Hugo was well fitted by temperament to mediate between the extreme tendencies of his time. Utterly destitute of that daring originality which placed Erigena at least two centuries in advance of his age, his very gentleness and caution would alone have rendered him more moderate in his views and more catholic in sympathy than the intense and vehement Bernard. Hugo, far from proscribing science and denouncing speculation, called in the aid of the logical gymnastics of his day to discipline the mind for the adventurous enterprise of the mystic. If he regarded with dislike the idle word-warfare of scholastic ingenuity, he was quite as little disposed to bid common sense a perpetual farewell among the cloudiest realms of mysticism. His style is clear, his spirit kindly, his judgment generally impartial. It is refreshing in those days of ecclesiastical domination to meet with at least a single mind to whom that Romanist ideal—an absolute uniformity in religious opinion—appeared both impossible and undesirable.[58] A few words may present the characteristic outlines of his mysticism. It avails itself of the aid of speculation to acquire a scientific form—in due subjection, of course, to the authority of the Church. It will ground its claim on a surer tenure than mere religious emotion or visionary reverie. Hugo, with all his contemporaries, reverenced the Pseudo-Dionysius. His more devout and practical spirit laboured at a huge commentary on the _Heavenly Hierarchy_, like a good angel, condemned for some sin to servitude under a paynim giant. In the hands of his commentator, Dionysius becomes more scriptural and human—for the cloister, even edifying, but remains as uninteresting as ever. Hugo makes a threefold division of our faculties. First, and lowest, _Cogitatio_. A stage higher stands _Meditatio_: by this he means reflection, investigation. Third, and highest, ranges _Contemplatio_: in this state the mind possesses in light the truth which, in the preceding, it desired and groped after in twilight.[59]