control,"--in those cases,
namely, where the communicated information is for the good of others;
as, also, where it is for the guidance of the practical conduct of the
recipient. Such "inspiration" at times seems to be no more than a strong
inclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a
"fixing" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a
determination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction.
Better to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of
choice, by the creation of an _idée fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind.