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THE SOLILOQUIES

ST. AUGUSTINE

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THE SOLILOQUIES

OF ST. AUGUSTINE

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY

ROSE ELIZABETIt CLEVELAND

,¥v'itb" Notes and Introduction

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INTRODUCTION

HE anemic society of to-day needs not

so much the specializing genius--the

artist who lives because of his works- as the

all-around man, the vital personality whose

works live because of him; the mall to whom

nothing human is alien, whose experience cir-

cumscribes and transcends that of the common

lot; the prodigious individual rather than the

individual prodigy, the master rather than the

marvel. Such an one is Augustine, once Bishop

of Hippo, peerless controversialist, incom-

parable church father; and once, the dreaming,

doubting, half-heathen youth and man, eager

of brain, restless of heart, lover of pleasure

more than lover of God.

M. Nourisson introduces his study of the

philosophy of Augustine with the following re-

mark: "If St. Augustine had left only the

Confessions and The City of God it would have

been easy from them alone to account for the

respectful s)_mpathy which enxfrons his mem-

ory. How, indeed, can one fail, in The City of

God, to admire the flights of genius, and in the

Confessions the yet more precious effusions of

viii _l_r_-b_,._,'_tt

a great soul ? It must be confessed that these

portrayals flaming with passion, these ardors

of repentance, these wingings toward heavenly

things, are what have made the name of the

Bishop of Hippo popular. There exists no

heart, whatever be its native mediocrity, which

is incapable of recognizing something of its

own experience in these vacillations, these tem-

pests, these holy transports of Augustine.

Hence the prestige conquering centuries, which

attaches to this noble figure, ttowever, who

does not know him ? "

To this question, which implies so wide-

spread an acquaintance with Augustine, one

can but reply, Who does know him ? How few

are they who know even his Confessions, when

compared to those who know them not! And

still fewer they who know even a small part

of the vast City of God.

It is certain, however, that he who knows

the Confessions, not to add the City of God, has

made acquaintance with Augustine. But the

whole man is not there. There is always some-

thing, perhaps the main thing, to be learned

about a person which the person himself cannot

tell. Just as no power can the "giftie gie us,"

to see ourselves as others see us, so to no one

is it given to completely describe himself. The

sincerity of his desire to do so can contribute

nothing toward the success of his effort. The

portrait which the Confessions hang before us

is not that of the Soliloquies. The nai] convert

3uIxMmrI_n ix

at Cassiacum had not the self-consciousness

which pre-eminence as a church father forced

upon the Bishop of Hippo. In the Soliloquies

Augustine, -- to use the significant slang--

completely gives himself away, while in the

Confessions he deals himself out in painstaking

instalments with conscientious purpose to give

full measure, and yet, somehow, comes a little

short. This is not to undervalue the incom-

parable Confessions, but only to note that the

impressionist touch in a careless sketch often

does more for the likeness than a world of pre-

raphaelite detail which may be better art.

Time, also, has something to do with it. The

Soliloquies introduce us to the converted man

at the very moment of his conversion. The

Confessions give us the Bishop of Hippo's rec-

ollection of that man after years of absorption

in the exacting duties of ecclesiastical function

and doctrinal debate. Who, seeking to con-

front the real self of early years, would accept

for such his own random recollections at a much

later period, recalled of necessity piecemeal,

amid the distractions of professional routine, in

exchange for the diary into which was poured

at the crucial moment the inmost self of those

very days and hours? Harnaek says: " The

foundations of Augustine's religious character-

istics can be best studied in the writings that are

read least, namely in the tractates and letters !

written immediately after his conversion, and

(

forming an extremely necessary supplement

x ltarohllahm

to the Confessions." " What was written

earlier was, undoubtedly, in many respects less

complete, less churchly, more Neoplatonic;

but, on the other hand, it was more direct, more

personal."

To one who knows how to read them with

mental polyglot no work of Augustine gives so

much suggestion of his " inexhaustible person-

ality" (Harnack) as do the Soliloquies. But this

is true here, as ever) where, only of the prepared

reader. The merciless formula, It takes two

halves to make a whole one, is never more ex-

acting than in the conjunction of book and

reader. He who brings away from a book

all which the author puts in it, and all

which gets in of itself, is he who takes some-

thing to it. It takes a thief to catch a thief.

This competent reader will develop con amore

the abilities of the comparative anatomist.

In Hippo the writer was shown the bones of a

right arm which are piously treasured by be-

lievers there as those of Augustine. From these

bones a Cuvier could erect the skeleton com-

plete. But the comparative anatomist of psy-

chology can go farther than the physiologist,

for from some fragments of his thought care-

lessly scattered by one who has written, as

Augustine tells us he wrote the Soliloquies,

after his own heart's cogitation (seeundum

meum studium et amorem), this psychologist

can construct not only the skeleton of the au-

thor's personality, but can clothe it with flesh

._atrai_'_iaa xi

and blood. But this expert is born, not made.

That divine thing, sympathy, does it all; for

its possessor will not fail to acquire the train-

ing needful for its fruitful exercise.

These potential fragments, however, are

not found by searching. One stumbles on

them. How do we come by our passionate

preferences for this poet or that ? By a serious

setting out to know him in order to find out if

we like him ? Who ever became a lover of

Shakespeare by sitting down before a pile of

his complete works to begin at the beginning

and solemnly to proceed to the last volume,

until every line and word has become familiar ?

Not one; not one lover at least; for lovers are

not formed that way. Rather is he captivated

by some stray passage, some scimitar of intui-

tion which pierces to bone and marrow and

thrills the reader by its truth and beauty.

Transfixed by this wound, more precious than

that of Cupid's arrow, he is henceforth Shake-

speare's man, with undying passion to hunt, to

find, to possess by all means his total treasure.

So of Homer, so of Plato, so of Dante, so of

Augustine.

The Soliloquies of Augustine are almost un-

known. This is largely, if not entirely, due

to the fact that spurious substitutes have, since

the 18th century., usurped their place. Emile

Saisset says in his review of Pelissier's trans-

lation: " There is, it would seem, scarcely

anything among the writings of St. Augustine

more familiar to the public, or more widely

circulated than the Soliloquies, for the reason

that they are not the genuine ones."

It has been the writer's unhappy fortune to

experience the truth of M. Saisset's remark. On

my library table lies a tiny leathern-bound book,

which was black with age and use centuries

before its capture from a Milan bookstand by its

present owner. The Soliloquies of Augustine

had evaded long and persevering search, and

to find upon the yellow title-page of this di-

minutive volume the words: Divi Aurelii Au-

gustini Hippon. Epi._'copi MeditatioTtes, So-

liloquia, etc., etc. -- and that, too, in Milan!--

was no ordinary satisfaction. It was, there-

fore, a bitter hour when another discovery was

made, to wit, that the title prefacing these

Soliloquia covered nothing of Augustine's,

save some phrases from the Confessions di-

luted and adapted to the making of a manual

of private devotion. Its editor explains that,

" having been repeatedly requested to compose

from the monuments of the holy fathers a little

book for the stimulation of love and devotion to

God, he offers.., this little collection, etc., etc."

The date of the Approbatio, following the Finis',

is given as 1607. According to Tillemont this

book appeared as early as the 13th century.

Poujoulat says it was compiled by Hugo of

St. Victor, a monk of the 1Sth century, from the

3ttlm_ _ttism xiii

Confessions and an application of the Rule of

St. Augustine made by Hugo himself. It con-

sists of a medley of devout and ejaculatory

sentences which could have been produced at

any time subsequent to the publication of

the Confessions. Erasmus calls it a conglom-

erate which may be praised rather for its

abundance than its importance.

It need not be doubted that this little de-

votional book, when or by whomsoever com-

piled, had for its motive, in the first instance,

" the stimulation of love and devotion to God."

That it should, in many successive editions in the

course of seven centuries, retain the name of the

Soliloquies of Augustine is a fact not so amiably

accepted. One may believe that its first editor

might have been ignorant of the existence of

the genuine Soliloquies. It is true that the

Saxon king, Alfred, translated them into the

English of his day in the 10th century, a fact

that would suggest that they could not be

wholly unknown to Latins of the same or later

days. Still, acquaintance with sources would be

most likely confined to ecclesiastical authori-

ties, and it is quite credible that such in those

days, as in ours, would deem a " collection "

of pious ejaculations of a sound Catholic type

much safer reading for the masses than the

intensely thoughtful and speculative pages of

an author not yet purged of Neoplatonic and

Manichaean taints. Such speculation bearing

the name of the incomparable church father,

_v _utrohuction

the defender par excellence of the faith, the

canonized saint, written, too, after his conver-

sion, would I_e unspeakably embarrassing to

father-confessors. Reflections such as these

would lead, by easy logic, to a suggestion irre-

sistible to the zealous monk. Why not a little

book bearing the name Soliloquies compiled

from the Confessions and other works consist-

ent with the church father, which would dispose

of the whole difficulty, retire the " offspring "

(Solihquies I, 1) and put the edifying bastard in

its place? This pious plan would have been

quite safe of execution in those days; possibly

not so much so in these when libraries exist, ac-

cessible to all, where the complete works of

Augustine may be found in the original text, the

precious fragment bearing the name of Solilo-

quies, among them. Alfred of England is

known better to-day than he was a lhousand

),ears ago, and the Saissets, Janets, Pelissiers,

Labothoni_res and hosts of comrades ill swell-

ing ranks of those who are awaking or are al-

ready wide-awake to the immenza grandczza

(II Santo Fogazzaro) of Augustine the man,

will not permit him longer to remain sub-

merged in the church father. The genuine

Soliloquies, with other of his earlier works, will

win their rightful place in the representation of

that " inexhaustible personality," whom Hat.

nack also calls the first modern man.

The spurious Soliloquies are, however, still

being published under Augustine's name.

A late edition (1891, Victor Lecoffre, Paris) is

announced by the editor as a " new translation

revised very accurately after the Latin," continu-

ing: " It is true that, although these appear

under the name of the incomparable Doctor,

many hold that it is uncertain whether they

are his .... One may however rest assured

that, if they are not the saint's as to arrange-

ment, they are altogether his as to matter."

Here, again, is no suggestion of the existence

of the genuine Soliloquies, and one may take

his choice between two explanatory theories,

the one that each successive republisher of this

book is always ignorant that genuine Solilo-

quies exist; the other that in his great zeal

against the spirit of modernism with which they

are replete, he is constrained, by loyalty to

the good cause, to repeat the silence of his

predecessors concerning them. However this

may be, it is evident that Augustine's genuine

Soliloquies have not, in the past, been consid-

ered important to the church, or to himself

in the rSle of church father. Nor can it be

affirmed that they will be so considered in

the future. Though, in the true sense of the

word, they are theological, discoursing of God,

""the one Reality," they are not dogmatic or

ecclesiastical. No " system " can be founded,

or even suggested by them, no institutional

Christianity. They contain much in suggestion

and in spirit of that abomination of desola-

tion to the Yatica_ Catholic, modernism, but

xvi _Jmro_urtlon

nothing of that ecclesiastical technique which

has fitly joined together and floated over all

waters these many centuries the massive ark

of St. Peter's. They supply no hint of the

career ahead for their author, none of the

bishop to be, the prince of controversialists, the

defender of the faith, none of the canonized

saint.

On the other hand there is more than hint,

there is ample revelation of all that went to the

making of the man of two worlds, the man to

whom nothing of man is alien; whose intelleet

absorbs all knowledge as his heart all experi-

ence, fusing the two, and forcing the resultant

through the meshes of his keen dialectic,

whence it emergeg sifted for the service of God

and man. In this fragmentary monologue is

found a superlative example of the unceasing

action of this combination of his thought-and

feeling as it moves, like a radius, within that

infinite circle where God is centre in the soul of

man and circumference in the infinitude of

being.

It is not within the proprieties of this preface

to discuss the rank or reach of Augustine's in-

tellect, or to argue for or against Harnack, when

he says he is the first modern man and credits

him with "a wealth of psychological discov-

eries," "as regards memory, association of

ideas, synthetic activity of spontaneous thought,

ideality of the categories, a /w/or/ functions,

determinant numbers, synthesis of reproduction

_utrohm_h_tl xvii

in the imagination," etc. (History o[ Dogma, p.

1I_, and note); or to bring forward the multitude

of great names from his own day to this, who

testify to his superlative endowments; but only

to let him speak to heart and brain alike of the

reader, in the unself-conscious sample which

is here presented.

The interest of this remarkable fragment

to most readers, aside from its religious im-

portance, is mainly psychological and his-

torical. It has also other distinct and ines-

timable values, which cannot be even touched

upon here. To the student of Neoplatonism

and other related philosophies it is a mine of

suggestion. (Among countless others an im-

portant recent appreciation of this value is M.

Grandgeorge's St. Augustin et La Neopla-

tonisme, Ernest Leroux, Paris.) It contains

valuable samples of the harassing dialectics

in which, after Socrates and Plato, he was

trained, and in which the pupil excelled the

master. It contains what Pelissier calls an

excellent moral argument for the immortality

of the soul. Spite of the jealousy of the wor-

shipers of Descartes, it originates in the dia-

logue between Reason and Augustine which

introduces the second book,- elaborated else-

where, especially in the City of God (see note

53)- the famous cogito ergosum which is the

corner-stone of modern Cartesian philosophy.

His analysis of the will supplies a primer of first

principles to modern psychology (see note 1_).

xviii _,ttnn3atrlimt

Augustine taught, before Kant immortalized

the truth in his Critique, " The only good thing

is the good will." But when all is said, the

main artery which connects Augustine so vi-

tally with ever3, one who knows him, is that

current of passionate love for God and the

soul, so conspicuous in the Soliloquies, which

makes him kin -- if king -- of the whole race

by the reddest blood of the human heart.

"The fourteencenturiesfall away

Betweenus and the Mrie saint,

Andat his sidewe urgeto-day

The immemorialquestand oldcomplaint."

The great man is the great lover; the great-

est he whose greatest love is for the greatest.

Always a lover, loving life, love, man, woman,

letters, discourse, with inexhaustible passion,

Augustine coasted half his life at his peril among

the rocks and over the shallows along the shore

of the vast deep which waited for him far be-

yond. But now at thirty-three years of age

when we meet him in the Soliloquies, he has

gone to sea with God. Flood-tide has lifted

him off the perilous ledges of his passions, and,

fearless in those unsounded depths where pilot

and port are one (Soliloquies I, 4), all the eur-

rents of his soul set to one course, --" God and

the soul," " the soul and God alone !" At this

solemn interval moment we see him in com-

munion with the immanent Deity concerning

the issues of life. Behind him lies his past in

3nlrn_1_u xix

ruins; before him looms his future in nebulae;

between these Augustine questions and prays:

" Teach me how to come to Thee! I have

nothing but the will. I know nothing but that

the fleeting and failing should be spurned, the

certain and eternal sougfit. This I do, Father,

for this is all I know: but how to make my

way to Thee I know not. Do Thou suggest it,

make it plain, equip me for the journey! If they

who take refuge in Thee, find Thee by faith,

give me faith! If by virtue, give me virtue!

If by "knowledge, give me knowledge! "

The first page of the Soliloquies brings us

face to face with those two Augustines which

are to be met with henceforth in all his works,

the one practical, the other speculative; the

one seeking for himself,- as in the Soliloquies,

or for others, -- as in his later official works,

principles for the regulation of conduct; the

other seeking everywhere, with consummate

psychology, a pathway to ultimate reality.

Already in the Soliloquies he recognizes with

anguish the world-wide difference between

believing and knowing, "for it may be truly

said that we believe all that we know, but not

that we know all that we believe" (I, 3).

At this moment he is seeking both what to

do and how to know. His former point of view

as to the desirable things of life has entirely

xx Satrallttmaa

passed away. With his newness of will all

things have become new, and he begins his

Soliloquies by relating how, for a long time and

with intense anxiety, he has been turning over

in his mind a multitude of alternatives, seeking

to know his true self, and what, as his best

good, he should seek, what, as an evil, he should

shun; and that, while thus revolving in his

mind this incessant query, he is aware of a

sudden interposition in the debate of " one "

of whom he is vividly conscious, yet, he adds

in parenthesis, though it be the one thing of all

others he most eagerly strives to learn, he does

not know whether this " one " is himseff or

another, and, if another, whether that other

be within or without himself. In present-day

language of psychology, he is asking whether

he shall recognize this " other " as a subliminal

self, or a secondary personality, or an extra

Augustine immanent in the Cosmic Absohite,

or as part and parcel of the All-Becoming-ness

whose bright ray of less impeded self-hood con-

stitutes the real Augustine _ Or, by a sharp

turn, will an inveterate dualism assert itself

Athanaxius conlra mundura _ and explain

that one and one--or this and the " other "-

make two ? Theories these, which in varying

formulae have traveled down the ages, only

stopping anywhere long enough to change their

clothes and get themselves different names.

Theosophies, monisms, dualisms, pluralisms,

they arrive from a far past to be the guests in

_rn_ xxi

modern dress of modern hosts, and as such to

be hailed by most as modern discoveries. But

they were old acquaintances, with ancient

names, to Augustine. In his Retraetations,

written late in life, Augustine tell us that in

his Soliloquies he questions and answers him-

self as if two, reason and himself, were discuss-

ing, although he was quite alone (me interrc_

gans, me respondens, tanquam duo essemus,

ratio et ego, cure solus essem). He gives Reason

the place of preceptor, Augustine taking the

place of pupil. Reason forth_4th, having

briefly led his pupil to a realization of the practi-

cal difficulties in the way of his undertaking,

exhorts him to " at once pray for health and

help."

In this initial behest of Reason is seen that

involution of reason and faith which is the most

constant characteristic of Augustine's thought.

Reason speaks for and to the reasonable. It

is no discouraged tyro who, beset with embar-

rassment as to ways and means by which to

pursue his longed-for research, turns in des-

peration from intellect to faith. It is that most

competent and authoritative entity, Reason,

which anticipates the failure incident upon any

other course than that of optimistic co-opera-

tion, through the appeal of faith, with the source

of reason and knowledge. Already it is clear

to the practical Augustine that rat/onab///ter

visum est, ut tides praeeedit intellectura. It

is never a matter of trying God, when other

xxii 3tdro_h___rttmt

experiments have failed. God lacks neither

power nor willingness; it is only a question of

our ability to desire the best thing, and to get

ready to receive it. At the commencement of

the second book, Augustine rises to Reason's

height and counsels the exercise of faith first

of all-" Let us believe that God will be with

us! " To which Reason replies, implying that

hitherto faith has not been perfect, " Let us

actually believe this if it be within our power, t"

In reply to which Augustine, summing up in

the words his whole " system," replies: "He

is our power/"

For Augustine all symbols of safety and

fruition are epitomized in that one word, God,

the only Reality. Whatever his traditions, or

his speculations, he is, on his religious side, a

practical monist. God is all: and nowhere is

this sublime spiritual monism so formulated as

in this prayer, which, in response to Reason's

exhortation, introduces the Soliloquies. Every-

where Augustine proclaims this as postulate: it

is unthinkable that man should feel sufficient

to himself. Not only in his Confessions when

he talks to God, as father-confessor, but in all

his works after conversion, is seen this habitual

consciousness of God, as the one Reality.

" God, true and perfect Life, in whom and by

whom and through whom those live who do

truly and perfectly live! " And this conscious-

ness deepened and broadened like the stream

which descends from the hills and invades one

_ntrn_ttrltmt xxiii

field after another until the whole plain is over-

flowed. So as time goes on the Divine flood is

to fill his landscape and to obliterate all other

things. At present, in the Soliloquies, we see

this flood descending, in spite of the habit of

the Platonist, the Neoplatonist, the Mani-

chaean. " The vanity of the schools "of which

in his Retractations he accuses the Soliloquies,

has, as yet, left its high places, which the deeps

of God have not completely hidden. Augus-

tine, the dialectician emerges; but if so, is he

more harmful or more intrusive here, than as

the controversialist of a later day ? If the latter

was a power for the church, of his day, is not

the former a power for a purer devotion, a more

single zeal--" love for God and the soul

alone "--for all time and all believers ?

As a Neoplatonist, not less than as a Chris-

tian, Augustine knows that Reason, whatever

be its substance, plays between himself and

God. "Rat/o was, to him, the organ in which

God reveals himself to man, and in which man

perceives God" (History o] Dogma, V, p.

1_._,n).

If the Soliloquies have any dogmatic value,

that is, if they supply the thinker with any

constructive material, it is to be found here in

the first formulation of that which was the

corner-stone of all his practical as well as doc-

trinal teaching: Fides praecedit intellectum.

Everywhere, this precious ore gleams constant

amid all his conglomerates, separate, yet in-

x_v _n_rob_t.rlinn

volved in the whole structure; implied in its

very form of dialogue between the ego, and

the ego-plus. Reason shadows forth a teaching

concerning faith which is reason, and concern-

ing reason which is faith: the separation is only

in function. Intuition precedes knowledge, is

knowledge by another route; "that direct

self-consciousness of the spirit in regard to

itself which sleeps in every mind, but which

few remark and still fewer interpret " (Natural-

ism and Religion, Otto). It is the believing

before seeing; " Kant's rational faith whose

belief is grounded in the categorical impera-

tive " (the thing that ought to be true and there-

fore is true; the mandates of Duty) " and

guaranteed by it " (Philosophy o] the Christial_

Religion, Fairbairn). This knowing which is

intuition, insight; this believing which is faith,

foresight, is the intellectus in its purity of germ;

the dogma without the formula. Intuition and

faith do not talk; they see.

Perhaps to many the Soliloquies supply no

such constructive suggestion: to him who

says they have none no argument need be

made. But where the hammer hits the red-hot

metal the sparks will fly. Better be still and

catch, if only one of these divine scintillations,

holding it close against the heart that no wind

of words may quench its sacred fire. Tended

carefully, a flame will mount to the brain where

intellectus waits to perform his alchemy.

Shall we now, as in duty bound, interject

3ntrmhntlinn xxv

some mention of the obvious defects of the

Soliloquies ? They are on the surface and need

no emphasizing. Pelissier in the notes to his

fine translation of the Soliloquies, says: " We

suffer to see a doctrine so pure and true com-

promised by its mixture with these miserable

sophisms." And in his Introduction we read:

"In the Soliloquies, last adieu of a pious soul to

philosophical controversies, one can admire,

with a sort of secret preference, an ardor of

youth which time, in disciplining, must en-

feeble. Under the rhetorician who takes de-

light in submerging beneath the billows of

scholastic arguities an excellent moral argu-

ment, one feels the young Christian who seeks

and senses in advance the solution of his prob-

lem.... Thus, in the birth-brightness of the

Christian genius, the stains and imperfections

of detail are effaced and lost in order that we

may abandon ourselves wholly to the fruitful

and generous enjoyment of admiration."

