Are they the only ones who do not know?
Is it clear to every one else?
This doubt makes it difficult even to hint at the perplexity.

These are often naturally religious minds, and outside the guidance of the Catholic Church, in search of truth, they easily fall under the influence of different schools of thought which take them out of their depth, and lead them further and further from the reasonable certainty about first principles which they are in search of.

Within the Church, of course, they can never stray so far, and the truths of faith supply their deepest needs.

But if they want to know more, to know something of themselves, and to have at least some rational knowledge of the universe, then to give them a hold on the elements of philosophical knowledge is indeed a mental if not a spiritual work of mercy, for it enables them to set their ideas in order by the light of a few first principles, it shows them on what plane their questions lie, it enables them to see how all knowledge and new experience have connexions with what has gone before, and belong to a whole with a certain fitness and proportion.

They learn also thus to take themselves in hand in a reasonable way; they gain some power of attributing effects to their true causes, so as neither to be unduly alarmed nor elated at the various experiences through which they will pass.
Between these two divisions lies a large group, that of the "average person," not specially flighty and not particularly thoughtful.