Contemplation: "infused contemplation" is a tautology..."acquired contemplation" is a contradiction

What is Mysticism?
David Knowles. pp. 30-32

• In the field of prayer, its own proper field in the modern use of words, the term contemplation is equivocal. Leaving aside the use of the word for the final part of a set exercise of meditation, there is a long history of controversy, extending over more than three centuries, over the use of the adjectives "perfect", "infused" and "acquired" as applied to contemplation, and the permissibility of using, or restricting the use of, the single word contemplation in respect of each of these three expressions. We need not be detained by the discussion over "perfect" contemplation; it concerns the meaning of the term as used by several Spanish mystical writers, and in particular by St Teresa, and is not of general significance.
• The other two expressions are of more practical interest. The first, "infused contemplation", needs no long treatment. It is, on the view adopted throughout this book, a tautology. Contemplation, in the context of personal prayer, is by definition freely infused knowledge and love. In the brief phrase of St John of the Cross, "contemplation is to receive".3 If this is so, it must follow that "acquired contemplation" is a contradiction in terms. It is, indeed, an unfortunate expression which arose at a time and in a region when the ambiguities of the word contemplation had not been fully explored. In recent years spiritual writers have preferred to use the terms "active" and "infused recollection". But apart from purely verbal discussions, there is a real point of importance at issue, which must be considered briefly.  
    
• In the scheme of the degrees of prayer, which forms part of almost every recent discussion of mysticism or contemplation, the lowest step is composed of the prayer, called in the context the prayer of beginners, which is in fact the prayer of all Christians who are not in what may be called technically "the mystical way". It is the prayer in which meditation, reflection or reading, assisted imperceptibly by the grace that [3 Living Flame (second redaction), stanza iii, par. 36 (Complete Works of St John of the Cross, ed. E. A. Peers, III, p. 162)].  precedes and accompanies all good activities of the powers of the soul, issues in "acts"; that is, conscious movements of the mind and will in the direction of faith and love and adoration. This is fully "active" prayer. But it must be remembered that while schematically the division between active and infused love and knowledge is clear-cut, in ordinary life, as opposed to theory and logic, growth is slow and gradual. In nature, the difference between a seed and a plant is obvious and essential, but there is a time of change in which both the seed and the first shoots of the plant are present, the former disappearing, the latter just visible. So in the matter of prayer explicit words and thoughts, and even express "acts" of faith and love, become more and more simple, until there comes a time when prayer is to a greater or less degree one of "loving attention" to God present in the mind as the object of faith and hope and love. This is the degree known as the "prayer of simplicity" or of "simple regard". There is nothing overtly mystical about it, and those who practise it can, at least normally, embark on it at will. Yet at the same time (and this is of great significance, though it is often ignored), this kind of prayer is not one that all devout persons can practise or indeed understand. It is, in its fully developed form, the prayer that accompanies a stage of spiritual growth. It is in fact, though not perceptibly mystical or infused, more spiritual and less mechanical than the prayer of expressed acts. There will be occasion to return to this later, and for the moment, it is enough to have suggested that the spiritual nature of this prayer and its imperceptible character tend to make it a matter of controversy, and that there is reason, though not perhaps adequate reason, for calling it "acquired contemplation". Yet in this use, the word contemplation has no clear significance, unless we suppose a confusion, which some writers betray, between obscure, loving attention to the presence of God and the moment of the mind's rest after a process of meditation or reasoning. In fact, it would psychologically be more correct to say, with St John of the Cross, that a succession in the past of express acts directed to God has produced a habit which enables the individual to be at will in the state to which these acts lead. It is certainly not infused contemplation, and has perhaps received more attention from spiritual writers than it deserves, for it is not a mystical prayer in the full sense of the word.