Comparing small things to great, we may say

of the Soliloquies what Dr. Marcus Dodd says,

in the Introduction to his translation of the

stupendous City of God: "Though there are in

it, as in all ancient books, things that seem to us

childish and barren, there are also the most

surprising anticipations of modern specula-

tions.... It is true there are passages which

can possess an interest only to the antiquarian;

there are others with nothing to redeem them

but the glow of their eloquence; there axe

xxvi _nlrm_mn

many repetitions;thcreisan occasionaluse

of arguments 'p/us ingenieux que solide6"'as

M. Saisset says .... The book has its faults;

but it effectually introduces us to the most in-

fluential of theologians and the greatest popu-

lar teacher; to a genius that cannot nod for

many lines together; to a reasoner whose dia-

lectic is more formidable . . . than that of Soc-

rates or Aquinas; to a saint whose ardent and

genuine devotional feeling bursts up through

the severest argumentation; to a man whose

kindliness and wit, universal sympathies and

breadth of intelligence lend piquancy and

vitality to the most abstract dissertation."

And now for a glance at Augustine as he

soliloquizes, and then we will leave him to the

reader.

The book which a great genius writes con

amore is the book one cares to read, for what-

ever be its defects, it has this pre-eminent merit:

that, more than another can, it reveals the

author himseff. We have seen that Augustine

wrote the Soliloquies to please himself. We

shall now see that he wrote them in an environ-

ment pleasing to him, for he had with him

those friends whom he so desires shall with

him, " inquire into God and the soul " (I, 20);

and he enjoys ease and comfort in the beautiful

retirement he craves. The little village of

Casciago, nested amofig the mountains sur-

3tttrn_._t'Ii_ xxvii

rounding Milan and the Italian lakes, wears to-

day the same bewitching features of natural

scenery which so charmed Augustine in the

year 386. The tourist who goes there gazes

with enchantment on the same superb pano-

rama. Throned on the northwest Monte Rosa

in perpetual ermine queens it over her Alpine

courtiers grouped about in close attend-

ance, while lower heights stand "knightlyguard,

and between their steadfast columns the waters

of Maggiore and the lesser lakes put in gleams

as of their knightly steel. To the south stretches

the great plain of Lombardy with its fertile

fields, its hamlets and its villages, all humbly

tributary to the royal city farther on.

But no tourist goes to Casciago to-day unless

he goes there for Augustine's sake- to stand,

for a moment, where Augustine" rested in God

from the fiery turmoil of the world." His

Confessions tell us of this fiery turmoil. For

him, as for every one not wholly of it, the world

had been no resting place. Augustine had

always been of two worlds and therefore never

at home in either. The thirty-three years be-

hind him had been lived under a succession of

conflicting influences into which he was born.

His birthplace, Thagaste, a small inland town

in North Africa now Souk Aras, was partly of

the old, partly of the new religion. His mother

was a Christian, his father a pagan, though

converted to his wife's faith before his death.

The history of his boyhood and youth is a record

xxviii _xoi_urliou

of excessive antagonisms and excessive pre-

dilections, of passionate joys and passionate

sorrows such as a nature at once fiery and

tender must experience amid the " contrary

currents of the world." Reaching a young

manhood of splendid ability lie soon makes for

himself a distinguished name in his profession

of rhetoric, which was then almost compre-

hensive in its scope, embracing philosophy

and literature as well as disputation and ora-

tory. But now, as earlier, hot blood and a

hungry heart battle with a lofty spirit and

sensitive, conscience, and the weary warfare of

flesh against spirit and spirit against flesh does

not cease until he wrenches loose from it in its

crisis agony in the lonely garden at Milan.

The passion for truth, for knowledge, for de-

bate, that " chain of reasoning " which he says

(Epistles, HI) " I am accustomed to caress as

if it were my chief treasure, and in which I

take, perhaps, too much delight " was too

often and too long subjected to the " very toy

of toys and vanity of vanities," his antiquae

amieiae (Con]essions, VIII, p. SO1), the minis-

ters to the lust of the flesh, _e lust of the eyes,

the pride of life. " I was sick and tormented,

tossing and turning me in my chains; " alter-

nating between the " two wills " which he

found a horrifying monster (monstrum horren-

dum). We see him at Carthage, at Rome, at

Milan, studying, teaching, lecturing; making

joyous, generous friendships, flattered and

_aIr_n x_x

championed by powerful friends, maintaining

faithfully for years one woman, with his son

and mother; yielding to the solicitations of his

mother and friends in their plans for an advan-

tageous marriage, which should have put an

end to this irregular connection, and advance

him in emolument and honor and all that goes

with successful and reputable citizenship; but

ever and always the hunger of the heart for

love, the fire of the brain for knowledge, con-

sume him with" a fever of irresolution." " The

very moment in which I was to become an-

other man, the nearer it approached me, the

greater horror did it strike into me; but it did

not strike me back nor tttrn me aside, but

kept me in suspense " (Con_essions, IX). Al-

ready entering middle life, these struggles had

drained the youth from him but left its tyran-

nous desires and habits. Many years had

passed since the Hortensius of Cicero had, at

nineteen, changed his ideals and aspirations

" to an incredible ardor for an immortality of

wisdom." And now, in the words of Paul

Janet in the introduction to his superb trans-

lation of the Confessions which must not suffer

by translation: " Que nous voilk loin de ce

premier 4veil de l'£me, de cet appel _ la sagesse,

de cet aurore de la pens_e, oh tout est beau et

facile, off les passions sont un auxiliare plut6t

qu'un obstaclet La pens6e s'est fatigu6e; l'af-

firmation, si facile _tla jeunesse, est devenue un

effort p4nible; les d4ceptions ont enfant6 le

.x_ _htlrt_ttrliatt

dSgofit; le d_sir du repos, du bonheur facile, des

honneurs mondains, commence tt gagner sur

l'amour du beau et du bien. L"_me n'a pas

renonc6 encore _ son beau r_ve, mais elle se

sent fldchir; dtat pdrilleux, ofabeaucoup d",2mes

et de volont6s succombent, mais d'ofl une _me

forte et grande sort ,_prouv6e. retremp6e, et

pr6te aux plus grands sacrifices. C'est ce qui

axriva h Saint Augustin." The crisis of con-

flict between the two wills, the one old, the

other new, the one carnal, the other spiritual,

is now reached; the great surrender succeeds

to this climax agony, and the fig-tree in the

garden of his lodging at Milan shelters now the

new man! "And this was the result, that I

willed not to do what I willed, and willed to do

what Thou willed'st .... IIow sweet did it

suddenly become to me to be without trifles!

And what, at one time, I feared to lose, it was

now a joy to me to put away. For Thou did'st

cast them away from me, Thou true and high-

est sweetness. Thou did'st cast them away,

and, instead of them, did'st enter in Thyself,

sweeter than all pleasures, though not to flesh

and blood, brighter than all light but more

veiled than all mysteries; more exalted than all

honor but not to the exalted in their own con-

ceits. Now was my soul free from the gnawing

cares of seeking and getting and of wallowing

and exciting the itch of lust, and I babbled unto

Thee, my brightness, my riches and my health,

the Lord, my Godt " (Con]essions, IX).

_lrarmhm'ti_ x_xxi

With this new mind there can be, for Augus-

tine, no thought of the old life. All is changed;

there is but one next thing. " And it seemed

good to me as before Thee, not tumultuously

to snatch away, but gently to withdraw

the service of my tongue from the talker's

trade.., and, being redeemed by Thee,

no more to return for sale." Still the " hot-

blooded man," (Harnaek) he is now possessed

by his last all-dominating passion, the love

of God and the soul, and in its high

rapture he turns his back forever upon the

world with its fever and fret, not, however,

without occasional intrusion of his faint fol-

lowing "Shadows" as the reader of the

Soliloquies will see.

Augustine took with him to the villa of his

friend at Caseiago a little company of those

much loving and much beloved, tried and

tested by long companionship, of one mind as

to intellectual things, of one purse as to mate-

rial things; not, as yet. all of them Christians,

but all alike absorbed in the pursuit of knowl-

edge, and the love _f philosophical discourse.

Of this company were Augustine's mother,

1V[onica, whom all the world knows, she whom

Augustine describes as "with the woman's

garb but a man's faith, cleaving to us in the

tranquillity of age in motherly love and Chris-

tian piety, "; Alypius, Augustine's townsman,

fellow and follower from lecture-room to epis-

copal chair, himself being a bishop in Thagaste

3atr aramt

when Augustine was Bishop of Hippo; Adeo-

datus, Augustine's son by the woman greatly

loved and mourned, to whom he was faithful

until she parted from him, in antieipation of

his marriage (Con]essions, VI, 15). Of this

youth he says: " His talents inspired me with

awe .... Though searcely fifteen years of age,

he surpassed in talent many learned and ven-

erable men .... There is a book of his and

mine entitled Concerning the Master;...

the sentiments put into the mouth of my fellow

in that dialogue are all his own." Added to

these there were Evodius, formerly an officer

of the court of the Emperor, one of the agentes

in rebus, who after his conversion and baptism

resigned from the royal service in order that

" he might the better prepare himself for the

service of God" (Con]essions, IX,8). A brother,

two cousins, and two pupils completed the

community. One of these pupils was the gay

and gifted Licentius, son of Augustine's wealthy

and powerful friend, Romanianus, to whom he

was indebted for much material aid in his

professional career, and to whom he rendered

overflowing intellectual and spiritual returns,

as is seen by many references to him, expeclally

in the first book written at Casciago, Contra

Academicos. That the son shared his father's

enthusiasm for Augustine appears evident in a

paragraph from one of his letters to his master,

quoted in Augustine's reply (Epistles, XXVI).

This extract seems to be from a sort of poem in-

_tRr_ xxxiii

spired by recollections of Casciago written to

Augustine and reads thus: " Oh that the morn-

ing light of other days could, with its gladden-

ing chariot, bring back to me bright hours

which are gone, hours spent together in the

heart of Italy among its high mountains, when

proving the generous leisure and pure privilege

which belong to the good ! Neither stern winter

with its frozen snow, nor the rude blasts of

Zephyrus and raging of Boreas could deter me

from following your footsteps with eager tread.

You have only to express your wish." Lan-

ciani asserts that the tomb of Licentius was dis-

covered in the church of San Lorenzo at Rome,

bearing insignia and inscriptions showing that

he had attained the rank of Roman senator and

had died a Christian.

Other friends, equally congenial, but unable

to join the little company in person, were cor-

responding members. The lovely and beloved

Nebridius, whose letters to and from Augustine

reveal each in characteristic quality, are ines-

timable souvenirs of the days and nights which

gave birth to the Soliloquies. The generous

Yerecundus also, who, though prevented by his

marriage from becoming a member of the com-

munity, placed his villa at Casciago at its dis-

posal. Of this friend, and his generous service,

Augustine says after his death (Confessions, IX,

8): " For that country-place of his where we

rested in Thee from the fiery turmoil of the

world, Thou dost now repay ¥erecundus with

x-zxiv _nlr_btT._n

the freshness of Thy evergreen Paradise, for in

that mountain of curds, Thy mountain, that

fruitful mountain, Thou hast loosed him from

the sins of earth " (translator's version). The

poet Zenobius is also invoked, though at this

moment, Augustine tells us (Book II), "far

away in transalpine leisure composing a poem

by which the fear of death is driven away, and

that chill and stupor of the soul, unyielding as

the ice of ages, is cast out." These and others

of congenial tastes are in sympathetic rapport

and doubtless hear of the thought and speech

of the residents who, gathered daily and hourly

round the master, abandon themselves to the

full enjoyment of the half-year's opportunity

-- from Autumn's vintage to Easter.

The symposium has full play along Platonic

and Neoplatonie as well as Pauline lines. The

stenographer is ever-present and dialogues and

debates are committed to his waxen tablet as,

one after another, they fall from the lips of the

master and those of his associates. The Solilo-

quies alone are written down by Augustine him-

self as "they cannot be dictated, since they

demand absolute solitude (Book I, 1)."

In these various books, written at Casciago

and in the Confessions, Augustine gives us many

glimpses of his life there. Meditation and

prayer occupy many hours of the night and

early morning, and prepare him for the intel-

lectual exercise of the day, which, for the most

part, takes the form of debate and dialogue.

_ltttruhurttatt xxxv

The magnetism of his personality and the in-

terest of the theme discussed rivet the attention

of each of his audience upon the master, whose

native tact as well as great skill acquired in

the long practice of conducting the rhetorical

• education of others, win from all a ready re-

sponse to questions put by him.

The 13th of November it is remembered that

Augustine's thirty-third birthday has arrived,

and it is celebrated by the initiation, after a

simple dinner with his friends, of a discussion

which lasts three days, and results in the book

entitled The Happy Life. Here is a sample

page (see Tableau de l'Eloquence Chrgtienne au

IV e Si_cle, Villemain).

" ' Is the man happy, who obtains that which

he desires ? ' I asked. My mother thereupon

replied: 'If he desires what is good and ob-

tains it, he is happy. But if he wishes for that

which is evil, even if he obtain it, he is

wretched.'

" ' My mother,' said I, smiling my approval,

' you have attained the summit of philosophy.

Though you lack the language in which he

elaborates it, you have expressed the thought of

Cicero in his Hortentius, a book which he wrote

in the praise and for the defence of philosophy.

He says there exist men, not indeed philoso-

phers, yet skilled in debate, who declare that

those are happy who devote their lives to ob-

taining pleasure: but that this is an error.

For to desire that which is unseemly is, itself,

_n_rn_n_tnn

the worst of evils. One is less miserable in fail-

ing to attain, than in desiring to attain that

which is bad; the corruption of the will bring-

ing in its defeat less of ill than its gratification

could of happiness.' "

"At these words of mine an exclamation

escaped my mother, such as would have been

fitting had a great personage been the speaker:

but I well knew in what Divine source these

verities had their origin."

Augustine's companions agree that happiness

consists in the possession of God, since obedi-

ence to His will and right conduct follow.

Thereupon Augustine continues:

" ' This inner admonition which compels us

to the thought of God, to the thirst for Him, to

the search after Him, comes to us from the

source of all truth. It is the sun which shines

within our souls. It is the truth which we

divine when, our eyes being too feeble, or too

suddenly opened, we are afraid to look it in

the face. It is none other than God, Himself,

in His changeless perfection. So long as we

persist in seeking to satisfy our thirst elsewhere

than at this fountain, we must admit that we

have not attained our proper goal, and there-

fore, though God be for us, we are neither wise

nor happy. Complete satisfaction of souls, the

truly happy life, is to know purely and fully

what Truth itself is, what conducts in the search

after it, and by what relations it connects us

with the supreme perfection. These three

3Jtttrta3artian xxxvii

demonstrate to purified souls the one only God,

the one only Reality, in distiuetion from the

self-contradicting fables of superstition.'

"Here my mother, reminded of words graven

on her memory, as if startled from a dream by

the familiar accents of her faith, recited with

transport the words of the priest: ' Holy Trin-

ity receive our prayer!' and added: 'Yes,

this is the happy life, to which one should expect

to be swiftly conducted by steadfast faith, by

lively hope, by burning charity! '"

In the Confessions (IX, 4) Augustine gives

us a glimpse of his eommunings in solitude at

Caseiago:

"What utterances sent I up unto Thee, my

God, when I read the psalms of David, those

faithful songs and sounds of devotion which

excludes all swelling of spirit, when, new to Thy

true love, at rest in the villa with Alypius, a

catechumen like myself, my mother cleaving

unto us, in woman's garb truly but with a man's

faith, with the peacefulness of age, full of moth-

erly love and Christian piety! What utter-

ances used I to send up unto Thee in those

Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards Thee

by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it

were possible, throughout the whole world,

against the pride of the human race! With

what vehement and bitter sorrow was I indig-

nant at the Manichaeans! . . • I wished that

they had been somewhere near me then, and,

without my being aware of their preseuee, could

x_viii 3nIro___,'tmn

have beheld my face, and heard my words,

when I read the fourth psalm in that time of

my leisure--how that psalm wrought upon

me!- oh, that they might have heard what I

uttered on these words without my knowing

whether they heard or no, lest they should think

I spake it because of them! For of a truth

neither should I have said the same things, nor

in the way I said them, if I had perceived that

I washeard andseen bythem: andhad I spoken

them, they would not so have received them

as when I spake by and for myself beforeThee,

out of the private feelings of my soul. I alter-

nately quaked with fear and warmed with hope

and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, oh Father!

"I read further--' Be ye angry and sin not.'

And how was I moved oh, my God, who had

now learned to' be angry' with myself for the

things past, so that in the future I might not

sin! . . . Nor were my 'good things' now

without, nor were they sought after with the

eyes of flesh in that sun; for they that would

have joy from without easily sink into oblivion,

and are wasted upon those things which are

seen and temporal, and in their starving

thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh, if

only they were wearied out with their fasting,

and said, ' Who will show us any good ?'...

Oh that they could behold the internal Eternal,

which, having tasted, I gnashed my teeth that

I could not show It to them! . . . But there,

where I was angry with myself in my chamber,

_atrm_m'_tt xxxix

when I was inwardly pricked, where I had

offered my' sacrifice,' slaying my old man and

beginning the resolution of a new life--there

had'st Thou began to grow sweet unto me, and

to ' put gladness in my heart.' And I cried out

as I read this outwardly and felt it inwardly.

Nor would I be increased with worldly goods,

wasting my time and being wasted by time;

whereas I possessed in Thy eternal simplicity

other corn and wine and oil."

One would have almost consented to pose as

a Maniehaean for the time, if by such a pious

fraud a glance at this Augustine could have

been had. Oh, that the horatius of those days

had carried along with his stylus the camera

which accompanies his successor of to-day!

Painters, from Botticelli to Ary Seheffer, and

before and since, have, each after his own heart,

conceived the. features of " the Mrie saint."

The only conception, however, which the

writer has seen, which approaches adequacy in

its suggestions, is that of Botticelli, whose soft

fresco on a column, in the church of All Saints

in Florence, was, according to Vasari, con-

sidered a masterpiece in the painter's day. It

represents Augustine at a period of life mueh

later than that of the Soliloquies, and is

scarcely the Augustine we think of at Caseiago.

According to Poujoulat. the most pains-

taking research has failed to determine which

among all the tribes of the North Africa of Au-

gustine's day, is that from which he sprung.

The Kabyles of to-day are believed to be the

descendants of one of these tribes -- the ancient

Getulians,-of whom Sallust speaks as a race

of men, both uncultured and unconquered

(genus lwminum Ierum et ineultumque). At

Algiers one hears it said that the Kabyles, who

live on the hills north of the city, having no

community with the rest of the world, have never

been conquered. :From the days of the first

Roman invasion and conquest of file Mediter-

ranean coast, they have retired farther and

farther inland, and higher and higher upland,

yielding their territory but never themselves to

the tide of conquest. One is impressed with

their nobility of feature and dignity of bearing

as they pass, haughty and detached, along the

streets of Algiers, in a day's descent from their

heights on affairs of business, never, one is

sure, of pleasure. The type is marked with

character and intellect, and it is not difficult to

persuade one's self that in it is much of that

which Botticelli saw when he put his master-

piece on the column of All Saints. If a com-

posite could be struck from this glorious fresco,

and the glorious face of a Kabyle boy, which

is to be seen in many photograph shops of

Algiers, one might fancy be could gain from

it a conception of the aspect of the Augustine

who discoursed with his friends at Casciago

on the folly of the wise Academicians, on the

cosmic Order of God's universe, on the truly

Happy Life, and, last of all, with himself alone

_lttrm_ltlt_ xli

on God and the Soul and the problem of its

immortality. At thirty-three the rounded con-

tours of the young Kabyle would have been lost

in the lines of passion and pain traced by the

intense life of heart and mind upon the famous

rhetorieian's face, though not yet deepened into

those furrows ploughed deep by the cure of

souls and the care of the churches, which Botti-

celli puts into the face of the bishop still in his

prime. One needs but to turn some pages

in the Confessions, those especially in which

the story of the long and fierce stlugglc ending

in that " complete conversion " for which he

still prays in that wonderful prayer which in-

troduces the Soliloquies, to realize the warrant

Botticelli had for putting into his great fresco

that intensity of thought and feeling which

startles the beholder. One is almost satisfied

with the conception for he feels himself to be

gazing into the soul, rather than upon the face,

of a lion of intellect and feeling,- a kingly

Numidian lion tamed by truth and love to

fathomless deeps of compassion and sym-

pathy, and boundless powers of service; nay,

rather into the soul of the greatest of God's

warriors, where the battle has, indeed, left

piteous sears, but where victory has planted its

peace !

In many of the prineipal cities of the world

there are now libraries where the complete

xlii _flrm_u'Ilnn

works of Augustine can be found, and among

them, occupying a very few pages in the first

of the many huge volumes, the Soliloquies. The

original text has not, to the writer's knowledge,

been published in separate form, although a

German house has lately issued it with others,

perhaps all, of his works, in convenient volumes

for those who desire to possess them. It was

more satisfactory to me to transcribe it from

the huge Benedictine volume by hand. After

this tedious task was completed, M. Pelissier's

fine translation into French (1853), containing

the Latin text, was, with much difficulty, pro-

cured in Paris. The book was said to be out

of print and only the most painstaking perse-

verance of a friend succeeded in obtaining for

me this portable copy. The vicious virtue of

expurgation has touched Pelissier's translation,

for which however he is not, presumably, re-

sponsible, as the text from which he translates

and which accompanies his translation is with-

out the expurgated passages. No mention is

made of the edition used by him, and it is per-

haps less inconceivable that Pelissier himself

caused their expurgation from the text he

supplies, than that any reprint of an authentic

Benedictine edition should have been so muti-

lated. The present version has omitted nothing

found in the Benedictine text. So far as can

be learned, but two English translations of

Augustine's Soliloquies have been published

previous to the present venture. The first of

_ltttro_ttrtmn xliii

these is attributed to King Alfred of England

in the tenth century. This version was done

into twentieth century English by Henry Lee

Hargrove, professor of English in Baylor Uni-

versity, Waco, Texas, in 1904, and is to be

found as Number XXII in the series of Yale

Studies in English. The text is only partially

followed by Alfred, Mr. Hargrove estimating

that he rejected about three-fourths of the

Latin of Augustine, so that, what with his naive

rejections, and equally naive interjections, this

version, charming and valuable as it is, can for

obvious reasons only by excess of mendacious

courtesy be called a translation of Augustine's

Soliloquies, being far less representative of

Augustine than of Alfred. The value, however,

of Mr. Hargrove's beautiful work cannot be

over-estimated. That it cannot make its read-

ers acquainted with the Soliloquies of Augus-

tine is scarcely a loss, since it is sure to beget

a desire for such acquaintance which can be

easily gratified by the reader of simple Latin,

and it does add immensely to one's acquaint-

ance with Alfred. Mr. Hargrove's first object

was not to widen the circle of Augustine's

admirers, but to exploit the English of Alfred's

day, which he does- and incidentally Alfred

himself as a matter of course -- in his preced-

ing pamphlet King Al]red; Old English Version

of St. Augustine's Soliloquies (190_). It is easy

to see, however, that Mr. Hargrove fell in love

with the Augustine of the Soliloquies, as in the

xliv _tttrohttrl_n

case of many another af]aire du cteur, by happy

accident, and by his following (1904) version

of his previous version into modern English,

has done much for other lovers of both Augus-

tine and Alfred.

