This fever calmed, Augustin set himself to reflect. The ancient philosophers promised him wisdom. But Christ also promised it! Was it not possible to reconcile them? And was not the Gospel ideal essentially more human than that of the pagan philosophers? Suppose he tried to submit to that, to bring the faith of his childhood into line with his ambitions as a young man of intellect? To be good after the manner of his mother, of his grandparents, of the good Thagaste servants, of all the humble Christian souls whose virtues he had been taught to respect, and at the same time to rival a Plato by the strength of thought--what a dream! Was it possible?... He tells us himself that the illusion was brief, and that he grew cool about the _Hortensius_ because he did not find the name of Christ in it. He deceives himself, probably. At this time he was not so Christian. He yields to the temptation of a fine phrase: when he wrote his _Confessions_ he had not yet entirely lost this habit. But what remains true is, that feeling the inadequateness of pagan philosophy, he returned for a moment towards Christianity. The Ciceronian dialogue, by disappointing his thirst for the truth, gave him the idea of knocking at the door of the Church and trying to find out if on that side there might not be a practicable road for him. This is why the reading of _Hortensius_ is in Augustin's eyes one of the great dates of his life. Although he fell back in his errors, he takes credit for his effort. He recognizes in it the first sign, and, as it were, a promise of his conversion. "Thenceforth, my God, began my upward way, and my return towards Thee." He began then to study the Holy Scriptures with a more or less serious intention to instruct himself in them. But to go to the Bible by way of Cicero was to take the worst road. Augustin got lost there. This direct popular style, which only cares about saying things, and not about how they are said, could only repel the pupil of Carthage rhetoricians, the imitator of the harmonious Ciceronian sentences. Not only had he much too spoiled a taste in literature, but there was also too much literature in this pose of a young man who starts off one fine morning to conquer wisdom. He was punished for his lack of sincerity, and especially of humility. He understood nothing of the Scripture, and "I found it," he says, "a thing not known to the proud, nor yet laid open to children, but poor in appearance, lofty in operation, and veiled in mysteries. At that time, I was not the man to bow my head so as to pass in at its door."... He grew tired very quickly. He turned his back on the Bible, as he had thrown aside _Hortensius_, and he went to find pasture elsewhere. Nevertheless, his mind had been set in motion. Nevermore was he to know repose, till he had found truth. He demanded this truth from all the sects and all the churches. So it was, that in despair he flung himself into Manicheeism.