therefore with reality: he sees from within.

Let me pursue this metaphor. Man has in him conscience, which is the voice
of God. Not only does he know by this that the outer world is real, but
also that his own personality is real.

When a man, although flattered by the voice of another, yet says within
himself, "I am a mean fellow," he has hold of reality. When a man, though
maligned of the world, says to himself of himself, "My purpose was just,"
he has hold of reality. He knows himself, for he is himself. A man does not
know an infinite amount about himself. But the finite amount he does know
is all in the map; it is all part of what is really there. What he does not
know about himself would, did he know it, fit in with what he does know
about himself. There are indeed "aspects" of a man for all others except
these two, himself and God Who made him. These two, when they regard him,
see him as he is; all other minds have their several views of him; and
these indeed are "aspects," each of which is false, while all differ. But
a man's view of himself is not an "aspect:" it is a comprehension.

Now then, so it is with us who are of the Faith and the great story of
Europe. A Catholic as he reads that story does not grope at it from
without, he understands it from within. He cannot understand it altogether
because he is a finite being; but he is also that which he has to
understand. The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith.

The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages I mean
the history of Christendom) self-knowledge. As a man in the confessional
accuses himself of what he knows to be true and what other people cannot
judge, so a Catholic, talking of the united European civilization, when he
blames it, blames it for motives and for acts which are his own. He himself