The other, more properly called a transla-

tion, referred to may be found in Vol. VII of the

Select Library of the Nicene and post-Nicene

Fathers, edited by the late Dr. Philip Schaff.

This was done by the Rev. Charles Starbuck,

and to bc appreciated, both in its excellencies

and defects, should be compared with the orig-

inal, which does not accompany it. The brief

preface of less than a page should also be read

in the light of the historical facts.

For the translation here presented nothing is

claimed save that which a persistent effort to

render the author's thought into clear every-

day English may merit. In this connection it

should be said that all citations from Augus-

fine's other works, when not elsewhere credited,

are taken from translations to be found in the

St. Augustine Series published by T. & T.

Clark, Edinburgh.

This book has no other raison d'etre than the

translator's intense desire that Augustine the

man, apart from the ecclesiastic, shall be better

known. The reader who sympathizes with this

motive will need no other appeal for charity in

considering its many shortcomings. Even the

length and occasional apparent irrelevance of

the notes will be indulged if help toward the

_n_ro_a_on xlv

desired end is thus obtained. Augustine's

paramount value does not lie in the fact that

"he was the most astonishing man in the Latin

Church (Villemain, Tableau de l Eloquence

Chr_tienne au I VeSi_cle) but rather in the solace

and significance of his " inexhaustible person-

ality " to every soul who, with him, has come

to realize that " the fleeting and the failing

should be spurned, the steadfast and eternal

sought." That such readers will obtain from

these Soliloquies enlarged acquaintance with

their author is tile hope of the translator.

ROSE ELIZABETH CLEVELAND.

J_u^RV 22, 1910.

THE SOLILOQUIES OF

ST. AUGUSTINE

1. For many days I had been debating

within myself many and diverse things, seeking

constantly, and with anxiety, to find out my

real self, my best good, and the evil to be

avoided, when suddenly one- I know not,

but eagerly strive to know, whether it were my-

self or another, within me or without--said

to me:

R. Now consider: suppose you had dis-

covered something concerning that which you

are so constantly and anxiously seeking to

know; to what would you entrust it, in order

that you might give your attention to things fol-

lowing ?

A. To memory, of course.

R. Is the memory an adequate eustodian

of all things which the mind diseovers P

_ol_loquiesof_t.Auo_i_e

A. Hardly; infactitcannotbe.

R. Such things must, then, be written down.

But how will you do this, when your health x

does not admit of the labor of writing them ?

They cannot be dictated, for tile)" demand ab-

solute solitude.

A. What you say is true, and so I do not see

how I am to proceed without embarrassment.

R. Pray *for health and help in accomplish-

ing your desires, and write this prayer down

also, that by these first fruits you may become

more courageous. Then summarize briefly

the conclusions at which you have arrived.

Do not make any effort to attract a crowd of

readers; a few of your own townsmen will

suffice.

A. I will do as you advise.

2. O God, Founder of the Universe, help

me, that, first of all, I may pray aright: and

next, that I may act as one worthy to be heard

by Thee: and, finally, set me free. s God,

through whom all things are, which of them-

selves could have no being; God, who dost not

permit that to perish, whose tendency it is to

destroy itself I God, who hast created out of

nothing 4 this world, which the eyes of all

perceive to be most beautiful! s God, who

,oliloquie of Augune 3

dost not cause evil, but dost cause that

it shall not become the worst! God, who

dost reveal to those few fleeing for refuge

to that which truly is, that evil 6 is noth-

ing! God, through whom the Universe, even

with its perverse part, is perfect! 7 God, to

whom dissonance is nothing, since in the end

the worst resolves into harmony with the bet-

ter! s God, whom every creature capable of

loving, loves, whether consciously or uncon-

sciously !

God, in whom all things are, yet whom the

shame of no creature in the universe disgraces,

nor his malice harms, nor his error misleads!

God, who dost not permit any save the pure 9

to know the true! God, Father of Truth,

Father of Wisdom, Father of the True and

Perfect Life, Father of Blessedness, Father of

the Good and the Beautiful, Father of Intelli-

gible Light, '° Father of our awakening and

enlightening, Father of that pledge which

warns us to return to Thee!

8. Thee do I invoke, God, Truth, in whom

and by whom and through whom are all things

true which are true: God, Wisdom, in whom

and by whom and through whom are all wise

who are wise: God, true and perfect Life, in

4 of91.AuguIne

whom and by whom and through whom those

live who do truly and perfectly live: God,

Blessedness, in whom and by whom and

through whom are all blessed who are blessed:

God, the Good and the Beautiful, in whom

and by whom and through whom are all things

good and beautiful, which are good and beau-

tiful: God, Intelligible Light, in whom and

by whom all shine intelligibly, who do in-

telligibly shine: God, whose kingdom is

that whole realm unknown to sense: God,

from whose kingdom law for even these

lower realms is derived: God, from whom

to turn is to fall; to whom to turn is to

rise; in whom to abide is to stand: God, from

whom to go out is to waste away; unto whom

to return is to revive; in whom to dwell is to

live: _: God, whom no one, unless deceived,

loses: whom no one, unless admonished, seeks:

whom no one, unless purified, finds: God,

whom to abandon is to perish; whom to long

for is to love; whom to see is to possess: God,

to whom Faith excites, Hope uplifts, Love joins:

God, through whom we overcome the enemy,

Thee do I supplicate!

God, whose gift it is that we do not utterly

perish: God, by whom we are warned to

lila t B nf Am3tit 5

watch: God, through whom we discriminate

good things from evil things: God, through

whom we flee from evil and follow after good:

God, through whom we yield not to adversity:

God, through whom we both serve well and

rule well: God, through whom we discern that

certain things we had deemed essential to

ourselves are truly foreign to us, while those

we had deemed foreign to us are essential:

God, through whom we are not held fast by

the baits and seductions of the wicked: God,

through whom the decrease of our possessions

does not diminish us: God, through whom our

better part is not subject to our worse: GOd,

through whom death is swallowed up in victory!

GOd, who dost turn us about in the way: God,

who dost strip us of that which is not, and

clothe us with that which is: God, who dost

make us worthy of being heard: God, who dost

defend us: God, who dost lead us into all

truth: God, who dost speak all good things

to us: God, who dost not deprive us of sanity

nor permit another to do so: God, who dost

recall us to the path: God, who dost lead us

to the door: God, who dost cause that it is

open to those who knock: God, who givest

us the bread of Life: God, through whom we

6 of Augune

thirst for that water, which having drunk, we

shall never thirst again: God, who dost con-

vince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of'

judgment: God, through whom the unbelief

of others doth not move us: God, through

whom we reprobate the error of those who deem

that souls have no deserving in Thy sight: God,

through whom we are not in bondage to weak

and beggarly elements: God, who dost purify

and prepare us for divine rewards, propitious,

come Thou to me!

4. In whatever I say do Thou come to my

help, O Thou one God, one true Eternal

Substance, where is no discord, no confusion,

no change, no want, no death: where is all

harmony, all illumination, all steadfastness, all

abundance, all life: where nothing is lacking

and nothing redundant; where Begetter and

Begotten are one: God, whom all things serve

which do serve and whom every good soul

obeys! God, by whose laws the poles rotate, the

stars pursue their courses, the sun leads on the

day, the moon tempers the night, and the whole

order of the Universe--through days by the

alternations of light and darkness; through

months by the waxing and waning of

moons; through years by the successions of

_oliloquiesof_I.Augu_ine 7

spring, summer, autumn and winter; through

cycles by the completing of the sun's course;

through vast cons of time by the return of the

stars to their first risings- preserves by these

unvarying repetitions of periods, so far as sen-

sible matter may, the marvellous immutability

of things; God, by whose laws forever standing,

the unstable motion of mutable things is not

allowed to fall into confusion and is, throughout

the circling ages, recalled by curb and bit to the

semblance of stability: by whose laws the will

of the soul is free,'2 and rewards to the good,

and penalties to the wicked, are everywhere

distributed by unchangeable necessity: God,

by whom all good flows toward us, all evil is

driven from us: God, above whom, outside

whom, without whom, is nothing: God,

beneath whom, in whom, with whom, is

everything: who hast made mall after Thine

own image'S and likeness, which he who

knows himself discovers: Hear, hear, hear

me! My God, my master, my king, my

father, my cause, my hope, my wealth,

my honor, my home, my country,'* my

salvation, my light, my life! Hear, hear, hear

me, in that way of Thine, known best to few!

_5. At last I love Thee alone, Thee alone

follo_v, Thee alone seek, Thee alone am I

ready to serve: for Thou alone, by right, art

ruler; under Thy rule 's do I wish to be.

Command, I pray, and order what Thou wilt,

but heal and open my ears that I may hear Thy

commands, heal and open my eyes that I may

see Thy nod; cast all unsoundness from me

that I may recognize Thee! Tell me whither to

direct my gaze that I may look upon Thee,

and I hope that I shall do all things which

Thou commandest!

Receive, I pray, Master and most merciful

Father, me, Thy Fugitive! _6 I have suffered

already enough punishment, long enough been

in bondage to Thine enemies whom Thou hast

under Thy feet, long enough been the sport

of delusions.

Receive me, Thy household servant, fleeing

from them, for even these received me, though

alien to them, fleeing from Thee! I feel that I

ought to return to Thee: let Thy door open to

me knocking: teach me, Thou, how to come to

Thee! I have nothing other than the will:

I know nothing other than that the fleeting

and the falling should be spurned, the fixed and

eternal sought after. This do I, Father, for

this is all I know: but how to make my way

to Thee I know not. Do Thou suggest it, make

it plain, equip me for the journey!

If they who take refuge in Thee find Thee by

faith, give me faith! if by virtue, give me vir-

tue! if by knowledge, give me knowledge! In-

crease my faith, increase my hope, increase my

charity, O Goodness of Thine, unique and

admirable!

6. After Thee am I groping, and by what-

soever _hings Thou mayest be felt after even

these do I seek from Thee! For if Thou desert

a man, he perishes: but Thou desertest him

not, for Thou art the sum of good, and no man,

seeking Thee aright, has failed to find Thee;

and every one seeks Thee aright whom Thou

dost cause to so seek Thee. Cause me, O

Father, to seek Thee; let me not stray from

the path, and to me, seeking Thee, let nothing

befall in place of Thyself! If I desire noth-

ing beside Thyself, let me, I implore, find

Thee now; but if there is in me the desire for

something beside Thyself, do Thou Thyself

purify me, and make me fit to look upon

Thee!

For the rest, whatever concerns the welfare

of this mortal body of mine, so long as I do

not know how it may serve either myself or

1o ,nlLaqu a nf fi .

those I love, to Thee, Father, wisest and best,

do I commit it, and I pray that Thou wilt ad-

monish me concerning it as shall bc needful.

But this I do implore Thy most excellent mercy,

that Thou convert me in my inmost self to

Thee, and, as I incline toward Thee, let nothing

oppose; and command that so long as I endure

and care for this same body, I may be pure and

magnanimous and just and prudent, a perfect

lover and learner of Thy wisdom, a fit inhab-

itant of a dwelling place in Thy most blessed

Kingdom !

Amen and Amen!'7

7. A. Behold, I have prayed to God.

R. What, then, do you desire to know ?

A. Those things for which I have prayed.

R. Sum them up, briefly.

A. I desire to know God and the soul.

R. And nothing more ?

A. Nothing whatever. 's

R. Begin then to seek. But first make clear

to me how God may be so demonstrated to you

that you can say: "It is enough."

A. I do not know how he can be so demon-

strated to me that I can say, " It is enough" ;

_n|ill:lqll'_,_ Of _ ,,_I_l_tl'_ 11

for I believe that I know nothing in the way

that I wish to know God.

R. What, then, are we to do? For do you

not consider that it must first be known what it

is to know God sufficiently, so that, when you

have attained to that much knowledge, you

need seek no further ?

A. I do indeed think so, but by what plan

it shall become possible to do this, I do not

perceive. For what have I ever known which

is like God so that I could say: " As I know

this, so do I desire to know GOd!"

R. Having known nothing like God, from

what source do you know that you have not

yet known Him ?

A. Because, should I have known anything

like God, I would, without doubt, love it; but,

as it is, I love only God and the soul, and know

neither the one nor the other.

R. Do you not, then, love your friends ?

A. How, loving the soul, should I not love

them ?

R. Is it in this way, then, that you love gnats

and bugs ?

A. I said that ! love, not animals, but the

SOUl.

R. Either, then, your friends are not men

or you love them not; for every man is an ani-

mal, and you say you do not love animals.

A. They are men and I love them, not in

that they are animals, but in that they are men:

that is, from the fact that they possess rational

souls, which I love even in thieves. For it is

permitted me to love reason in anything what-

ever, although I may justly hate him who makes

a bad use of it. So much the more, then, do I

love my friends, by as much as they make a

good use of that rational soul, or as much,

indeed, as they desire to do so. x0

III

8. R. I accept this, but yet if some one

should say to you, I will cause you to know

God as well as you know Alypius, _ would you

not thank him and say: " That is enough "?

A. I would indeed thank him, but I would

not say: " That is enough."

R. And why, may I ask ?

R. Because I do not know God even as I

know Alypius, and I do not know Alypius well

enough.

R. See to it, then, that you are not arrogant

in desiring to know God well enough- you

who do not even know Alypius well enough !

otilm i a Am3ttmit 13

A. That does not follow. For, in comparison

with the stars, what is more trifling a matter

than my dinner P Yet, while I do not know

what I shall have to-morrow for dinner, and

am wholly ignorant of that, I do not deem it

arrogant to affirm that I do know in what sign

the moon will rise.

R. Will you, then, be satisfied to know God

after the fashion in whieh you know in what

sign the moon will rise to-morrow ?

A. No, that is not enough, for it is by my

senses that this is known. Also I know not

whether God, or some occult natural cause,

might not suddenly change the ordinary c_urse

of the moon, and if this should happen, all

that I had taken for granted would become

false,

R. And do you believe this could happen ? 2x

A. I do not. But I seek what I may know,

not what I may believe. For it may, indeed,

be truly said that we believe all that we know,

but not that we know everything that we be-

lieve.

R. Do you, then, in your present undertak-

ing, reject all testimony of the senses ?

A. I do altogether.

R. How about your intimate friend, whom

14 _nl_qu_a nf _L Atu3t_tt_

you have said you know only partially; do you

know him by sense or by intellect ?

A. The knowledge which I have of him by

sense--if indeed an_hing is truly known by

sense--is worthless and is enough: that part

by which he is truly my friend is the mind itself,

and I _dsh to pursue that by the intellect.

R. And can he not otherwise be known ?

A. In no other way.

R. Do you venture, then, to declare that

your friend, and he, too, your most intimate

friend, is unknown to you ?

A. And why should I not venture? For I

consider that a most just law of friendship

which prescribes that one shall love his friend,

not less, and not more, than himself. There-

fore, since I do not know myself, what re-

proach can it be to me that I declare him to be

unknown to me, especially since, as I believe,

he does not really know himself ?

R. If, then, those things which you desire

to know are such as are pursued by the intel-

lect, when I said that, since you did not even

know Alypius, you were arrogant in desiring

to know God, you should not have cited your

dinner and the moon as illustrations, since these,

as you have said, pertain to sense.

9. But how does that concern us_ Now

answer me: It those things which Plato and

Plotinus said 2_ concerning God are true, is

it enough for you to know God as they knew

Him ?

A. It does not necessarily follow that, even

if those things which they said are true, they

knew them to be so. For many persons dis-

course most fluently of things of which they are

ignorant, as I, just now in prayer, have de-

sired to "know many things, which, although

I have mentioned them, I would not desire to

know if I already knew them. But am I, there-

fore, the less able to mention them ? For I have

given utterance, not to things which my in-

tellect comprehends, but which, gathered here

and there, and committed to the memory, I

have reinforced by all the faith of which I am

capable, But to know is another thing.

R. Tell me now, I beg: do you, at least,

know what, in the science of Geometry, a line

is F

A. That I certainly do know.

I1. And do you not, in this admission, stand

in awe of the Academicians ?

A. Not at all. For it is the wise whom they

forbid to err, and I am not wise. At this point,

therefore, I do not fear to admit the knowledge

of such things as I know. When, as I desire,

I shall have attained to Wisdom I will do as

she shall exhort. 23

R. I do not object: but I was going to ask it

you know the ball which is called a sphere in

the same way as you know a line ?

A. Ido.

R. And do you know one as well as the

other, or one more or less than the other ?

A. I know both equally, for in nothing am I

deceived in either.

R. And have you perceived these by the

senses or by the intellect ?

A. In this matter my experience with the

senses has been as with a ship: for when they

had csrried me where I was going, and I had

dismissed them, and was as if placed on dry

land, and had begun to turn these matters over

in thought, I was, for a long time, unsteady of

foot. Wherefore it seems to me that one could

sooner swim on dry land than perceive geo-

metrical truths by the senses, although in learn-

ing the rudiments they are of some use.

R. You do not, then, hesitate to call your

acquaintance, such as it is, with these things

knowledge ?

A. No, if the Stoics, who ascribe knowledge

only to the wise, permit. I certainly do not

deny that I have such perception of these things

as they concede even to the unwise. But I do

not indeed very much fear the Stoics. I hold

these things concerning which you have been

asking in positive knowledge.24 Go on, then,

that I may see your purpose in these questions.

R. Do not be in haste; we have time enough.

Be very cautious what you accept, lest you con-

cede something rashly. I am studying to make

you happy _5in the certainty of things in which

you will fear no downfall, while you, as if this

were an easy matter, demand that I make haste.

A. May God cause it to be as you say!

Question now as you will, and if I repeat this

offense rebuke me more severely.

10. R. Very well. Is it clear to you that it

is impossible to divide a line lengthways ?

A. It is clear.

R. How about crossways?

A. That, of course, can be done to infinity.

R. And is it equally obvious that it is im-

possible for two equal circles to be on one side

of a sphere, equi-distant from the center ?

18 oliloqaie Auga lae

A. Itis.

R. And do the line and the sphere seem one

and the same thing to you, or do they differ

somewhat ?

A. Who would not see that they differ

greatly ?

R. Since, then, you have an equal knowl-

edge of each notwithstanding that, as you say,

they differ greatly, it follows that although

objects of knowledge differ, yet the knowledge

by which one is known is identical with the

knowledge by which the other is known.

A. Who has denied that?

R. You, yourself, a little time ago. For,

when I asked you how you desired to know

God, so that you might say: " It is enough ";

you replied that you were unable to say, for tile

reason that among the things you know there

is nothing like God. How, then! The line

and the sphere, -- are they alike ?

A. Who could say that ?

R. But I had not asked what you knew

like God, but what you know in the same

way as you desire to know God. For, though

the line and the sphere are in no way similar,

yet your knowing of the one is identical

with your knowing of the other. Wherefore

tell me: would it be enough for you to know

God, as you know the sphere of Geometry,

that is, to doubt nothing concerning God as

you doubt nothing concerning it ?

11. A. I answer you, that, however ve-

hemently you urge and argue, I do not, never-

theless, dare to say that I desire to know God

as I know these things. For not only do

these things, that is, the sphere and God,

differ, but the knowing of the one cannot be

the same as the knowing of the other. In the

first place, the line and the sphere do not differ

so much that one science may not treat of each,

while no Geometry has professed to treat of

GOd. And, in the second place, were my

knowledge of these things of the same sort as

is the knowledge which I desire to have of God,

I should rejoice that I know them as much as I

expect to rejoice in the cognition of God. But

now I more than despise these things in com-

parison with Him; and it seems to me, that,

should I attain to the cognition of Him, and see

Him in the way He can be seen, 26 these things

would perish from my memory altogether.

Indeed, even now, it is an effort to recall these

_o fioliloquiesof_. Augu_ine

to mind, because of my absorbing desire for

Him.

R. Be it so, then, that the knowledge of God

would rejoice you very much more than the

knowledge of these inferior things: yet this

fact does not result from the unlikeness of

their apprehension. Or is it by one kind of

seeing you gaze upon the earth and by another

upon the tranquil sky, since the sight of the

latter charms you so much more than that of the

former ? And, the eyes being trustworthy, if

you were asked whether you were as sure that

you had looked upon the earth as upon the sky,

you would reply that you were, although not so

delighting in the aspect of the earth as in the

beauty and splendor of file sky.

A. This illustration, I confess, moves me,

and I am constrained to agree, that, as much

in kind as the earth differs from the heavens,

so much do the demonstrations of the sciences,

though certain and exact, differ from the

intelligible majesty of God.

12. R. It is well that you are thus moved.

For Reason, who speaks to you, promises that

God 27Himself shall be even so demonstrated

to your mind as is the sun to your eyes. For the

eyes of the mind are the senses of the soul.

Now the truths ofscience are made visible to the

mind, as the light of the sun makes visible to

the eyes the earth and terrestrial objects. But

it is God Himself who shines._s And I, Reason,

am such to the mind as is sight to the eyes:

for to have eyes that you may look is one thing,

and to so look that you may see is another.

And so it is that the task of the soul is three-

fold, that it possess eyes fit for use, that it look,

that it see. Now the eyes of the soul are fit

when she is pure from every fleshly taint, that

is, when all desire of mortal things is purged

and far away, which task Faith alone is, at

the outset, equal to. For this cannot be made

manifest to a soul marred and diseased by lust,

since unless sound she cannot see, nor will

she apply herself to the labor of making herself

sound if she does not believe, that, when so, she

will be able to see. And, furthermore, though

one may have this Faith and believe that the

matter is as has been stated, and that his

ability to see can come about only in this way,

yet if he despair of recovery, will he not give

himself up, and despise and disobey the orders

of his physician ?

2_ _oliloquiesof _t.AugusOne

A. That is perfectly true, especially since

one who is ill of necessity feels these orders to

be _evere.

R. Hope, then, must be added to Faith.

A. I believe so.

R. And how if the soul have this Faith, and

also Hope that she can be healed, and yet does

not love nor desire the promised Light, but is

constrained from long habit, which has made

them pleasant, to deem it her duty to abide

content with her shadows, will she not none

the less reject her physician ?

A. She will forthwith.

R. Therefore a third, Charity, is needed!

A. Nothing is so absolutely necessary.

R. Without, then, these three, no soul is

sound enough to see, that is, to cognize her

God ?

13. When, then, you shall have sound eyes,

what remains ?

A. That the soul look.

R. The gaze of the soul is Reason; but

since it does not follow that every one who

looks, sees, that right and perfect looking,

which is followed by seeing, is called Virtue, for

Virtue is rectified and perfected Reason. But

that very act of looking, even though the eyes

be sound, cannot turn them toward the Light

unless three things persist: Faith- by which

the soul believes that, that toward which the

gaze has been directed, is such that to gaze

upon it will cause blessedness: Hope--by

which, the eyes being rightly fixed, the soul

expects this vision to follow: and Love--

which is the soul's longing to see and to enjoy

it, Such looking is followed by the vision of

God Himself, who is the goal of the soul's

gaze, not because it could not continue to look,

but because there is nothing beyond this on

which it can fix its gaze. This is truly per-

fected Reason- Virtue- attaining its proper

end, on which the happy life follows. And this

intellectual vision is that which is in the soul a

conjunction of the seer and the seen: as seeing

with the eyes results from the conjunction of

the sense of sight and the sensible object, either

of which being lacking, nothing can be seen.

VII

14. When now it has come about that the

soul sees, that is, intellectually apprehends

God, let us see whether these three things are

still necessary to her. How shall Faith be

necessary when the soul has now sight ? Or

otit rittieB . utr atim

Hope, since it has the thing hoped for ? Charity

alone is nothing diminished, but rather, indeed,

very greatly augmented. For when the soul

shall have seen this true and unique beauty she

will love it the more, and unless with mighty

love she fix upon it her gaze, nor turn it thence

to anything whatever, she cannot abide in

this most blessed vision. But even while the

soul is in the body,2_although it may behold

most fully, that is, may apprehend God, never-

theless since the senses of the body serve in their

own proper ottice, though they may cause doubt,

they cannot cause delusion, and that which

opposes them and believes rather that which

is contrary to them to be true, may, so far, be

called Faith. Again, since God being appre-

hended, the soul may in this lower life attain

blessedness, yet because she must still suffer

much molestation by the flesh, she must hope

that after death all these troubles will cease to

exist. Neither, therefore, may Hope desert

the soul in this life; but when, after this life,

the soul shall have found herself complete in

God, Love, by which she is held there, abides;

for she cannot be said to still have Faith that

these things are true, since she is solicited by

no intrusion of the false; nor that aught remains

to be hoped for, since she now possesses all

securely. Three things, then, concern the soul:

that she be sound, that she look, that she see.

Another three, Faith, Hope and Charity, are all

needful for health of soul, and Reason's gaze;

while for the vision itself, all. indeed while in

the body; but, after this life, Charity alone.3°

VIII

15. Be attentive now, while, so far as is at

present necessary, I disclose to you by simili-

tude of sensible objects, some truth concerning

even God Himself. God, undoubtedly, is in-

telligible even as are these obvious intelligi-

bilities of science; with, however, a wide differ-

ence. For the earth is visible and light is

visible, but the earth cannot be seen unless

made visible by light. So is it with those things

treated of by the sciences, which he who

apprehends concedes to be most true, and yet

it is not credible that they can be apprehended,

unless made manifest by some illumination,

by some other sun, as it were their own. Thus,

as of the sensible sun, we may predicate three

things: namely, that it is, that it shines, that

it makes objects visible; even so may we

predicate three things of that most mysterious

ol .!.-_.maiesof

God whom you long to know: viz., that He is,

that He is apprehended, that He causes other

things to be apprehended. These two things,

i. e. yourself and God, I dare to teach you.

Now tell me how you receive these things: as

probabilities or as truths ?

A. As probabilities, obviously, and I am

stimulated, I admit, to hope for something

more. For, excepting those two statements con-

cerning the line and the sphere, nothing has

been said by you which I should venture so

far as to declare absolute knowledge.

R. That is not to be wondered at, for, so far,

nothing has been so demonstrated as to compel

your recognition.

16. But why do we loiter? The journey

should be pursued. Now let us see whether

we are in a sound condition, [or tluzt is the first

step.

A. It is for you to find, if, either in myself

or in yourself, anything can be detected. I

will reply to your question so far as I am con-

scious of anything.

R. Do you love anything beside the knowl-

edge of God and of yourself ?

gf agtiar

A. As I now feel, I can answer, " nothing: "

but it is safer to say " I do not know." For it

has frequently been my experience, when I did

not believe it possible to be moved by anything

else, yet, something coming into my mind

would disturb me far beyond what I had

believed possible. And again, although some-

thing passing through my mind as a mere sug-

gestion would not much disturb me, yet the

very fact of its coming did disturb me more

than I had supposed: but it now seems to me

that I can be disturbed by only three things,

namely: the fear of losing those I love, the fear

of pain, and the fear of death.

R. You love, then, life in the companion-

ship of those dearest to you, your own good

health, and your life itself in the flesh; for,

were it not so, you would not fear their loss ?

A. I confess it is so.

R. The sole fact, then, that your friends are

not all with you, and that your health is not

wholly sound, occasions you some distress of

mind, for that, I see, must follow.

A. You see rightly; I cannot deny it.

It. How if you should suddenly feel and

become certain that you were sound of body,

and should see all those whom you love enjoy-

28 _nlil_q_ie_ _ _,L Augu_li_

ing together with yourself ease and plenty;

would you be almost transported with joy ?

A. Almost, indeed. Nay t If this, of all

other things, might, as you say, suddenly fall

to my lot, how could I contain myself, or how

conceal my excess of joy ?3_

R. You are, therefore, even now, agitated

by all diseases and perturbations of the mind.

What impudence is it, then, that such eyes

should wish to look upon that Sun!

A. You come to your conclusions as if I

did not feel precisely how far my health has

improved, or what plague has retreated and

what still holds its ground. Prove that to be

true!

17. R. Are you not aware that the eyes of

the body, even though sound, being frequently

hurt and turned away by the light of this

sensible sun, flee for refuge to shade? So

you are thinking over your improvement, not

of that which you desire to see! nor yet of this

discussion, how you consider us to have

advanced:--Do you not desire riches ?

A. They are not, now, my first object. I

am now three and thirty years of age, mad I

have ceased to desire riches for almost fourteen

years, nor, if they happened to be offered to

me, would I have any other interest in them,

save such as a freeman requires for his

maintenance and use. A single book of

Cicero's 3" immediately and easily persuaded

me that riches should not be craved, but if

they fell to our lot should be wisely and

carefully administered.

R. What about honors ?3s

A. These, I confess, I have but recently

ceased to wish for.

R. And how about a wife ? Would not one

beautiful, modest, docile and cultivated, or at

least, one who could be easily taught by your-

self, bringing, also,- since you despise opu-

lence,- a marriage portion sufficient to pre-

vent her being a tax upon your leisure, es-

pecially if you might confidently hope that no

annoyance could come to you because of her,

would not such a wife greatly delight you ?

A. No matter how you portray her or load

her with desirable things, I have decided that

nothing is so much to be shunned as sexual

relations, for I feel that nothing so much casts

down the mind of man from its citadel as do

the blandishments of women, and that physical

contact without which a wife cannot be pos-

sessed. Therefore if it pertain to the office of

a wise man (and I am not yet sure that it

does) to give himself the care of a family,

whoever sustains the marriage relation for the

sake of this alone is, I may indeed concede,

to be admired, but not, therefore, to be imitated;

for the attempt has in it more of peril than the

event can have of satisfaction. Enough, how-

ever, that for the sake of my freedom of mind,

I have, and as I believe, rightly and usefully,

decided neither to desire, nor seek, nor take a

wife.

R. I do not now ask what you have resolved

upon, but whether at the present time you have

actually overcome sexual desire itself, or

whether you still struggle against it ? For this

concerns the soundness of your eyes.

A. I now neither seek nor desire anything

whatever of this sort. It is with horror and

loathing that I even remember it. What more

can you ask ? And this good increases in me

every day. For, as much as the hope of seeing

that Superior Beauty, for which I am so con-

sumed by _ehement desire, increases, so much

does all desire and delight converge to that

direetion.Z 4

R. And now about the enjoyment of food:

how much does that concern you

A. As to those things which I have cut off

from my diet, they do not disturb me; those

still allowed I enjoy when before me, yet so

that even they could be entirely withdrawn

without causing me any annoyance. When they

are not immediately present, the appetite for

them does not dare to intrude itself, as an

impediment to my thoughts. But ask me no

more concerning food or drink or baths, or

any other pleasure of the flesh. I desire to

have them only in proportion to the benefit

they can confer upon my health.3s

" XI

18. R. You have made great progress.

Nevertheless some things remain which greatly

hinder the seeing of that Light. But I now

attempt something which it seems to me easy

to find out; for either nothing remains to be

overcome, or, of all these things which we

believe to have been eradicated, the root

infection still remains;-- in which case we

have made no progress whatever. Now I ask

you whether, if you were persuaded that not

otherwise than by an ample competence equal

3_ _oltloqu_esof _L Augustine

to the supply of all your mutual necessities,

would it be possible for you to pursue the study

of Wisdom in company with your many very

dear friends, would you not choose and desire

riches ?

A. I admit that I would.

R. And how, if it should be shown that, your

authority being increased by public honors, you

could persuade many to be wise, and that your

intimate friends themselves could not curb

their worldly desires and turn wholly to seeking

after God, unless they themselves should

become persons of consequence; and that this,

except by your own importance and dignity,

could not be accomplished, would not these

material things be greatly to be desired and

urgently to be sought after ?

A. It is as you say.

R. Now concerning a wife: I will not argue,

for perhaps there can exist no such necessity

that she should be taken. If, however, by

means of her ample patrimony, it were possible

that all those whom you desire to have live

with you in one place, could be comfortably

supported, herself also cordially agreeing to

this arrangement, and if, especially, by reason"

of nobility of birth, she were of sufficient

_oliloquie_of _ Augus_ne 33

influenee to bring within easy reach of you

those honors which you have just now ad-

mitted to be necessary,--I do not know

whether it would be proper for you to despise

these things.

A. How should I dare to hope for such

things ?36

19. R. You speak as if I were asking what

you hope for. I am not now asking what,

among things denied, would displease you:

but what, being offered, would please you. A

dead plague is one thing, a sleeping one

another. And here this saying of certain

learned men is pertinent: " all fools are mad,

as all dunghills stink, yet one does not always .

realize this fact, but only when they are stirred

up." 37 It is of the greatest importance to

us whether carnal desire is stupefied by despair

of satisfaction, or ex]_elledby health of mind._s

A. Although I cannot make any answer to

this, yet you will never persuade me that, in

the inclination of mind which I now feel to be

mine, I am to believe I have made no progress.

R. I believe that this seems so to you

because, although it is possible that you should

wish for such things, it would, nevertheless,

not be for their own sake, bul: for some other

34 oiiloquieof Augu me

reason, that they would appear desirable to

yOU.

A. This is what I have been wishing to say:

for as to riches, when. formerly, I desired them,

it was because I wished to be rich; and honors,

the desire for which I have admitted did, until

recently, dominate me, I was wont to wish for

because of I know not what glamour about

them which fascinated me. And when I

sought a wife, I sought her for nothing else

than for the sake of getting pleasure without

loss of reputation. There was then in me a

desire for these things in themselves, but I

now absolutely spurn them all. Yet, if these

things which I do long for can be reached

only through those, I seek them, not that they

may be fondly treasured but submissively

tolerated. 39

R. Excellent! For I do not consider that

those things which are asked for solely on

account of something else can be said to be

desired at all.

XII

20. R. But now I ask you why you desire

that those men whom you love should live

with you, or should live at all ?

_oliLoqme_of _L Augu_ine 35

A. In order that we may together inquire

into God and our own souls. For thus, he

who first found out something could, without

labor, easily impart it to the others.

R. But how if they do not care to inquire into

these things ?

A. I will persuade them so that they will

careto.

It. But suppose you are not able to do this,

either because they have already themselves

made these discoveries, or deem them to be

things which cannot be discovered; or because

they are preoccupied with the cares and desires

of other things.

A. I will still keep hold of them and they of

me, as if we were able.

R. But suppose their presence is really an

impediment to you in your researches. Would

not that embarrass you; and if they cannot be

otherwise, would you not prefer to be alone

rather than so situated ?

A. I confess that I would. <°

R. You do not then crave either that they

live or live with you, save for the purpose of

finding Wisdom ? 4,

A. Such is the ease.

R. And how if your own life were proved

olibuie of Augu he

to be an impediment to the attainment of

Wisdom- would you wish it to continue ?

A. I would flee from jt forthwith. 42

R. And suppose that you were shown that

whether in or out of the body you could equally

well attain to Wisdom, would you care whether

here or in another life you should enjoy that

which you delight in ?

A. If I might rest assured that nothing

worse were in store for me hereafter, and no

backward step from that to which I have

already advanced, I would not care.

R. You fear then to die, lest you shall be

involved in some worse evil by which the

knowledge of God shall be taken away from you ?

A. Such as I have conceived it, not only do

I fear lest it shall be taken away from me, but

also lest the entrance upon those things, at

sight of which I stand marvelling, shall be

closed to me; although what I now grasp will,

I trust, remain with me.

R. You desire then that life shall remain

to you, not on its own account but on account

of Wisdom ?

A. So it is.

_1. R. Fear of pain remains, which probably

moves you by its own intrinsic power.

_oliIoquiesof _i. Au_ 37

A. Even that I do not very greatly fear on

any other account than because it hinders me

in my researches. Not long since, although

I was tormented with a very severe toothache, 4s

so that I was unable to do any continuous

thinking, except on subjects with which I was

already familiar, and was altogether prevented

from undertaking any researches in which con-

centration of mind was necessary, yet, even

then, it seemed to me that should that Illumina-

tion disclose itself to my mind, I should either

lose all consciousness of the pain, or would

certainly support it as if it were nothing. Up

to this time I have had no more serious pain

to bear, but since frequently realizing how much

more intolerable pain might fall to my lot, I

am constrained to agree with Cornelius Celsus,

when he says that the greatest good is wisdom,

and the greatest evil physical pain. Nor does

the argument for this saying seem to me

absurd. For, he says, since we are compounded

of two parts, namely, of mind and body, the

superior part is the mind and the inferior the

body: .and the greatest good is the best of the

better part, and the greatest evil the worst of

the worst part, and wisdom is the best thing

in the soul and pain the worst in the body.

Therefore he concludes, as I think not at all

falsely, that the greatest good is to be wise, the

greatest evil to suffer pain.

R. Later on we will see about that. For

perhaps Wisdom herself, toward whom we

are urging our way, will persuade us otherwise.

If, however, this is shown to be true, we will,

doubtless, entertain the same opinion as to the

greatest good and the greatest evil.

XIII

2_. Now let us inquire what kind of a lover

you are of that Wisdom, whom, with most

chaste regard and embrace and with no inter-

posing veil, but as if nude, in a way she does

not permit save to very few of her most favored

suitors, you desire to grasp and to gaze upon.

For surely were you consumed with desire for

some most beautiful woman, it would be but

just that she should not yield herself to you, if

she had discovered that another beside herself

were loved by you. Nor will this most chaste

beauty of Wisdom disclose herself to you, except

you are consumed by desire for her alone.

A. Why then am I, unhappy I, so long kept

waiting in suspense and excruciating agony ?

Surely I have proved that I love no other, for

_olilmttt_ _ _L Attn, a_im_ 89

that which is not loved for itself is not loved at

all. But Wisdom I love for herself alone, and

other things- llfe, leisure, friends- which I

wish to have in addition, I fear to be without,

on her account only. How boundless must be

the love I bear to that Beauty, when not only

do I not envy other lovers, but even seek many

more who may with me long for her; with me

gaze, marvelling, upon her; with me lay hold

upon, with me enjoy her; so much the more

shall they be my friends, as she shall be loved

by us in common!

2S. R. It is altogether fitting that such

should the lovers of Wisdom be. She, union

with whom is pure and without contamination,

seeks such. But she is not won in one way

alone.44 It is according to his soundness and

strength that each one comes to know this

unique and most veritable good. There is an

intellectual illumination of an ineffable and

mysterious sort. 4s Ordinary light may, so

far as it can, teach us something concerning

that higher Light. There are eyes so vigorous

and sound as, though scarcely open, to turn

full upon the sun without shrinking. To such,

light is, in a way, health itself, nor do they

need a physician, save only perhaps for advice.

4o 9oliloquof Augume

To such it is enough to believe, to hope, to

love. But there are others whose eyes are hurt

by that very effulgence which they so vehe-

mently long to look upon, and often turning

from it go with delight back to their shadows.

Such as these may be truly said to be sound,

but no attempt to show them that which they

are not able to look upon is without danger.

They need first to be exercised by a salutary

encouragement of desire, and an equally wise

postponement of its satisfaction.

They should, first, be shown some things

which are not in themselves luminous, but can

be seen only by reflected light, such as a

garment or a wall, or anything of that sort.

After that, something else, which, though not

itself luminous, yet glows with more beauty

by reflection than does the former, as gold or

silver or something similar; but not so brightly

as to hurt the eye. Next, they should look

upon some moderate terrestrial fire, then upon

the stars, then the moon, then the glow of dawn,

and the growing splendor of sunrise. And

whoever accustoms himself to these things,

whether in unbroken order, or with some

omissions, will come to look upon the sun

itself _dthout shrinking and with great delight.

The most excellent teachers use some such

method as this with those eagerly desirous of

Wisdom, who already see, but whose sight is

not acute. For it is the officeof good discipline

to attain Wisdom by a certain order of ap-

proach, and without that order 46 it is scarcely

credible that the approach can be happy.

But we have, I think, written enough for to-

day. Health must be considered.

XIV

24. Another day having arrived:--

A. Give now if you can, I beg, I implore,

this order. Proceed; do what you will, by

any means, in any way. Command things

however difficult, however arduous, and, never-

theless, if they are within my power, I shall

certainly, through them, attain to that which

I desire.

R. One thing alone can I teach you; nothing

else do I know: 47the things of sense must be

abandoned, and the greatest caution must be

used, so long as we carry about this body, lest

some adhesive impediment of sense should

clog our wings, whose task, when whole and

perfect, it is to bear us upward away from these

shadows to that higher Light, which it befits

of Augu iue

not to disclose itself to those shut up in this

Cave, 4g unless they shall have been such, that,

when they escape, their prison being either

rent asunder or decayed away, they shall be

able to mount up to their native atmospheres.

And so, when you shall have become such,

that nothing whatever of earth can charm you,

in that very moment, in that very instant of

time, believe me, you shall look upon that which

you desire.*9

A. When, then, shall that be, I pray you ?

For I do not think it possible to arrive at that

complete contempt of these inferior things,

until I shall have first beheld that in comparison

with which they become vile.

25. R. This is as if the eyes of the body

should say: " When I shall have seen the

sun, I will no longer love darkness." For,

though it seems right that this should be the

order by which to proceed, it is, in fact, a long

way from it. For the eye loves darkness for

the very reason that it is not sound, and yet,

unless sound, it cannot gaze upon the sun.

The mind is often deceived in this, and boasting

and thinking itself sound, as if it had occasion,

it complains that it does not see. But that

Beauty knows when it should disclose itself;

for she, herself, assumes the office of physician,

and knows better who may be fit to look upon

her than do they themselves who are made

fit.

Thus we, having emerged so far, seem to

ourselves to see; but how deep we have been

sunk or to what point we have risen, we are

not permitted to either feel or think; and so,

because we have not a worse disease, we con-

clude that we have none. Do you not observe

how, only yesterday, we announced, as if

secure, that we were no longer hindered by any

fleshly plague, and that we loved Wisdom

alone, and sought for and desired other things

on her account only P How worthless, how

foul, how execrable, how horrible, seemed to

you a woman's embrace, as we were inquiring

between ourselves concerning the desire for a

wife! And yet, that very night, being wakeful,

when we again discussed the same matter, how

far other you felt than you would have sup-

posed, when thrilled with these imagined

blandishments and that amorous softness!-

far less, indeed, than its wont, but yet, far

otherwise than you had been asserting. May

that most confidential physician of yours

therefore demonstrate to you both what, by

his care, you have escaped, and what yet

remains to be cured!

26. A. Silence, I beseech you, silence! Why

do you so torment me; why probe so deep ?

Now I weep beyond endurance! Henceforth

I promise nothing, I presume nothing, lest

you ask again concerning these things. You

say truly that He whom I ardently desire to

see will, Himself, know when I am restored

to health. Let Him do what pleases Him;

let Him disclose Himself when it pleases Him!

I now commit myself wholly to His care and

clemency. For I believe, for all time, He will

not cease to uplift to Himself those so inclined.

I will pronounce nothing concerning my sound-

ness until I shall have looked upon that

Beauty.S°

R. May you indeed do nothing other. But

now restrain yourself from tears and gird up

your mind. You have wept overmuch, and the

pain in your chest is seriously affected by it.

A, Would you set a bound to my tears

when I can see no bound to my misery ? Or

do you bid me consider the health of my body

when my real self may be consumed with

infection ? Nay, I implore you, if you are of

any avail for me, that you endeavor to lead

of Auo 45

me onward by some less tedious route, that,

by some proximity of that Light, which, if

I have advanced somewhat, I am now able to

bear, it will shame my eyes to return to those

shadows I have left; if, indeed, those things

can be said to be abandoned which can still

venture to cajole my blindness.

27. R. Let us, if you please, conclude this

first volume that we may set out upon a second

by some propitious way; for this inclination of

yours must not cease for want of suitable

exercise.

A. I refuse absolutely to consent that this

little book shall be concluded until you shall

have opened to me some little glimmer con-

cerning the nearness of that Light on which I

am intent.

R. Your Divine Healer consents to grant

you this much: for I know not what effulgence

touches me and invites me to lead you thither.

Be, therefore, intently receptive.

A. Lead on; seize and hurry me whither you

will.

R. Do you affirm truly that you will to

cognize God and the soul

A. Such is my whole concern.

R. And nothing more ?

A. Absolutely nothing.

R. What! Do you not desire to comprehend

Truth ?

A. As if I could truly have acquaintance

with these except through that!

R. That, then, must first be cognized, in

order that these may be.

A. I agree to that.

R. Let us, then, first see whether, since

Truth and true are two words, it appears to you

that they stand for two things or only for one ?

A. For two things, it seems to me. Thus,

Chastity is one thing, the chaste another: and

so of many others. I believe, therefore, Truth

is one thing, and that which is said to be true

another thing.

R. And which of them do you consider the

more excellent ?

A. Truth, in my judgment: for as Chastity

is not the offspring of the chaste, but the chaste

of Chastity, so, if anything be true it is true

by reason of Truth.

28. R. When a chaste person dies do you

consider that Chastity dies also ?

A. Not at all.

R. When, therefore, that which is true

perishes, Truth does not perish.

A. But how does anything true perish ? I do

not see.

R. I am surprised that you ask that ques-

tion, for do we not see constantly a thousand

things perish before our eyes P Or do you,

perhaps, consider this trec to bc a tree, but not a

true tree ? Or not capable of perishing ? For,

although you do not believe in the senses, and

may reply that you are not sure whether the

tree exists or not, you will, nevertheless, not,

I think, deny that, if it be a tree, it is a true

tree; for this judgment is a matter not of sense,

but of intelligence; for if it be a false tree it is

not a tree, but if it be a tree it is of necessity a

true tree.

A. I concede this.

R. And how of this also; do you not concede

a tree to be of that class of things which are

born and die ?

A. I cannot deny it.

R. It is, then, concluded that a true thing

may perish ?

A. I do not deny it.

R. And, further, does it not appear that,

though true things die, Truth does not die:

just as, though the chaste person dies, Chastity

does not die ?

A. I now concede this also, and eagerly

await the outcome of your efforts.

R. Pay attention, then.

A. I am all attention.

29. R. Does this proposition : -- whatever is,

is, o] neces,_4.ty,somewhere, seem true to you ?

A. Nothing so wins my consent.

R. And do you admit that Truth is ?

A. Ido.

R. We must, then, of necessity inquire

where she may be. She is not in some portion

of space, unless you, perhaps, think that some-

thing else beside a body can occupy space, or

that Truth is a body.

A. I think neither of these things.

R. Where, then, do you believe her to be ?

For we have agreed that what is, cannot be

nowhere.

A. If I knew where she were, I would not

be likely to continue my researches.

R. Are you, then, at least, able to conceive

where she may be ?

A. If you suggest it, I may be able.

R. She certainly is not in mortal things.

For whatever is cannot survive in anything, if

_[_lJ _ _I. _ 49

the thing in which it is does not survive. Also,

it was, a little time ago, conceded that Truth

remains, though true things pass away. There-

fore Truth is not in mortal things. But Truth

is, and is not nowhere. Therefore there are

things immortal. But nothing is true in which

Truth is not, and it therefore follows that noth-

ing is, unless it be immortal: and every false

tree is not a tree, and false wood is not wood,

and false silver is not silver, and anything

whatever which is false, is not. But everything

which is not true, is false: therefore nothing

can be rightly said to be except the immortal.

Now review this line of reasoning carefully,

lest it should appear that some of your con-

cessions ought not to have been made. If,

however, it is valid, we have accomplished

almost our entire undertaking, as will perhaps

be better seen in a following book.

A. I am grateful and give you thanks; and

in the silence s, I will diligently and cautiously

review these things with myself, and with you,

provided no shadows reappear, causing me

pleasure, as I so vehemently dread.

R. Have constant faith in God, and commit

your whole self to His care so far as you can!

Refuse to be or to will as of your own power,

and openlyconfessyourselftobe a servantof

thismost mercifuland graciousGod; forso

He willnot forbearto upliftyou to Himself,

and willpermitnothingsavewhat isforyour

good tohappen,evcnthoughyou know itnot!

A. I hear,I believe,and I obey,sofaras I

have the power, and--unless you require

somethingclseof me--with allmy soul I

praythatI may have more a_d more power!

R. And meanwhile,allis well. You will

do hereafterwhateverHe Himself,havingbeen

seen,willinstructyou.

BOOK II

1. A. Our work has been interrupted long

enough. Love is impatient and unless to her

is given what is loved, grief has no limit.

Wherefore let us set about this second book.

R. Let us do so at once.

A. And let us believe that God will be with

us!

R. Let us truly believe this, if that, indeed,

be within our power.

A. Our power is Himself.

R. Pray then as briefly and concisely as

you can.

A. God, always the same, let me know my-

self, let me know Thee! The prayer s* is

made.

R. You, who desire to know yourself, do

you know that you are ?

A. I do.53

R. How do you know this ?

A. I do not know.

of Augus

R. Do you feel yourself to be simple or

complex P

A. I do not know.

R. Do you know yourself to be self-moved P

A. I do not.

R. Do you know that you think P

A. Ido.

R. Is it then trne that you think P

A. It is true. 54

R. Do you know yourself to be immortal Pss

A. I do not.S6

R. V_rhich, among all these things of which

you have declared yourself ignorant, would you

choose to know first P

A. If I be _mmorta|.

R. You love then to live P

A. I confess it.

R. Would iL be enough if you should have

learned that you were immortal P

A. It would, indeed, be much, but, for me,

too little.

R. But this too little, how much joy will it

cause you ?

.4_ Very much joy.

R. Would you then weep for anything at

allP

A. For nothing at all.

R. What if that immortal life were found to

be such that it were permitted you to know

there no more than you had known here,

would you restrain your tears ?

A. Nay, I would weep my life away!

R. You love, then, to live, not for the sake

of living, but for the sake of knowing.

A. I grant the inference.

R. But suppose that this very knowledge

should cause you misery ?

A. That, indeed, I can believe in no case

possible: but if it be, then no man can be

happy. For now I am miserable from no

cause save that of my ignorance, and if knowl-

edge also shall cause me misery, then misery

is eternal.

1_. I now perceive the sum of your desires.

For, believing that no man is made unhappy

by knowledge, you argue that intelligence

effects happiness: no man is happy if not

living, and no man lives who is not: you wish

to be, to live, to know, but to be in order to

live, and to live in order to know: now you

know that you are, you know that you live,

you know that you know. But whether all

these things will continue forever; or whether

no one of them will continue forever: whether

some will survive and others will perish; or,

in case all survive, whether they may become

more and more, or must become less and

less, this it is which you desire to know.

A. So it is.

R. And now, if we shall have proved that

we are to live forever, it follows that we shall

be forever.

A. That follows.

R. It will remain then to inquire concerning

knowing.

2. A. I perceive a very clear and concise

order.

It. At present, let the order be that you

reply to my questions with caution and con-

viction.

A. I am agreed.

R. If this world shall continue forever, is it

true that this world is to continue forever ?

A. Who doubts this ?

It. And if it is not to continue, is it not like-

wise true that it is not to continue ?

A. I do not contradict.

R. And, when it shall have perished, if it is

to perish, will it not then be true that the world

_olib:qaiesof _ Augustine 55

has perished ? For as long as it is true that the

world has not passed away, it has not passed

away: therefore the proposition that the world

has passed away contradicts the proposition

that the world has not passed away.

A. This, too, I concede.

R. And what about this ? Does it seem to

you that anything can be true and Truth not

be?

A. By no means.

R. Therefore Truth will still be, even though

the world should cease to be ?

A. I cannot deny it.

R. What if Truth itself should perish, would

it not be true that Truth had perished ?

A. And who denies that ?

R. But it cannot be true if Truth is not ?

A. That I have conceded, a little way back.

R. Truth can, then, in no way perish ?

A. Nothing can be more true than this

deduction; go on then, as you have begun, s7

III

3. R. I would like to have you now tell me

whether it appears to you that the soul or the

body has consciousness ?ss

A. It seems to me that it is the soul.

R. &nd does it seem to you that the Intellect

belongs to the soul ?

A. It seems so, unquestionably.

R. To the soul alone, or to something

beside ?

A. I see nothing else except the soul, unless

it be God, which I can suppose the habitation

of Intellect.

R. Let us look into this. What would you

think if some one should tell you that yonder

wall was not a wall, but was a tree ?

A. Either that his senses or mine were in

error; or that he had called a wall by that

name.

R. How if it had to you the appearance of a

wall, and to him that of a tree: might not each

be true ?

A. Not at all, for one and the same thing

cannot be both a tree and a wall; and however

it might appear to each of us separately as

separate things, one of us must, of necessity,

suffer a false conception.

R. And how if it be neither tree nor wall,

and both are deceived ?

A. That, of course, might be.

R. This one point then, you overlooked

above.

oliloquiesof Augu ir 07

A. I admit it.

R. How if you both realized it to be some-

thing other than it appeared to you to be,

would you be deceived, in that case ?

A. No.

R. A thing can, then, have a false appear-

ancc to a person, and yet he will not be de-

ceived by it ?

A. It can.

R. It must, then, be granted that it is not

he who sees false things who is deceived, but

he only who assents to the false as true ?

A. Granted without doubt.

R. What about the false itself- wherefore

is the false, false ?

A. Because it appears to be other than it

actually is.

R. If, then, there are no persons to whom a

thing appears, there is nothing false ?

A. That follows.

R. Falsity, then, is not in things but in sense;

and he who does not accept the false as true is

not deceived: and if, when sense is deceived,

we are not deceived, it must be granted that

sense is one thing and we another.

A. I have nothing to say in contradiction.

R. But suppose the soul is deceived: would

you venture, in this case, to declare that you

are not deceived ?

A. By what possibility could I venture that

fax ?

R. But no sense without soul, and no falsity

without sense. The soul, therefore, either

operates or co-operates with falsity.

A. What has preceded compels this con-

clusion.

4. R. Tell me now if it seems to you pos-

sible that sometime falsity may not be.59

A. How could that seem possible to me

when the difficulty of finding out Truth is so

great that it seems more absurd to say that

falsity may cease to exist than that Truth may ?

R. Do you think that he who does not live

can have consciousness ?

A. That cannot be.

R. Then it is established that the soul lives

forever.

A. You thrust joy upon me too precipitately;

step by step, I beg!

R. And yet, if the above concessions are

correct, I see nothing to be in doubt concerning

this matter.

A. But I insist it is too soon. For I shall be

more easily persuaded that I have made prema-

_nlil_i_anf _L Am3m_i_ 59

ture concessions, than that I am already assured

of the soul's immortality. Nevertheless, develop

your argument, and let me see how you arrive

at your conclusion.

R. You have declared that falsity cannot

fail to exist, and that it exists because of sense:

sense, therefore, cannot ceasc to be. But there

is no sense without soul. The soul is, therefore,

everlasting. Nor can there be consciousness

without life. The soul, therefore, livcs forever.

5. A. O leaden dagger! For if I concede

to you that the world could not exist apart

from man, you are able to conclude that man

is immortal, and that both he and the world

are everlasting !

R. You watch well! Nevertheless we have

established no small matter in this--that

the world of sense cannot exist apart from the

soul, unless, perchance, there shall sometime be

no falsity in the nature of things.

A. I admit that to be thc consequence. But

I think we should now deliberate more amply

as to the stability of our former concessions.

For I see that no little progress has been made

toward the soul's immortality.

R. Have you sufficiently considered whether

you may not have granted something too hastily ?

A. Quite sufficiently, and I see no lack of

caution anywhere.

H. It is then established that the nature of

things cannot exist apart from a living soul ?

A. Established to this extent--that souls

may succeed each other, those born succeeding

those which die.

R. And if falsity might be eliminated from

the nature of things, might it not then come to

pass, that all things would be true ?

A. That, I see, follows.

R. Tell me why this wall seems to you to

be true ?

A. Because I am not deceived by its ap-

pearance.

R. Because it is in fact what it seems to be ?

A. Exactly.

H. If, then, a thing is false from the fact that

it appears other than it is, and true from the

fact that it is as it appears, then the observer

being removed there is nothing either true or

false; but, if the falsity is removed from the

nature of things, then all things are true. Nor

can anything appear except to a living soul.

The soul remains, therefore, in the framework

_ll|il_ of _L All_Jlt_it_ 61

of things, whether falsity can or cannot be

eliminated.

A. I see that our former inference is now

made more solid: but we have made no real

gain. For, not the less, does that which very

much disturbs me remain; namely, that the

world is never without souls, because since

birth follows death, they are always here, not

because of their immortality, but because of

their succession.

6. R. Does it seem to you that material

things, that is, those appreciable by sense, can

be wholly apprehended by the Intellect ?

A. It does not.

R. What then ? Does it seem to you that

God makes use of senses for the cognition of

things ?

A. I dare affirm nothing rashly concerning

this point, but so far as I am permitted to con-

jecture, God in no way makes use of senses. 6°

R. We conclude then that consciousness is

possible only to the soul.

A. Tentatively, and so far as probability

permits.

R. How then ? Do you grant that this wall,

if not a true wall, is not a wall ?

A. I grant nothing more willingly.

oli[oquiesof Auguine

'R. And thatanything,ifnot a truebody,

is not a body ?

A. That also I admit.

R. Therefore if nothing is true unless it be

as it seems: nor can any sensible object have a

seeming except to the senses: nor can anything

except the soul have consciousness: nor any

body be, unless it be a true body; it follows

that unless the soul shall have been, the body

cannot be.

A. You urge me on so swiftly that what I

might oppose, I cannot grasp. 6'

7. R. Attend even more diligently!

A. Behold me here!

R. This stone certainly is: and it is as such

true if it is not in reality other than it seems:

and if it is not true it does not exist: and it can

have no seeming except to the senses.

A. Even so.

R. There are, then, no stones in the unseen

bowels of the earth, nor anywhere where there

are not those who can be conscious of them;

nor, unless we shall behold it, can that stone

be: and when we have gone elsewhere, it must

cease to be, if no other human being remains

to look at it: nor can coffers, howevcr well

_lled, and securely closed, contain an)thing:

nor can yonder wood be wood, except on its

surface, since any body, not transparent to its

depths, escapes every sense, and must, per-

force, be considered non-existent. For if it

were, it would be true: but an) thing is true only

because it is as it appears: and this does not

appear: therefore it is not true: or have you

an answer to all this ?

A. I see that this is the outcome of those

concessions of mine, but it is so absurd that

I shall be more ready to recant whatever of

them you choose, than to grant it to be true.

R. I have no objcction. See to it, then,

which you prefer to declare: that bodies can

appear independent of sense: or that con-

sciousness can exist independent of soul: or

that a stone or anything else can be and not be

true: or that the true itself must be otherwise

defined.

A. Let us, I pray, consider this last alter-

native.

8. R. Define, then, the true.

A. That is true which actually is as it ap-

pears to the observer, if he can and will ob-

serve.

oli!nuesof Augu

R. That, therefore, which cannot be ob-

served by some human being will not be true?

Wherefore, if that be false which appears other

than it really is, suppose this appears to one

observer to be a stone and to another to be

wood -- shall the same thing be both false and

true ?

A. That does not concern me so much as

does the former proposition m that if a thing

cannot be observed, it must follow that it cannot

be true. I do not so much care that the same

thing is at the same time both true and false:

for, as a matter of fact, I observe that a certain

thing, being compared with different things,

may be both small and large, and thus it comes

about that nothing is absolutely small or

large, since these designations are simply rel-

ative.

It. But, if you declare that nothing is true in

itself, do you not fear lest it shall follow that

nothing can be in itself? For, for the same

reason that this is wood, it is also true wood.

Nor is it a possible thing that in itself abso-

lutely, that is, without an observer, it can be

wood, and not be true wood.

A. Therefore I declare and define thus,

nor do I fear that my definition shall be

disproved because of brevity, -- that seems to

me to be true which is.6_

R. Then nothing can be false, since what-

ever is, is true.

A. You have driven me into close quarters,

nor do I, immediately, find an answer. It has

come to this, that while I am unwilling to be

taught in any way "except by these questions,

I, nevertheless, fear to be longer questioned.

9. R. God, to whom we have committed

ourselves, has, without doubt, this work in

hand, and will deliver us from our straits,

if only we believe, and pray to Him with all the

heart.

A. Nothing would I, at this pass, do more

gladly, for never have I been involved in such

pitchy darkness. 63 O God, our Father, who

dost exhort us to pray, and dost grant what

we ask, if so be that when we pray to Thee we

are better and live better; listen to me, groping

amid these shadows, and stretch out to me

Thy right hand! Hold Thy Light before me!

Call me back from wandering! Under Thy

guidance, let me return to myself, let me return

to Thee! Amen!

66 _t_|il_tltti_ of _ _dtglt_hl_

R. Concentrate your attention now as much

as is possible and listen most watchfully!

A. Speak, I implore, if anything is borne in

upon you, lest we perish!

R. Concentrate your attention!

A. Behold me, I am all attention!

10. R. Let us then first ventilate the truth

about this question -- what is Falsity ?

A. I wonder if it shall be found to be

anything else than that whicl_ is not as it

sceYtbs.

R. Be more attentive, while we first cross-

examine the senses themselves. Now it is

certain that whleh the eyes behold is not pro-

nounced false unless it possess some likeness

to the true. For example, the man we see in

a dream is not a true man, but a false, by the

very fact that he bears some resemblance to

the true. For, who, having seen in his dream

a dog, could rightly say that he dreamed of a

man ? The dog, also, is false, because he is

like a true one.

A. It is as you say.

R. And when a person, wide-awake, takes

a horse for a man, is he not deceived by this

very fact, that it appears to him in some simili-

tude of a man ? For if to him it appears like

nothing but a horse, it is not possible that he

should think he sees a man.

A. I agree to this without reserve.

R. In the same manner, we call the picture

of a tree a false tree, the face reflected from a

mirror a false face, the apparent motion of

towers to those sailing past them, a false motion,

the apparent break of the oak under water

a false break, from no other reason than because

they are similar to the true.

A. I admit it.

R. And we are, likewise, deceived by the

similarity in twins, and in eggs, and in the

impressions of a seal ring, and in other such

things.

A. I follow and wholly agree with you.

R. That similitude of things, which obtains

by the sense of sight, is, therefore, the mother

of Falsity.

A. I cannot deny it.

11. R. Now this whole forest of facts can,

if I mistake not, be divided into two classes:

the one containing things equal, the other

things unequal: equals, when, for instance,

we say this is like that as that is like this, as

is said in the case of twins, and of the impres-

sions of a seal ring: unequals, when the in-

68 nf

ferior is said to be like the superior. For who,

looking into a mirror, could possibly declare

that he resembled his own reflected image, and

not rather that it resembled him ? And this

class subdivides again into one which contains

those cases which have a purely mental origin

and one which contains those brought about

by sense. Again, those which are experienced

by the mind are twofold: those induced by

the senses, as in the fictitious motion of the

towers: or by itself from that which it received

from the senses, as in the visions of those

dreaming and perhaps, also, of the insane.

Moreover those objects of the sense of sight

which appear to us as if really the things they

look like, are produced and fashioned, some

by nature, some by living beings. Nature

produces these inferior similitudes either by

reproduction or representation: by repro-

duet/on, as when children are born resembling

their parents, by representation, as in the case

of every sort of reflector; for, although men

make nearly all mirrors, they do not make the

images reflected from them.

Now the productions of living beings con-

sist of pictures and delineations of every sort

whatever, in which class may be included, also,

oliloqu of Augume 69

those apparitions, if such there be, produced

by spirits. The shadows of substances, also,

may properly have a place in this category:

for, since they are similitudes of bodies, and

in a sense false bodies, they cannot be denied a

place among those things belonging to the

realm of vision, as produced by nature from

reflection. For every body turned to the sun

reflects light, and on the opposite side casts a

shadow. Or does something contradictory

occur to you ?

A. Nothing indeed: but I wait with impa-

tience to see whither these things tend.

1_. R. It is now our duty to patiently per-

severe until the other senses have given their

testimony to our proposition that Falsity has

its seat in similitude to the tree. For from

the sense of hearing almost as many kinds of

similitude are to be observed; as when, hearing

the voice, but not seeing the person, we think

it is that of one whose voice it is similar to: and,

among these inferior similitudes, echo, the

ringing in the ears, and the imitation in clocks

of the notes of the blackbird or the crow, or

those sounds which the sleeping and the insane

seem to themselves to hear, are all witnesses.

And it is incredible how much false notes, as

70 _oliIm_i_ of ,_L

musicians 64 call them, witness to this truth,

as will be seen hereafter; although it suffices

for the present, that they are not lacking in

similitude to those which are called true. Do

you follow me ?

A. Most willingly, for I find no difficulty

in understanding.

R. Well, then, not to lose time; does it seem

to you that one lily is distinguishable from

another by its perfume? The thyme-honey

of one hive from the thyme-honey of another

by its taste? The softness of the swan's

plumage from that of the goose by its touch ?

A. It does not.

R. And how, when in dreams we seem to

taste or touch or smell such things, are we not

deceived in these imaginations by a similitude

inferior in proportion to its nothingness ?

A. You speak truly.

R. It appears, then, that we are deceived in

all our senses by some seductive similitude

whether of things equal or things inferior: or,

if not actually deceived, as suspending consent

and discriminating differences, we nevertheless

designate as false those things which we find

similar to the true.

A. I cannot doubt it.

VII

13. R. Now give attention, as we again

briefly review the same thing, so that this

which we endeavor to show may become yet

more obvious.

A. I hear: say what you will, for I have

made up my mind, once for all, to submit to this

roundabout route without impatience, because

of my great hope of arriving at the goal toward

which I feel that we are tending.

R. You do well. But now consider whether

it seems to you that when we see a number of

similar eggs, we can say, with truth, that any

one of them is false ?

A. By no means: for, if all are eggs, all are

true eggs.

R. And how is it in the case of an image

reflected from a mirror ? By what signs do we

apprehend it to be false ?

A. Because, of course, it cannot be grasped,

does not give forth sound, has not power to

move itself, does not live, and we apprehend

it also by other innumerable things which it

would be tiresome to elaborate.

R. I see that you are unwilling to delay, and

something must be yielded to your impatience.

72 olibs of Augue

Not to repeat, then, each detail,- suppose

those men whom we see in dreams as if living

and speaking could be held captive by us when

waking, and found to be no different themselves

from those whom wide-awake and in our senses

we see and talk with-- could we callthem false ?

A. How could they possibly be so calIedP

R. If, then, they were true by reason of their

appearing perfectly similar to the true, so that

nothing whatever differentiates them from the

true: and false by reason of corresponding

or other differences, must it not be admitted

also that similitude is the mother of Truth and

dissimilitude of Falsity ? 6s

A. I have nothing to answer, and am

ashamed of my former so hasty assent.

14. R. It is absurd for you to be ashamed,

for we have provided for such an event by our

choice of this method of discussion, which, be-

cause we speak to ourselves alone, I wish to

have designated and written down as Solilo-

quies,- certainly a new, and perhaps, unat-

tractive name, but quite suitable to the matter

under discussion. For, while Truth cannot be

better investigated than by question and an-

swer, scarce a person can be found who is not

mortified at being vanquished in argument,

_|iloquie_ of _I. Augu_i_ 73

and from this fact it almost invariably happens

that, when the debate is well under way, some

explosion of perversity bursts out resulting

in wounded feelings, often concealed, but some-

times apparent; so that I think it tends most

to peace and is best suited to the search after

Truth 66 that, God helping, I myself reply to

questions put by myself. Therefore there is

no need that we should fear to turn back and

reconsider, if at any time from lack of delibera-

tion you should have tangled yourself up;

for otherwise there is no way out.

VIII

15. A. Well said! but I do not see clearly

that I have made any incorrect concession,

unless in fact it be in having declared that to

be false, which possesses some similitude to

the true: as nothing else occurs to me which

dearly deserves to be called false. Yet, on the

other hand, I am forced to admit that those

things designated as false are so called by reason

of that in which they are unlike the true: and

so it turns out that dissimilitude itself is also

the cause of falsity: therefore I am perplexed,

for I cannot easily conceive how a thing can

be the resultofantagonistic causes.

74 _o[iImt_ of _L Au_

R. But how if this be the single such case,

and is thus unique ? Or, do you not know that,

passing in review the innumerable species of

animals, the crocodile is the only one to move

his upper jaw in masticating ? 67 And that it is

notorious that scarcely anything can be found

which is so like another in every detail, that

somedetail is not discovered inwhich it is unlike ?

A. I do indeed perceive this. But when I

realize that what we call false possesses both

likeness and unlikeness to the true, I cannot

decide from which of the two this designation

of false is better deserved. For if I say it is

from that by which it differs, nothing will re-

main which cannot be called false: for, among

those things admitted to be true, there is noth-

ing which is not in some detail, unlike every-

thing else. If, on the other hand, I say it is

from that in which they resemble that things

deserve the name of false, not only will those

eggs which are true, in that they are similar,

protest, but also I shall not escape him who

would force me to admit that all things are

false, since I cannot deny that all things are,

in some respect, similar to each other. But,

supposing I do not fear to answer him that

likeness and unlikeness co-operate at the same

_oli_|o..rgfie_ of _L Am_ir_ 75

time to bring it about that a thing may cor-

rectly be called false, what refuge from this

dilemma will you provide ? I st_all be forced

to allow that all things are false, since, as I

have just said above, all things are found to

be in some respects alike, in others unlike.

My sole alternative would be to say that the

false is nothing else than that which appears

otherwise t.han it actually is, did I not fear

those many monsters of which I was thinking

I had long ago steered clear. For, once more,

I am suddenly whirled giddily around in order

that I may announce that the true is that which

appears what it actually is. It next transpires

that, without a cognizer, nothing can be true,

and I am menaced with shipwreck upon those

hidden reefs, which are true reefs, though with-

out a cognizer. And if I say that the true is

that which is, it must follow, in spite of all

contradiction, that no place is left for the false.

And so all my unrest returns, and I do not see

that I have gained anything by so much patience

with your delays.

16. R. Take heed, rather! For I will not

at all harbor the suggestion that we have

soughtdivineaid invain:es I see,indeed,by

our many experimentsin allthesethings,that

nothingremains which can justlybe called

false,savethatwhich feignsto be what itis

not,or,ingeneral,thatwhich tendsto be and

isnot. Of theformertypeof falsethingsare

thosewhich are eitheractuallymisleadingor

thosewldch aresimplyfictitious.Of themis-

leadingitmay be saidtrulythatithas a certain

appetitefor deceiving,which cannotbe con-

ceivedtoexistapartfrom soul,and results,on

the one hand, from reason,on the otherfrom

nature. But thefictitiousI callthatwhich is

producedbymakers offiction:thesedifferfrom

the misleadingin this,that every misleader

has a desireto deceive:whilenot everyfiction-

makerhas. For mimes and comediesand many

poems arefulloffictionsforthepurposerather

of pleasingthan of deceiving:and almostall

who make jestsdeal in fictions.But he is

rightlycalleda mislcader,ormisleading,whose

businessitisthateverybodyshouldbe deceived.

Others,however,who have no purposetode-

ceivein what they do, but do, nevertheless,

manufacture things,are,so far,falsifiers:or,

ifnot actuallythat,yet,no man doubts that

theydeservethename of fiction-makers.Or

_o|ilnm_ Of _ AmJlmli_ 77

have you something to say in contradic-

tion ?

17. A. Proceed, I beg. For now you are,

perhaps, beginning to teach concerning falsity,

not falsely. But I am expecting to hear of what

sort that may be of which you say:- It tends

to be and is not.

R. And why not ? For they are those of

which we have taken note in many things

above. For does not your image in the mirror

seem to you as if it willed,to be your very self,

but to be false for the reason that it is not ?

A. It seems so indeed.

R. And every picture, every representation

of every sort, everything among the works of

art of that class, do they not strive, as it were,

to be after the likeness of that in imitation of

which they are made ?

A. I am positively convinced of this.

R. And you now concede, I suppose, that

those things by which dreamers or the insane

are deceived are of rids sort ?

A. None more so: for none so tend toward

reality and those things which the waking and

sane see. They are, nevertheless, false, in

that they tend toward being and cannot attain

toit.

7s ol!l _. ien of Am me

R. And what now of the apparent motion

of the towers ?- of the oar bent beneath the

water ?--of the shadows of bodies ? Need I

say more ? For it is, as I think, evident that they

should all come under the same classification.

A. Most evident.

R. I do not speak of the other senses: for

there is no thoughtful man but has found thai

among those things which we experience in

sensible matters, that is called false which tends

to be and is not. (_

18. A. You speak truly: but I wonder why

it seems to you that poems and jests and other

fictions should be excluded from this class ?

R. Because to will to be false is one thing,

and to be unable to be true is another. Thus

, the works themselves of men, whether come-

dies or tragedies or mimes, and other things of

that sort, we are able to classify along with the

works of painters and sculptors. For a painted

man cannot be so true, however much he

approximates the appearance of a man, as are

those things which are written in the books

of the comic poets. For these neither will

to be false, nor axe they false by any appe-

J_tt|ilmlttit_ nf _L _ 79

tire of their own: but by a certain necessity

they carry out, as much as possible, the inten-

tion of their author. Thus Roscius, by his

own will, was, upon the stage, a false Hecuba:

though by nature he was a true man, but a

true tragedian by that very will by which he

filled the r61e as sueh, and a false Priam, in that

he was simulating Priam though not he himself.

And from this comes to pass a certain marvel,

which, however, no man doubts to be an

actualfact.

A. What is that ?

R. What do you suppose, except that all

these things are true in some respects from the

fact that they are false in others, and that their

proper r61es can be produced by them only

because they are false to others P _rhcrefore

if they desist from these falsities, they can by

no means achieve that which they wish and

are in duty bound to do. For by what pos-

sibility could he whom I have cited be a true

tragedian if he were unwilling to be a false

Andromache, a false Hector, a false Hercules,

and countless others. Or whence would a

picture of a horse be a true picture, if it were

not a false horse ? And whence is that reflec-

tion from the mirror a hue reflection if it be not

8o Jot J

a false man ? And why, since, in order that

certain things may be true in something, they

must be false in something, do we so greatly

fear falsities and so eagerly hunger after

truth P

A. I do not know and I much wonder, except

it be that I see these examples to be in nothing

worthy of emulation.7o For, in order to be true

in our own individual characters, we ought not

to become false, by imitating and taking the

r61e of others, as do actors, and the reflections

from mirrors, and Myron's brazen cow: but

to seek the true, which is not double-faced, and

self-contradictory, nor in order that it may

be true on one side, false on the other.

R. Great and divine things are these which

you demand. And if we shall have found them,

shall it not be confessed that Truth itself, after

which everything which is in any way true is

discriminated and named, has been, as it were,

created and breathed into life by what has

preceded P

A. I do not withhold my assent.

19. R. Does it seem to you that the science

of disputation is a true science or a false P_'

_xs|_,_ of _ Auglx_'ilne 81

A. Who doubts its truth ? But grumrnar is

also a true science.

R. As true ?

A. I do not see that anything is truer than

the true.

R. That certainly which has in it nothing of

false: investigating this, a little way back, you

were offended that some things I know not

how, could not be true, save on condition that

they were also false. Do you not, then, know

that things both fabulous and obviously false

are within the province of grammar ?

A. I am, indeed, not ignorant of that fact:

but, as I judge, it is not through grammar they

are shown to be of whatever sort they are.. A

fable is, in fact, a fictitious composition for the

purpose of entertainment or utility. The science

of grammar is also the custodian and disci-

plinarian of spoken language, and is com-

pelled, by necessity of its vocation, to collect all

productions, oral or written, in literature, not

making them false, but taking them in charge

and teaching what is true and reasonable con-

ceruing them.

R. Right and sound, though it is not at

present my concern whether these things be

correctly defined and discriminated: but I

ask this:--Whether it is grammar or science

of disputation which truly so demonstrates all

this ?

A. I do not deny that force and skill in de-

fining, by which I have just now tried to dis-

tinguish these things, belong to the art of the

disputant.

20. R. How about grammar itself ? If true,

is it not true by that by which it is a science ?

The word science is derived from the verb to

learn :-- now no man learns and retains what he

learns, who cannot be said to know: and no

man knows .the false: every science, therefore,

is true.

A. I do not see that anything in this little

argument is incautiously reasoned. But I am

disturbed lest some one will conclude that

those fables even are true, since we both learn

and remember them.

R. Was our master ever unwilling that we

should both know and believe these fables

which he was accustomed to teach ?

A. On the contrary, he was wont to insist

with vehemence 72that we should know them.

R. Did he ever insist that we should believe

that Daedalusflew?

.;L That, indeed, never. But if we did

not learn the fable itself perfectly, he would

so conduct himself that we could scarcely keep

anything in our hands.

R. Do you then deny that it is true that

such a fable exists, and that Daedalus is so

reported everywhere ?

A. I do not deny that that is true.

R. You do not deny, then, that when you

learned that, you learned a true thing ? For,

if it be true that Daedalus flew, and the boys

received and recited it as fable and a fiction:

they would, by that, have retained something

false; because those things which they recited

were true. And so what we were marvelling

at before comes to pass: that unless it be false

that Daedalus flew, the fable concerning the

flight of Daedalus cannot be a true fable.

A. I grasp that, at last, but wait to see how

we are going to profit by it.

R. How except that it is not a false reason-

ing by which we infer that a science cannot be

a science, unless it teach true things.

A. And how is that to the point ? "

R. Because I wish you to tell me what

makes grammar a science. For from whence

it is true, from thence it is a science.

A. I do not know how to answer you.

84 oli!-¢meof Augumine

R. Do you considerthatiftherewereinit

nothing of definition, distinction or classifica-

tion, it could, in any sense, be called a

science

A. I see now what you mean to say: nor

does there occur to me anything in the guise

of any sort of science, in which there are not

definitions, classifications, and argumentations,

so that any proposition may be analyzed, each

thing relevant to it being relegated without

confusion to its proper place, nothing belong-

ing to it omitted, nothing alien admitted, all

things working together to make that very

whole which is by that given the name of

science.

R. And that very whole, therefore, by which

it is called true.

A. I see that that follows.

$1. R. Now tell me what science contains

the principles of definition, classification and

distribution ?

A. I have already said, above, that they are

contained in the laws governing the science of

disputation.

R. Grammar, then, is constituted by that

same art, which you have before defended from

the charge of falsity, both a science and true.

_oli!o.moiejof _t. A,_:g;,_tue85

And thisI am permittedto conclude, not

aloneof grammar,but of absolutelyallsci-

ences.For you have said,and saidtruly,

thatno scienceoccurstoyou inwhichthelaw

of definition and of distribution is not the very

thing which constitutes it a science. And if,

by the same reason that they are sciences, they

are true, can any one deny that that through

which they are all true sciences is Troth

itself ?

A. I am certainly very near agreeing to this.

But it disturbs me that we reckon also among

all these sciences that principle of debate itself.

Whereas, I should consider that it is rather

Truth itself by which that principle is true.

R. Altogether watchful and excellent! But

you do not, I suppose, deny that a science is

true from that by which it is a science ?

A. It is indeed because of that, that I am

disturbed. For I have adverted to it as itself

a science, and on that account have declared

it to be true.

R. How then? Do you consider that it

could be a science otherwise, except as in it

all things are defined and classified ?

A. I have nothing to say.

1L But if this is its province, it is through

itself proved a true science. Who, then, would

deem it strange if this, through wl_ichall things

are true, should in itself and through itself be

true Truth ?

A. Nothing whatever hinders me now from

advancing to that opinion. 73

XII

22. R. Attend, then, to the few things

which remain.

A. If what you have to offer be in such wise

as I can comprehend, I will freely assent.

R. We do not fail to perceive that a thing

is said to be in something in two ways. In the

one way it can be disunited and be separate,

and in another place, as this wood in that

place, or as the sun in the east. In another

way a thing is so in its subject that separation

from it is impossible, as is the form and quality

in the wood, or as is light in the sun, or heat in

fire, or knowledge in the mind, and other things

similarly. Or do you see it to be otherwise ?

A. All this is most familiar to me, and since

early youth 74 ha_ been most studiously ob-

served and known. Wherefore if interrogated

coneerning it, I can assent without hesitation.

R. Do you, then, concede that what is in-

separable from its subject cannot survive if the

subject dies ?

A. That, too, I see, of necessity, follows.

For even when the subject abides, it is pos-

sible that what is in the subject may not abide,

as whoever diligently considers the matter

knows. Thus, the color of my body may,

either by reason of age or of illness, change,

v(hile the body is yet living. And this obtains,

not of all things equally, but of those things

which, while they are not themselves subjects,

but only in the subject, yet co-exist with it.

;For that wall which we see to be of a certain

color, need not, in order that it be a wall, be

of that color; for if, by some chance, it becomes

white or black or some other color, it, never-

theless, remains a wall and is so called. But

if fire lack heat, it will not truly be fire at all:

nor can we call snow snow, unless it be white.

XIII

£3. That, however, which you have asked

--whether that which is in the subject re-

mains, the subject having perished--who

could allow, or to whom would it seem to be ,

possible ? For it is monstrous and most alien to

the truth that that which, unless it were in the

subject, could not possibly exist, could still

exist even whefithe subject does not.

R. That, then, which we were seeking is

found.

A. What do you say ?

R. What you hear.

A. Is it, then, already established beyond

question that the soul is immortal ?

R. If what you have conceded is true, wholly

beyond question. Unless you may say that the

mind, even though it may die, is still the mind

A. Never, indeed, will I say that: but I do

say that if it can perish, by that very fact it is

not the mind. Nor will I retract this opinion

because great philosophers 7s have declared

that it cannot admit death within its essence,

but that, wherever it goes, it is still instinct with

life. For, although light illumines any place

into which it can enter, and, by reason of that

famous law ofcontraries, cannot admit darkness

into itself, yet, let it be extinguished and that

same place, the light having been put out, be-

comes dark. And so that which is antagonistic

to darkness, nor can in any way admit it into

its own essence, may yet, by dying, give place to

it, as it could have done, indeed, by departing.

And so, I fear lest it may be that death may

_11|ilO_Itt_IInf _ A_itt_ ,89

befall the body as darkness a place, by the soul,

like a light, sometime departing thence, but

sometimes being extinguished in the body. And

as now there can be no security against the

death of the body, yet that kind of death is to

be preferred by which the soul is led forth, un-

harmed, and conducted to a place (if such

place there be) where it cannot be put out.

But if this may not be, and if the soul is kindled,

like a flame, within the ever), essence of the

body, nor can elsewhere endure, then every

kind of death is extinction of the life of the

body and the soul alike. And that mode of life

should be chosen, so far as is permitted man

to choose, in which that which does live may

live in safety and tranquillity, though I know

not, if the soul dies, how that is possible. Oh,

very happy they who, whether by themselves,

or by whatever cause, are persuaded that death,

even though the soul perish, is not to be

feared! 76 But no reasoning, no books have, so

far, persuaded miserable me.

24. R. Do not lament! The human soul is

immortal.

)L How is it proven ?

R. By those things which you have already,

with very great caution, conceded.

90 _nlfl_l_anf _t. &m_,u_

A. I do not, indeed, recall anything which,

replying to you, I have granted with any

small degree of vigilance. But now I beg you

bring them all together to that one conclusion.

I do not, for the present, wish you to question

me, but let us see by what great circumlocution

we have come hither. For if you are about to

briefly enumerate the things which I have al-

ready conceded, to what end would my repe-

tition of them be desired ? Or why should you

wantonly inflict upon me the postponement of

joy, if, indeed, we have perchance accom-

plished anything of good ?

R. I see and I will do what you desire, but

pay most diligent attention.

A. Here I am, speak now: why torture me

to death ?

R. If everything which is in the subject

persists forever, the subject itself must, of'

necessity, persist forever. And every science

is in the mind as subject. It is, then, a neces-

sary fact that the mind continues forever, if

science continues forever. But science is

Truth, and, as Reason has convinced you at

the beginning of this book, Truth continues for-

ever. The mind, therefore, abides; nor can

it be called mortal. He alone, therefore, with-

@oliOS lrI _I. ,_il_ 91

out abs_dity denies that the mind is undying,

who proves any of the foregoing conclusions

to be untrue.

XIV

25. A. I would give myself up to joy forth-

with, except that two causes restrain me. For,

first, I am disturbed that we have made use

of so much circumlocution, following I know

not what chain of reasoning, when, as is now

shown, the whole matter at which we have

been laboring could have been so briefly dem-

onstrated. Wherefore it makes me anxious that

our discourse has gone so roundabout as if for

some insidious purpose. And, next, I do not

see how knowledge can be inbred in the mind's

essence, when so few are well versed in it, es-

pecially in that science of disputation: for,

surely, if any one may have become familiar

with it, he yet must have been, from infancy,

and a long time thereafter, ignorant of it.

Neither can we say that the minds of the un-

learned are not minds, or that "knowledge of

which they arc ignorant, is in them. For if

that be extremely absurd, it remains either

that Truth is not forever in the mind, or that

that science is not the Truth.

$6. R. You see that not in vain has our

reasoning pursued its way circuitously. For

we have been seeking to find out what Truth

is, though I see that we have not so far been

able to discover it in this particular forest of

facts whose by-ways have almost all been ex-

plored. But what are we to do ? Shall we give

up the undertaking and wait until, perchance,

some other books may fall into our hands

which shall satisfy this questioning? For I

think many have been written before our age

which we have not read; and, in order that we

may not express opinions of that concerning

which we are ignorant, we have within reach

writings concerning this subject, both in prose

and in verse, by men whose works are not

unknown to us, and whose talents we know well,

so that we cannot be without hope of finding

that for which we are wishing in their books, es-

pecially when he is here before our eyes in

whom we have recognized a revival in perfection

of that eloquence which we had mourned as

dead. 77 And will he who has, in his own wri-

tings, taught us the way of life, permit us

to remain in ignorance of the nature of

life

A. I do not think so indeed, and I hope

_ol|l_nqtliea Of _I. Al_fl_iIil_ 93

much from thence: but I grieve that we do

not succeed in disclosing to him, as we would

like, either our attitude toward himself or

toward wisdom. He, surely, would pity our

thirst, and would overflow to us far more oftcn

than at present is the case. For he, because

already convinced, is assured and at ease con-

cerning the immortality of the soul: nor does

he, perchance, know that there are those who

have too long experienced the wretchedness

of doubt, and whom, especially when they ask,

it were cruel not to succor3 s

And there is another who knows full well,

from long familiarity, our intense anxiety; but

he is so far away, and we are so situated, that

scarcely have we any opportunity of even so

much as sending him a letter. In transalpine

leisure he has, I believe, produced a poem by

which the fear of death, exorcised, flees away,

and that chill and stupor of the soul, unyielding

as the ice of ages, is cast out.79 But, in the

meantime, while we wait for these helps to

those things which are not in our power, is it

not most shameful that our time should be

thrown away, and the whole mind itself,

from this wavering judgment, hang in sus-

pense ?

27, Where is that God whom we have prayed

and implored, not for riches, not for pleasures,

not for high places and popular honors, but

for an open way for us seeking our own soul

and Himself ? Does He thus, then, desert us

or is He deserted by us ? 8o

R. Most foreign to Himself is it that He

should desert those who seek such things; and,

therefore, it should be foreign to us to desert

such a I,eader. Wherefore, if you please, let

us briefly review the reasoning t)y which it is

concluded that Truth continues forever, and

that the principle of disputation is Truth. For

you have declared that those propositions are not

firmly established, and that therefore we are not

secure in our conclusions. Or shall we, instead,

seek to know how it is that knowledge can dwell

in an untrained mind, which we cannot refuse

to call a mind, because untrained ? For you

seem to be troubled, so that it is needful to again

debate those things which you had conceded.

A. Nay, let us, first, discuss the former

matter and afterwards we shall see what there

may be of the latter. For thus, there will, I

think, be an end of controversy.

d 95

R. Let it be so then: but bring to it the ut-

most caution and concentration. For I ob-

serve that while you are listening, it comes about

that, from your great anxiety to reach a con-

clusion, you are looking for it to present itself

the next minute; and so you concede propo-

sitions which are put to you before they are

thoroughly examined.

A. Perhaps you arc right, and I will do

my best to overcome this infirmity. Begin,

then, your questions, lest we lose time over su-

perfluous matters.

_8. R. We have, as I recollect, concluded

that Truth cannot perish, for the reason that

should not only the whole world pass away but

even Truth itself, it would still be true that

the world and Truth had perished. But noth-

ing can be true without Truth. In no sense,

then, can Truth perish.

A. I recognize these conclusions, and shall

be very much astonished if they prove false.

R. Let us, then, look into the other matter.

A. Permit me, I beg, to reconsider yet a

little lest I again retreat in disgrace.

R. Shall it then not be true that Truth has

perished? If it be not true, then it has not

perished. If it be true, how can it be true, after

96 _O|![O_qtfita af _ Atu3tt_ht_

Truth has perished, when now there is no

Truth ?

A. Nothing now remains which I need

further reconsider. Proceed, therefore, to the

other matter. We will cer"tainly do all in our

power, so that learned and prudent men may

read and correct any inadvertence which may

be found; though I do not think that, either

now or at any future time, anything can be

said against this conclusion.

29. R. Is, then, Truth called Truth from

any other reason save that it is that by which

any true thing is true ?

A. From no other thing.

R. And is anDhing rightly called true ex-

cept because it is not false ?

A. This, surely, it were madness to doubt.

R. And is not the false that which approxi-

mates to the likeness of the true, yet is not that

which it resembles ?

A. Nothing else, indeed, do I see which can

so readily be called false. It is, nevertheless,

customary to call that false which is very far

from resembling the true.

R. Who denies that ? But even so it still

holds, by some slight imitation to the true.

A. How so ? For when it is said that Medea

_O[Jh_i_ of _L AUg_ 97

flew with winged serpents yoked, on what side

does that statement, forsooth, imitate the true,

seeing it is nothing ? 8, For it is impossible

that a thing which absolutely cannot be, can

be imitated.

R. You speak truly; but do you not ob-

serve that this which is absolutely nothing,

cannot even be said to be false ? For if false, it

is; and if it is not, it is not false.

A. May we not, then, say that this incon-

ceivably monstrous thing about Medea is false ?

R. Certainly not" for if false, how is it mon-

strous ?

A. I see, then, a miracle! And so, forsooth,

when I hear

" With mighty, winged _n_k_ hitched to her car"

I call it not false ?

R. You do, obviously. For that which you

declare false is.

A. What is, I beg ?

R. That sentence which is enunciated by

the verse.

A. And how, pray, does that possess any

imitation of the true ?

R. In its enunciation; which is such as it

would be if Medea had actually done that thing.

98 oli s of Augumine

The false sentence imitates the true sentence

in its structure. Which, if not eredited, in

that it imitates file true only in the manner of

the telling, is so false that it does not even de-

ceive. If it claims belief it must imitate cred-

ible truths.

A. I now perceive that there is a vast dif-

ference between things which we simply re-

peat, and things by which we predicate some-

thing. Wherefore I now agree. For this alone

--that we correctly call nothing false except

it possess some imitation of a true thing--

gave me pause. For who would not be justly

ridiculed if he called that stone yonder false

silver ? But if he affirmed that stone to be

silver, we say that he makes a false statement,

that is, that he gives utterance to a false judg-

ment. But we might, I think, without ab-

surdity, call lead or zinc false silver because it

imitates, as it were, that very thing: nor is our

judgment about it false, but the thing itself

about which the judgment is expressed.

XVI

30. R. You understand well. But now ob-

serve whether we can appropriately call silver

by the name of false lead.

_o|!!__._ie_ Of _L _gR_h_ 99

A. That does not please me.

R. Why so ?

A. I do not know. I only perceive that it is

violently against my will that it is so called.

R. May it be, perhaps, because, if so called,

silver being the superior, would seem to be

dishonored P Whereas it is a sort of honor to

lead to be called false siIver.

A. You have explained it exactly as I was

wishing to. And so it is, I believe, that those

who display themselves in the dress of women

are held in law to be disreputable and inca-

pacitated for witness-bearing, s2 and I know

not whether these are best called false women

or false men. We may, at any rate, call them

true actors and true outlaws. And if they sneak

around, we may, since no one save by dis_ace-

ful repute gets such a name, call them true

good-for-nothings.

R. There will be another opportunity for

the discussion ofthese things. For many things

which, by popular esteem, seem to be shame-

ful, can yet be shown to have their origin in an

honest and laudable purpose. For example,

it is a great question whether, for the purpose of

obtaining the liberties of one's country, he

who assumes the garb of a woman to the end

100 _lilemti_$ _ff _L _atBtmtitt_

of misleading the enemy, does not become all

the more a man thereby; or whether a wise

man, though persuaded that his life is, in

some way, essentiM to human affairs, should,

nevertheless, choose rather to die of cold

than to be wrapped in the garments of a

woman, no others being available. But, as we

have said, we can look into this matter later

on. For you must be aware how great a degree

of discrimination is needed to decide how far

such things may be carried without falling into

inexcusable improprieties. But it sumees for

the present, I think, that it now appears beyond

doubt that nothing can be false save by some

imitation of the true.

XVII

31. A. Pass on to what remains, for I am

well perstraded of this.

R. I ask,then, whether, with the exception

of those sciences by which we have been edu-

cated- among which the study of wisdom

should itself be counted --we can find anything

so true that, like the Achilles in the play, it

must not be false on the one side in order that

it may be true on the other ?

A. It seems to me that there are many. For

_olilaql_lt Of _ AllgUltli_ 101

we do not, by any science, judge that stone

yonder to be a stone, nor, in order that it may

be a true stone, does it imitate something, and

thus be called false. This one example being

cited, you see innumerable others following on,

which to those pondering the matter, occur

spontaneously.

R. I see, of course. But do not all these

seem to you to be comprised under the one

name of body ?

A. They would seem so if I held either that

the inane were nothing, or that the soul itself

ought to be included among corporeal things,

or if I might believe that even God Himself

is a body of some kind. All of these things, if

they are, I do not see to be true or false, by

imitation of anything else.

R. You are sending me a long way, but I

will use such dispatch as is possible. For as-

suredly what you call the inane is one thing and

Truth is another.

A. Far other. For what more inane than I,

if I deem it to be inane, and thus hunger so

greatly after the inane ? For what but Truth

do I desire to discover ?

R. And so you do concede, perchance, that

nothing is true unless made so by Truth ?

A. That, long ago, was shown to be the ease.

R. And do you doubt whether anything is

inane exeept the inane itself, or certainly,

whether a body is ?

A. I do not at all doubt it.

R. I judge then that you believe Truth to

be a sort of body. i

A. By no means.

R. What is there in a body ?

A. I do not know: it is not to the point, for

I think you know that the inane, if there be

inane, is more inane where no body is.

R. That is obvious]y a sound conclusion.

A. Why, then, do we delay ?

R. Does it seem to you that Truth has

caused the inane, or that anything can be true

where Truth is not ?

A. It does not.

R. The inane, then, cannot be true, for the

reason that the inane cannot be the offspring

of that which is not inane: and whatsoever is

without Truth is, manifestly, not true; and, in

short, what is called inane, is so called because

it is nothing: how, therefore, can that be true

which is nothing ? Or how can that which is

intrinsically nothing be at all ?

A. Come, let us leave the inane to be inane!

_olil_rlttiez of _t. Am3tmI_ 103

XVIII

3_. R. What have you to say to the rest ?

A. What rest ?

R. That which you see me so concerned

about. For God and the soul remain, which

two if true, are so because the Truth is in them;

but no man doubts concerning the immortality

of God. Also, the mind is believed to be im-

mortal, if Truth, which cannot perish, is really

proved to be in it. Wherefore let us now exam-

ine the last point -- whether the body may not

be truly true, that is, not that Truth is in it, but

a certain image, as it were, of Truth. For if

in the body, which is quite certain to admit

the perishable, we shall have found something

true in such sort as in the sciences, then Truth

will not be, necessarily, that science of dis-

putation by which all sciences are true. For

the body which does not seem to be formed by

the principle of disputation, is true. If, in fact,

the body is true, by reason of some sort of imi-

tation, and yet, on that account, also, not

absolutely true, there will still then be nothing,

perhaps, to prevent that principle of disputa-

tion from being taught to be the very Truth

itself.

lo4 oloq s of 9t.

& In the meantime, let us inquire concern-

ing the body. For until this point shall have

been settled, I see no end of the controversy.

R. How do you know what God wills ? At-

tend, therefore; for I judge that the body is

contained in some sort of form and appearance,

which it would not have if it were not a body:

for if it had reality, it would be the mind. Or

do you think otherwise ?

A. I agree in part; in part I hesitate. I

concede that, unless it held to some conforma-

tion, a body could not exist. But how, if it

held to a true conformation, it would be the

mind- that I do not quite see.

R. Do you, then, after all, recall nothing

of the exordium of our first book concerning

that geometry of yours ?

A. It is well that you have reminded me. I

recall it immediately and most willingly.

R. Are such figures as that science demon-

strates found in bodies ?

/L On the contrary, it is incredible how in-

ferior bodies are shown to be.

R. Which, then, of the two, do you consider

the true ?

A. Do not, I beg, consider that I need to be

even questioned on that point. For who so

nf 105

blind of mind that he must not perceive that

those things which geometry demonstrates

dwell in that very Truth, or rather that Truth

dwells in them? While embodied figures,

while they seem as if tending toward these,

possess I know not what imitation of Truth, and

are, therefore, false. For now I see the whole

matter which you were striving to make clear.

XIX

83. R. Why need we now inquire further

concerning the science of disputation ? For

whether the figures of geometry are in the

Truth, or the Truth is in them, no man doubts,

that they are contained in the soul, that is,

in the intelligence. And thus Truth is, of

necessity, forced to be in the mind. For if any

science whatever is inseparable from the mind

as subject, and if the Truth cannot die, why,

I ask, do we- by I know not what familiarity

with death--doubt concerning the everlast-

ing life of the mind ? Or do the line and rect-

angle and circle possess other features which

they imitate in order that they may be true P

A. By no means am I able to believe that,

unless a line may be perhaps something other

than length without breadth, or a circle some-

106 _O|!|n_._ie_ Of :_t. A_i_

thing other than a curved line everywhere

equally distant from the centre.

R. Why, then, do we hesitate? Or are

those things where Truth is not ?

A. May God avert such madness!

It. Or is knowledge not in the mind ?

A. Who would say that ?

R. But it may, perhaps, be that, though the

subject perish, that which is in the subject

may survive ?

A. _Vhcn shall I be persuaded of that ?

R. It remains, then, that Truth may perish.

A. How can that be ?

R. The soul, then, is immortal. Believe

now your own argument, believe the Truth!

She cries aloud that she dwells within you, that

she is immortal, that by no death whatsoever

of the body can her throne be filched away

from her. Turn away from your shadows!

Turn back to yourself! Nothing of you is

mortal, save your forgetfulness of your own

immortality.

h. I hear. I come to myself. I begin to

remember! But I beg of you hasten that which

remains, namely: how, in a mind untrained,

since we cannot call it mortal, may science and

Truth be understood to exist ?

_oli!elqtties of _t. Aug_itte 107

R. That question, if you would thoroughly

explore it, requires another volume. At the

same time, I perceive that those thil_gs which

we have investigated should be reviewed by

you, for, if no one of those which you have

conceded is in doubt, I consider that we have

accomplished much, and may apply ourselves

to what remains with no small degree of con-

fidenee.

34. A. It is as you say, and I willingly follow

your instructions; but this much at least let

me secure before you decree an end to this

volume, namely, that you briefly indicate that

which distinguishes between the true figure

which is contained in the intelligence, and that

which thought fashions for itself, which is

called in Greek phantasy or phantasm, s3

R. That which you demand can be seen

only by one wholly pure, and you are, as yet,

unprepared for this vision; nor do we toil

through these many circuits for aught else

save your disciplining, to the end that you may

become fit to see this difference. Nevertheless

I can briefly show you how it can be taught

that the difference is very great. Suppose

108 fiol_:utt_t _ fiL Attgtmtin_

you have forgotten something and that others,

wishing to recall it to your memory, say to you,

Is it this ? Is it that ? offering a variety of

things, as if similar. You do not, indeed,

perceive that which you desire to recall, and

yet do perceive that what they suggest is not

it. Now when this happens to you, does it

seem a genuine oblivion in every respect?

For that very discernment which warns you

against admitting what is false is, itself, a

certain part of remembering.

A. It seems to be so.

R. Those in this case do not, indeed, as yet,

perceive the Truth; but they cannot be misled

and deceived, and they know well enough what

they are seeking. Now if some one tells you that

you laughed a few days after you were born,

you would not venture to say it was false.

And if the teller of this tale was one in whom

confidence could be placed, you would give it

credence, though you could not remember it;

for that whole period is, for you, buried in the

most profound oblivion. Or do you think

otherwise ?

A. I altogether agree.

R. This, then, differs very much from that

other forgetting: but this is midway. For

_oIilmtlli_a _f _I. _lm_il_ 109

i]wrc is still another which is closer and more

akin to the recollection of reminiscent truth.

This is such as when, for example, seeing

something, we recognize it as having certainly

been seen before and affirm our recognition

of it; but where, or how, or under what cir-

cumstances, it came to our notice, we vex

ourselves to recall and rekindle. And if this

happens to us in the case of a man, we go so far

as to ask him when we have known him, and

when he has reminded us, the whole affair sud-

denly floods in upon the mind like light, and

no more effort is needed to cause us to remem-

ber it all. Or is this an unknown or vague

experience to you ?

A. What more frequent or familiar ?

85. It. So it is with those well-learned in the

liberal arts. Although they have excavated

things which were, without doubt, buried in

forgetfulness within themselves, s4 and have, in

a way, recovered them by learning, they are,

nevertheless, not satisfied; nor do they desist

from their efforts until the entire aspect of that

Truth, something of whose splendor already

glimmers forth in these arts, is gazed upon in

its unconcealed fulness. But from them divers

false colors and forms emerge and pour into

the mind as upon a mirror, and often mislead

those seeking and deceive them into thinking

they have found all they know or seek for.

Such imaginations are to be avoided with great

care, and recognized as fallacies, since they vary

as if in a revolving mirror of thought, while

that aspect of Truth abides one and immutable.

For so thought may depict to itself rectangles

of one and another magnitude, and set them as

if before her eyes; but that interior mind which

wills to behold the true, turns itself, if it can,

to that rather, according to which it judges all

.these to be rectangles.

A. And what if some one says to us that the

mind judges according to that wlfich it is accus-

tomed to see with the eyes ?

R. Whence, then, could it judge, if, indeed,

it be well-trained, that any true sphere what-

ever is touched by a true plane surface in but

one single point? Whence has any eye ever

seen or ever can see such a thing, when it can

be in no sort imagined by thought itself ? And

is not this proven when in imagination we

describe the minutest possible circle, and from

it lead lines to the centre ? For when we have

drawn two such so close that it would scarce

be possible to prick between them with a

f nl|!o_t_n of fit. A_ttt_ 111

needle's point and are already unable by any

possible imagination to draw others in thought

between them, so that they shall reach the

centre without any contact; yet reason pro-

claims that innumerable such can be drawn,

which, in these incredibly narrow spaces, can

come into no contact with each other except

at the centre: and so, that in the interval be-

tween each two, a circle may be inscribed!

When phantasy herself cannot be persuaded of

this, how much more will the eyes refuse to be!

For though by the eyes the phantasm is im-

posed upon tile thought, it is evidelit both that

it differs greatly from the Truth, and also that

while it is looked upon the Truth cannot be

seen.SS

36. These things will be spoken of with

more care and subtlety when we begin to discuss

the perceptive faculty which is a department

of research germane to any investigation of the

life of the soul; and it shall be analyzed and

argued according to our best ability. For I

believe you fear in no slight de_ee lest human

death, even though it do not kill the soul, may,

nevertheless, bring in its train oblivion of all

things, even--should any have been dis-

covered -- of Truth itself, s°

A. How much this evil is to be feared cannot

be adequately expressed! For what shall be

that eternal life, -- and may not death itself be

preferable, -- if the soul survives only so as we

see it to live in the new-born boy: I say nothing

of the life of the unborn, though I do not believe

that to be nothing!

R. Be of good courage! God, as we already

feel, will be with us as we seek after Him: and

has promised us something after this body most

blessed, most abounding in Truth, without any

deception!

A. May it be as we hope!

NOTES

NOTE 1. "Furthermore, this very summer, from

too great literary labor, my lungs began to be weak,

and with difficulty to draw deep breaths: showing

by the pains in my chest that they were affected, and

refusing too loud or prolonged speaking. This had,

at first, been a trial to me, for it compelled me almost

of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching, or,

if I could be cured and become strong again, at least

to leave it off for a while. But when the full desire

for leisure, that I might see that Thou art the Lord,

arose, and was confirmed in me, my God, Thou

knowest I even began to rejoice that I had this ex-

cuse ready,- and fllat not a feigned one- which

might somewhat temper the offence taken by those

who, for their son's good, wished me never to have

the freedom of sons. Full, therefore, with such joy,

I bore it till that period of time had passed- per-

haps it was some t_venty days- yet they were

bravely borne: for the cupidity which was wont to

sustain part of this weighty business had departed,

and I had remained overwhelmed, had not its place

been supplied by patience. Some of thy servants,

my brethren, may, perchance, say that I sinned

in this, in that, having once fully, and from my

heart, entered on Thy warfare, I permitted myself

to sit a single hour in the seat of falsehood. I will not

contend. But hast not Thou, O most merciful

Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my

others, so horrible and deadly, in the holy water ?"

(Con[essions, Book IX. 4.)

Nor_ 2. " It has been said of Fiesole that he

prayed his pictures onto the wails. It can be main-

rained of Augustine that his most profound thoughts

regarding the first and the last things arose out of

prayers; for all these matters were contained for

him in God. If the same can be said of innumerable

mystics down to the private communities of Ma-

dame de Guyon and Tersteegen, it is true of them

because they were Augustine's disciples. But more

than any one else he possessed the faculty of com-

binlng speculation about God with a contemplation

of mind and soul which was not content with a few

traditional categories, but analyzed the states of feel-

ing and the contents of consciousness. Every ad-

vance in this analysis became for him at the same

time an advance in the knowledge of God, and

_iee versa; concentration of his whole being in

prayer led him to the most abstraet observation, and

this, in turn, changed to prayer." (Hamaek, H/s-

tory o/Dogma, p. 106.)

Nor_. 3. There might be two constructions of

this petition for freedom, founded, of course, on

what is claimed to be Augustine's notion of it.

Was it the freedom with which he had become

familiar, in his long alfiliation with Neoplatonism,

which is the climax of mystic vision, his concep-

tion of which is seen in the famous experience with

his mother at the Ostia window ? I do not so con-

eeive it. The freedom Augustine prays for is free-

dom from any other desire than the desire "to

know God and the soul." Itis prayer is " Set me

N_B 115

free [rorrt all other desires." This was his notion of

freedom, as any one following the narrative of his

experience up to and beyond his conversion must

perceive. Harnack says: " But he only entered

his proper element when he was inquiring into the

practical side of spiritual life. The popular con-

ception, beyond which even philosophers had not

advanced far, was that man was a rational being

who was hampered by sensuousness, but possessed

a free will capable at every moment of choosing the

good- a very external, dualistic view. Augustine

observed the actual man. He found that the typical

characteristic of the life of the soul consisted in the

effort to obtain pleasure (eupido, amor); from this

type no one could depart .... All impulses were

only evolutions of this typical characteristic; some-

times they partook more of the form of passive

impression, sometimes they were more of an active

nature, and they were quite as true o/_hc spiritual

as o] the sensuous li]e. According to Augustine, the

will is most closely connected with this life of im-

pulse, so that impulses can, indeed, be conceived as

contents of the will, yet it is to be distinguished from

them. For the will is not bound to the nexus of

nature: it is a force existing above sensuous nature.

It is free, in so far as it possesses formally the capac-

ity of following or resisting tile various inclinations;

but concretely it is never free; that is, never free

choice (liberum arbitriura), but is always conditioned

by the chain of existing inclinations, which form its

motives and determine it. The the_)retical freedom

of choice, therefore, only becomes actual freedom

when desire (cup/ditas, arrtor) of good has become

the ruling motive of the will; in other words,/t/s ordy

true o] a good will that it is tree; freedom of will and

116 _

moral goodness coincide. But it follows just from

this that the will truly free possesses its liberty not

in caprice, but in being bound to the motive which

impels to goodness (" beata necessitas boni "). This

bondage is freedom, because it delivers the will from

the rule of the impulses (to lower forms of good)

and realizes the destiny and de_ign o] man to possess

himsel] o/true being and li]e. In bondage to goodness

the higher appetite (appetitus), the genuine impulse

of self-preservation, realizes itself, while by satis-

faction "in dissipation " it brings man " bit by

bit to ruin." (History o] Dogma, Vol. V, pp. 113-

1is.)

Kant's famous dictum that there is nothing good

but the good will, was first said by Augustine, who

added that the good will alone is free.

A later paraphrase is Ward's: " Where rational

necessity is supreme, freedom is possible and things

must be intelligible. No sane man resents as a con-

straint normal laws of thought, normal laws of

conduct, normal laws of taste, or demands that

truth, goodness or beauty should be other than

they are. Real freedom consists in conformity with

what ought to be." (Naturalism and Agnosticism,

p. 381.)

NOTE 4. Desjardins maintains concerning Au-

gustine " that no one's teaching as to creation has

shown more clearness, boldness and vigor, -- avoid-

ing the perils of dualism on the one hand and athe-

ism on the other." We read, for example (Con-

/essions, pp. 394, 395): "Behold, the heaven and

earth are: they proclaim that they were made, for

they are changed and varied. Whereas whatsoever

hath not been made, and yet hath being, hath nothing

Nuh, B 117

in it which there was not before; this is what it is

to be changed and varied. They also proclaim that

they made not themselves; ' therefore we are, because

we have been made; we were not, therefore, before

we were, so that we could have made ourselves.'

And the voice of those that speak is in itself an evi-

dence. Thou, therefore, Lord, didst make these

things .... But how didst Thou make them?

. . . From whence couldst Thou have what Thou

hadst not made, whereof to make anything? For

what is, save because Thou art ? Therefore Thou

didst speak and they were made, and in Thy Word

Thou mad'st these things."

" True reason persuaded me that I ought to re-

move from it all remnants of any form whatever,

if I wished to conceive matter wholly without form;

and I could not. For sooner could I imagine that that

which should be deprived of all form was not at all,

than conceive anything between form and nothing

--neither formed, nor nothing, formless, nearly

nothing. And my mind hence ceased to question

my spirit, filled (as it was) with the images of formed

bodies, and changing and varying them according

to its will; and I applied myself to the bodies them-

selves, and looked more deeply into their mutability,

by which they cease to be what they had been,

and begin to be what they were not: and this same

transit from form unto form, I have looked upon

to be through some formless condition, not through

a very nothing: but I desired to know, not to guess.

And if my voice and my pen should confess the

whole unto Thee, whatsoever knots Thou hast

untied for me concerning this question, who of my

readerswould endure to take in the whole? Not

yet, therefore,shallmy heartcease to give Thee

118 NgI_g

honor, and a song of praise, for those things whieh

it is not able to express. For the mutability of

mutable things is itself capable of all those forms

into which mutable things are changed. And this

mutability', what is it ? Is it soul ? Is it body ? Is

it the outer appearance of soul or body ? Could it

be said 'Notking were something' and 'That

which is, is not,' I would say that this were it; and

yet in some manner was it already, since it could

receive these _isible and compound shapes. And

whence and in what manner was this, unless from

Thee, from whom are all things, in so far as they

are? . . . Thou wast, and there was naught else

from which Thou didst ereate heaven and earth."

(Con]essioT_s, pp. 32.°, 323.)

If some substitutions for " Creator," " forms,"

"almost nothing," " transit," " God," "mutabil-

ity," should be made hy such terms as twentieth-

eentury science uses, such as "evolution," " con-

servation of energy," "mind stuff," "foree,"

"ether " and " reality," the above could be fairly

well translated into its formulm.

Fairbairn says: "And when he [J. S. Mill] pro-

ceeded to define matter as 'the permanent pos-

sibility of sensation' . . . how, without the sentient

consciousness, could we have matter P And when

later he resolved mind into ' a permanent possibility

of feeling,' he carefully forgot that he had assumed

mind, its expectancy and associative laws, in order

that he might explain matter as 'the permanent

possibility of sensation.' . . . He would have been

more consistent had he, with Berkeley, confessed

spirit to be the one solid and enduring entity, and

matter a mere idea. This was what he meant, but

what he could not say without being forced to the

_otea 119

theistic conclusion of his great predecessor ....

But science was suddenly seized with a speculative

passion, begotten of two great doctrines--the

conservation of energ'y,and evolution; . . . ttfinkers

like Mr. Lewes forgot their paralyzed nescience

and began to lay the 'foundations of a creed.'

Men of science became adventurous world-builders;

awed us by natural histories of creation, over-awed

us by visions of our long descent, and the easy ele-

gance with which they could leap the boundary

which di_'ided the organic from the inorganic king-

dom, and find in matter 'the promise and the po-

tency of every form and quality of life.' Goethe's

words were gratefully recalled: ' Matter can never

exrst and be operative without spirit, nor spirit with-

out matter.' So were Schleicher's: ' There is neither

matter nor spirit in the customary sense, but only

one thing which is at the same time both.'. Then we

had the despairing but descriptive phrase of the

late Professor Clifford, 'mind stuff,' and Professor

Bain's 'One substance with two sets of proper-

ties; two sides, the physical and the mental; a

double-faced unity.'

" But what is this save carrying back into the

beginning the dualism of the living consciousness ?

It did not define or describe the primordial stuff

which constituted and created the world, but only

expressed a distinction which came into being

with the conscious self.... It is significant that

modern physics, perhaps the most audacious in

speculation of all the sciences, nor chemistry, pos-

sibly the most skilled in the secrets of Nature, has ad-

vtmced us here a single step beyond Democritus;

• . . to matter, as science must conceive it, causa-

tion of life, not to speak of mind, is a sheer impos-

120 Ntrtrn

sibility.... As Tyndall once said: ' A man can as

little prove any causal relation between the two as

he can lift himself by his own waistband .... We

cannot conceive either nature or its creative work

otherwise than through mind.... To affirm the

transcendence of thought is to affirm the priority

of spirit, for spirit is but thought made concrete --

translated, as it were, into a personal and creative

energy.... And how can we better express this

thought in its highest concrete form than by the

ancient name, God ?'" (The Philosophy o] Chris-

tian Religion, p. 51, et seq.) And Ward: " How far

below us, how far aboCe, the historical extends, we

cannot tell. But above it there can be only God as

the li_dng unity of all, and below it no longer things,

but only the connecting, conserving acts of the

One Supreme." (Naturalism attd Agnosticism, H,

p. 280.)

On. the "whole, the latest of latter day speculators

seem to have less difficulty than Augustine, in con-

ceiving of a creation of matter. Sir Oliver Lodge

says: " It is quite easy to conceive them [the

atoms] broken up, the identity of the electron lost,

its substance resolved into the original ether, with-

out parts or individual properties. If this happened

within our ken, we should have to confess that the

propertfes of matter were gone, and that hence any-

thing that could by any stretch of language be

called ' matter' was destroyed, since no identifying

property remained. The discovery of such an event

may lie in the science of the future . . . in other

words, the destruction and the creation of matter are

well within the range of scientific conception, and

may be within the realm of experimental possi-

ility." (Ld/e and Matter, p. 28.)

N._rl_ 1_1

An excellent discussion of Augustine's theory of

creation, as related to that of the Neoplatonic doe-

trine, may be found in Chapter IV of Saint Augustin

et La NeoplaWnisme, by L. Grandgeorge, Paris,

1896.

NOT_ 5. " Augustine never tires of realizing the

beauty (pulehrum) and fitness (aptum) of creation,

of regarding the mfiverse as an ordered work of

art, in which tile gradations are as admirable as the

contrasts. The individual and evil are lost to _iew

in the notion of beauty; nay, God himself is the

eternal, the old and new, file only beauty." (History

o] Dogma, V, p. 114.)

NOT_ 6. "/ks yet I knew not that evil was naught

but a privation of good, until in tile end it ceases

altogether to be." (Con]esslon.s, p. 46.)

" No nature at all is evil, and this is a name for

nothing but the want of good." (City o] God, I, p.

46e.)

NOTE 7. " If we ask why He made it, 'it was

good.' Neither is there any author more excellent

than God, nor any skill more efficacious than the

word of God, nor any cause better than that good

might be created by the good God. This also

Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason

for the creation of the world, that good works might

be made by a good God ....

"This cause, however, of a good creation, namely,

the goodness of God .... has not been recognized

by some heretics, because there are, forsooth, many

things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, etc., which

do not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail

mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just

p,mi_hment. They do not consider how admirable

these things are in their own places, how excellent in

their own natures, how beautifully adjusted to the

rest of creation, and how much grace they contribute

to the universe by their own contributions as to a

commonwealth; and how serviceable they are

even to ourselves, if we use them with a knowledge

of their fit adaptations .... And thus DL'ine

Providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate

things, but to investigate their utility with care;

and, where our mental capacity or infirmity is at

fault, to believe that there is a utility, though hidden,

,as we have experienced that there were other things

which we all but failed to discover." (City of God,

I, pp. 461, 46¢.)

NOTE 8. " And to Thee is there nothing at all

e_Sl, and not only to Thee, but to Thy whole crea-

tion; because there is nothing without which can

break in and mar that order which Thou hast ap-

pointed it. But in the parts thereof, some things,

because they harmonize not with others, are consid-

ered evil: whereas those very things harmonize with

others, and are good, and in themselves are good.

And all these things which do not harmonize

together harmonize with the inferior part which

we call earth, ha_4ng its own cloudy and windy

sky concordant to it. Far be it from me, then,

to say 'These things should not be.' For should

I see nothing but these, I should indeed de-

sire better; but yet, if only for these, ought I

to praise Thee; . . . I did not now desire better

things, because I was thinking of all; and with a

better judgment I reflected that the things above

_a 123

were better than those below, but that all were better

than those above alone. There is no wholeness in

them whom aught of thy creation displeaseth; no

more than there was in me, when many things which

Thou madest displeased me." (Confessions, pp.

160, 161.)

NOTE 9. Augustine says in criticism of this

passage: " One can reply that there are men who are

not pure and yet know many things, for I have not

taken pains here to define the True, which pure

souls alone know, and also what I mean by know-

ing." (Rctractatior_, Book I, chap. 4.)

NOTE 10. " Not this common light, which all

flesh may look upon, nor, as 4t were, a greater one

of the same kind, as though the brightness of this

should be much more resplendent, and with its

greatness fill up all things. Not like this was that

Light, but different, yea, very different from all

these .... He who knows the Truth knows that

Light; and he that knows it knowcth Eternity.

Love knoweth it. O Eternal Truth, and true Love

and loved Eternity! " (Confessior_, pp. 157, 158.)

NOTE 11. " And I _4ewed the other things below

Thee, and perceived that they neither altogether

are, nor altogether are not. They are, indeed, be-

cause they are from Thee; but are not, because they

are not what Thou art. For tlmt truly is which

remains immutably. It is good, then, for me to

cleave unto God, for if I remain not in Him, neither

shall I in myself; but He, remaining in Himself,

reneweth all things." (Con]essions, p. 159.)

Constantly Augustine affirms that God alone is

true Being, or to use the modern word of theologians,

philosophers and scientists alike, Reality. It is

indeed difficult to distinguish this doctrine of God,

never enunciated, however, in the form of system-

atic dogma, but rather as a saturation of his thought

and feeling, -- personal sine qua non -- from actual

Monism. In its last analysis it logically abstracts

every creature from the realm of reality, to leave

God All in All.

NOTE 10. "Now it was expedient that man

should be at first so created, as to have it in his

power both to will what was right and to will what

was wrong; not without reward if he willed the

former, and not without punishment if he willed

the latter." (Enchiridion, p. 249.)

" For the will is in them [impulses of the passional

nature] all; yea, none of them is anything else than

will. For what are desire and joy but a volition

of consent to the things we wish ? And what are

fear and sadness but a volition of aversion from the

things which we do not wish ? But when consent

takes the form of seeking to possess the things we

wish this is called desire; and when consent takes

the form of enjoying the things we wish this is called

joy. In like manner, when we turn with aversion

from that which we do not wish to happen, this

volition is termed fear; and when we turn away

from that which has happened against our will,

this act of will is called sorrow." (City o] God, II, p.

O.)

It is interesting to notice the agreement of

present-day psychology of the will, with this

of Augustine: Mr. James carries it into the

sphere of opinion, and emmeiates a definite (?)

_0_ 1_5

dogma of W///to Believe, which might be a para-

phrase of Augustine's volition of consent to the

things we wish.

NOTE 13. " So God created man in His own

image, in the image of God created He him." (Gene-

sis, 1: _7.)

"But we must find in the soul of man, i. e. the

rational or intellectual soul, that image of the Creator

which is immortally implanted in its immortality.

For as the immortality itself of the soul is spoken

with a qualification; since the soul too has its

proper death, when it lacks a blessed life, _hi(.h

is to be called the true life of the soul; but it is

therefore called immortal, because it never ceases

to live with some life or other, even when it is most

miserable;- so, although reason or intellect is at

one time torpid in it, at another appears small, and

at another great, yet the human soul is never any-

thing save rational or intellectual; and hence, if it

is made after the image of God in respect to this,

that it is able to use reason and intellect in order to

understand and behold God, then from the moment

when that nature so marvellous and so great began

to be, whether this image be so worn out as to be

almost none at all, or whether it be obscure and

defaced, or bright and beautiful, certainly it always

is." (Trinity, p. 350.)

NOTE 14. Villemain quotes Augustine's words:

" GOd is not only the Creator, but the Country of

the soul," and adds: '"Without doubt this in-

spired the sublime expression of Malebranehe, ' God

is the place of spirits, as space is the place of

bodies.' "

126 _Nnle_

NOTZ 15. " But where, during all those years, and

out of what deep and secret retreat was my free will

summoned forth in a moment, whereby I gave my

neck to Thy ' easy yoke ' and my shoulders to Thy

'light burden,' O Christ Jesus, my strength and

my Redeemer ? " (Con]essions, pp. 206, 207.)

Note 16. " But behold, Thou wert close behind

thy fugitives, at once God of vengeance and Foun-

tain of mercies, who turnest us to Thyself by won-

drous means." (Con]essio_, p. 60.)

" Oh, let truth, the light of my heart, not my

own darkness, speak unto me! I have descended

to that, and am darkened. But thence, even thence,

did I love Thee. I went astray, and remembered

Thee. I heard Thy voice behind me, bidding

me return, and scarcely did I hear it for tile

tumults of the unquiet ones. And now, behold,

I return burning and pnnfing after Thy fountain.

Let no one prohibit me! of this _ill I drink, and so

have life. Let me not be my own life! from myself

have I badly lived- death was I unto myself: in

Thee do I revive.'" (Conlessions, p. 325.)

Nor_ 17. " A fervent prayer precedes this medi-

tation and disposes the soul to a tranquil enthusiasm

of which it has need in order to thoroughly see and

reeoguize itself. There is here, in fact, a sort of

ecstasy of reflection which in nothing resembles the

violent emotion experienced in the garden at Milan

at the crisis of repentance and faith. His resolution

is taken; effort is no longer necessary., and the in-

vocation, although ardent, breathes of calm. It is

the movement of a soul committed to no backward

step. Reason, herself, has told Augustine to pray

NoI_ 1_7

to the God of truth, the God of wisdom, the Father

of beatitude, of the good, of the beautiful, of in-

telligible Light. He prays with confidence, with

serenity.., and under the auspices of this pious

initiation, he seeks in fact knowledge, in taking up

thks dialogue with Reason." (Villemain, Tableau

de l'l_loquence Chrdtiennc au IV e Si_cle, p. 40_.)

NOTE 18. " In these words Augustine has briefly

formulated the aim of his spiritual life. That was the

truth for which ' the marrow of his soul sighed.' All

truth was contained for him in tile perception of

God. After a brief period of sore doubting, he was

firm as a rock in the conviction that there was a

God, and that he was the supreme good (suntmu_lt

bonura); but who he was, and how he was to be

found were to him the great questions. Hc was first

snatched from the night of uncertainty by Neo-

platonism; the Manichean notion of God had proved

itself to be false, since its God was not absolute and

omnipotent .... He was saved from scepticism

by perceiving that even if the whole of eternal ex-

perlence was subject to doubt, the facts of the inner

life remained and demanded art explanation leading

to certainty. There is no e_41, but we are afraid,

and this fear is certainly an evil. There is no visible

object of faith, but we see faith in us. Thus _ in

his theor_j ol perception- God and the sotrl entered

into the closest union, and this union confirmed him

in his belief in thcir metaphysical connection.

Henceforth the investigation of the life of the soul

was to lfim a theological necessity. No examination

seemed to him to be indifferent: he sought to obtain

divine knowledge from every quarter." (History o]

Dogma, V, p. 110, et seq.)

128 Noles

NOTE 19. Augustine writes to his dear friend

Nebridius: "Although you know my mind well,

you are perhaps not aware how much I long to enjoy

your soeiety. This great blessing, however, God

will some day bestow on me. I have read your letter,

so genuine in its utterances, in which you complain

of your being in solitude, and., as it were, forsaken

by your friends, in whose society you found tile

sweetest charm of life. But what else can I suggest

to you than that which I am persuaded is already

your exercise ? Commune with your own soul, and

raise it up, as far as you are able, unto God. For

in Him you hold us also by a firmer bond, not by

means of bodily images which we must meanwhile

be eontent to use in remembering each other, but

by means of that faculty of thought through which

we realize file fact of our separation from each

other." (Letters, I, p. frO.)

Augustine's love of friends and friendship is al-

ways conspicuous; his lament for the friend of his

youth recalls Milton's grief for his friend lost at

sea (see Lyeidas), but a comparison is impossible.

"At this sorrow my heart was utterly darkened, and

whatever I looked upon was death. My native

country was a torture to me, and my father's house

a wondrous unhappiness; and whatsoever I had

participated in with him, wanting him, turned into

a frightful torture. Mine eyes sought him every-

where, but he was not granted them; and I hated

all places because he was not in them; nor could

they now say to me ' Behold he is coming,' as they

did when he was alive and absent .... I wa.o

astonished that other mortals lived, since he whom

I loved, as if he would never die, was dead; and

I wondered still more that I, who was to him a

N_n 129

second self, could 1Le when he was dead. Well

did one say of his friend 'Thou half of my soul,'

for I felt that my soul and his soul were but one

soul in two bodies; and consequently my life was a

horror to me, because I would not live in half.

And therefore, perchance, was I afraid to die, lest

he should die wholly whom I had so greatly loved."

(Con]e._.,dzns, pp. 6°_-65.)

Augustine tells us what "is loved in friends: "

" to discourse and jest with them; to indulge in an

interchange of kindnesses; to read together pleasant

books; together to trifle, and together to be earnest;

to differ, at times, without ill-humour, as a man

would do with his own self; and even by the infre-

quency of these differences to give zest to our more

frequent consentings; sometimes teaching, some-

times being taught; longing for the absent with

impatience, and welcoming the coming with joy.

These and similar expressions, emanating from the

hearts of those who loved and were beloved in re-

turn, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and

a thousand pleasing movements, were so much fuel

to melt our souls together, and out of many to make

but one." (Confessionz, p. 67.)

NOTE 20. " Alypius was born in the same town as

myself, his parents being of the highest rank there,

but he being younger than I. For he had studied

under me, first when I taught in our town, and

afterwards at Carthage, and esteemed me highly,

because I appeared to him good and learned; and

I esteemed him for his innate love of virtue, which,

in one of no great age, was sufficiently eminent.

(Confess/ans,p. 1_1.)

Alypius was converted and baptized when Au-

130 Notes

gustine was and continued his companion for some

time after; was Bishop of Thagaste, their common

birthplace, when Augustine was Bishop of Hippo.

Augustine calls him the " brother of his heart " and

undertook to write his life. Bishop to bishop, he

addresses him: "My Lord Alypius most blessed,

my brother and colleague, beloved and longed for

with sincere veneration." (Letters, I, p. 346.)

NOTE 21. " Philosophers have been far too apt

to jump to the conclusion that because energy is

constant, therefore no guidance is possible, so that

all psychological or other interference is precluded.

Physicists, however, know better .... It has

gradually dawned upon me that the reason why

philosophers who are well acquainted with physical

or dynamical science are apt to fall into the error

of supposing that mental and vital interference

with the material world is impossible . . . is because

all such interference is naturally and necessarily

excluded from scientific methods and treatises ....

determinateness is not part of the essence of dynami-

cal doctrine; it is arrived at by the tacit assumption

that no undynamical or hyper-dynamieal agencies

exist; in short, by that process of abstraction which

is invariably necessary for simplicity, and indeed

for possibility, of methodical human treatment."

(Lodge, Li]e and Matter, pp. 20, 140.)

" In a word, concisely to express the scope of that

regularity which science postulates, we must say,

as Kant has done, not only In raundo non datur ca._us,

but also, In mu_uto non datur ]atum. Nothing hap-

pens by blind chance, and also nothing happens by

blind necessity." (Ward, Naturalism and Affnos-

t/c/sin, Vol. II, p. 252.)

N_B 131

NOTE _. At the time this was written, Augustine

was yet a catechumen. He does not speak, for he

does not think, as a Catholic theologian. The moral

crisis was past in his conversion; he was '" cleaving

unto God." But the mental crisis had no _Solent

end; his intellectual habits and holdings of that

period changed slowly, were indeed, never wholly

lost. He had acquired the " good will " once for

all, but had only entered upon the philosophic revo-

lution, which was the Christian evolution, the one

an agony of death, the other an agony of birth.

Platonic ideas haunted him, even while he sifted

them. Later he wrote the story of his acquaintance

with Plato and his school in clear terms, but not

wholly those of an ecclesiastic (Con]essions, p. 152

et seq.). Later still, as Bishop and Defender of the

Faith, he writes again of Plato. (City o] God, I,

p. 306 _ seq.)

He proclaims his reverence for his first great

master: " It is evident that none come nearer to

us than the Platonists." " The theology of St.

Augustine, like his philosophy, is only the expression

of the life and struggles of his soul. He has been

a Platonist, because it is in Plato that he has found

the light; he has become Christian, because it is in

Christ that he has found strength. The first has

revealed to him the invisible world; the second has

torn him away from the world of the senses. With-

out Plato, he would have remained immersed in

Manichean materialism; without Christ he would

not have been rescued from the bondage of the

flesh." (Paul Janet, Introduction to Con]es-

Prit.)

Plotinus, too, was much revered by Augustine.

(See Saint Augustin et La Neoplatonisme, by L.

135 _fl_

Grandgeorge,Paris,1896.) Nebricliuswritesto Au-

gustine(Letters, I, p. 11): '"Your letters I have great

pleasure in keeping as carefully as my own eyes.

For they are great, not indeed in length, but in the

greatness of ttle subjects discussed in them, and in

the great ability with which the truth in regard to

these subjects is demonstrated. They shall bring to

my ear the voice of Christ, and the teaching of

Plato and of Plotinus."

NOTE 23. "The Soliloquies offer numerous

allusions to Academic scepticism which St. Augus-

tine had hitherto professed. Having been for long

seduced by this doctrine, he considered it as the

first enemy which his new born faith ought to

overcome. Cicero, the most important represent-

ative of this school, exposes concisely its doc-

trines in Book lI of his Treatise Concerning

Duty, Chapter 2. 'It is pretended that there

are things certain, and things uncertain: we

are of another opinion, and say that there are

things probable and things improbable.' " (Solilo-

quiz.s, Pclissier's translation, Note 13.)

NOTE 24. Augustine says of his first great work,

Contra Academicos, written at Casciacum: " What-

ever be the value of those treatises what I most re-

joice in is, not that I have vanquished the Acade-

micians, as you express it (using the language rather

of friendly partiality than of truth), but that I have

broken and cast away from me the odious bonds by

which I was kept back from the nourishing breasts

of philosophy, through despair ,of attaining that

truth which is the food of the soul. ' (Le_ers, I, p. 3.)

N_B 133

NOTE ._5. Apropos of " happiness," I allow my-

self to insert this delightful portrait:

"You have almost made me believe, not indeed,

that I am happy, --for that is the heritage of the

wise alone, I but that I am at least in a sense happy:

as we apply the designation man to beings who de-

serve the name only in a sense if compared with

Plato's ideal man, or speak of things which we see

as round or square, although they differ widely

from the perfect figure which is discerned by the

mind of a few. I read your letter beside my lamp

after supper; immediately after which I lay down,

but not at once to sleep; for on my bed I meditated

long and talked thus with myself--Augustine

addressing and answering Augustine:

"'Is it not true as Nebridins affirms, that I am

happy ?'

"' Absolutely true it cannot be, for that I am still

far from _Sse, he himself would not deny.'

" ' But may not a happy life be the lot even of

those who are not wise ? '

" ' That is scarcely possible; because, in that case,

lack of wisdom would be a small misfortune, and

not, as it actually is, the one and only source of un-

happiness.'

"' How, then, did Nebridius come to esteem me

happy ? Was it that, after reading these litre books

of mine, he ventured to pronounce me wise ?'

"' Surely the vehemence of joy could not make

him so rash, especially seeing that he is a man to

whose judgment I well know so much weight is to be

attached. I have it now; he wrote what he thought

would be most gratifying to me, because he had

been gratified by what I had written in those treat-

ises; and he wrote in a joyful mood, without ac-

134 N_s

eurately weighing the sentiments entrusted to his

joyous pen.'

"' What, then, would he have said if he had read

my Soliloquies?'

" ' He would have rejoiced with much more exulta-

tation, and yet could find no loftier name to bestow

on me than this which he has already given in calling

me happy. All at once, then, he has lavished on me

the highest possible name, and has not reserved

a single word to add to my praises, if at any time

he were made by me more joyful than he is now.

See what joy does) . . .

" ' Surely there is in this something which might

reward further investigation; but meanwhile, I must

sleep. Moreover, if I seem to Nebridius to be happy,

it is not because I seek, but because perchance I

have found something. What then is that some-

thing? Is it that chain of reasoning which I am

wont so to caress as if it were my sole treasure, and

in which perhaps I take too much delight? . . .

Perhaps it is on account of reasonings such as these

that I have been judged by my own Nebridius to be,

if not absolutely happy, at least in a sense happy.

Let me also judge myself to be happy; for what do

I lose thereby, or why should I grudge to think

well of my own estate ?' Thus I talked with myself,

then pra_'ed according to my custom and fell asleep."

(Letters.)

NOTE_6. " Thus Augustine, in abandoning his

soul to all the fervor of religious faith, retained

his enthusiasm for knowledge: he is uplifted to God

by philosophic contemplation, as by piety; by

reasoning, as by love.... Raised to virtue, not by

faith alone, but by reasoning as well, behold here the

N_V_B 135

tabor of a well-instructed soul! The intellect dis-

ciplined by study focuses to the knowledge of God

all human sciences as so many routes, which from

different points of the horizon lead toward the same

temple. The soul dominated by virtue, wtfich gives

itself to calm and harmony, will have a recompense,

of which Augustine cannot speak without a ravish-

ing enthusiasm. ' It will dare to see God,' he ex-

claims, ' and the source whence emanates the true,

the Father Himself of Truth. Great God! what

gazes _ill be raised toward Thee! How pure, how

noble will they be! what of strength, of constancy,

of serenity, of beatitude, will they have! How

can we think of, how speak of them ? We have for

them only every-day words, profaned by miserable

use.' " (Tableau de l'Eloquence ChT_tienne au IV e

S/_c/e, pp. 399, 400.)

NOTE _7. "I asked the earth; and it answered

' I am not He,' and whatsoever are therein made file

same confession. I asked the sea and file deeps, and

the creeping things that lived, and they replied

' We are not thy God, _ek higher than we.' I asked

the breezy air, and the universal air with its in-

habitants answered 'Anaximenes was deceived,

I am not God.' I asked the heavens, the sun, moon

and stars: 'Neither,' say they, 'are we the God

whom thou seekest.' And I answered unto all these

things which stand about the door of my flesh

' Ye have told me concerning my God. That ye are

not He; tell me something about Him,' and with a

loud voice they exclaimed 'He made us.' My

questioning was my observin_ of them; and their

beauty was their reply. And I directed my thoughts

to myself and said 'Who art thou ?' And I an-

136 _B

swered ' A man.' And lo! in me there appear both

body and soul, the one without, the other within.

By which of these should I seek my God, whom I

bad sought through the body from earth to heaven,

as far as I was able to send messengers -- the beams

of mine eyes ? But the better part is that which

is inner: for to it, as both president and judge, did all

these my corporeal messengers render the answers

of heaven and earth and all things therein, who

said 'We are not God, but he made us.' These

things was my inner man cognizant of by the

ministry of the outer: I, the inner man, knew all

this- I, the soul, through the senses of my body.

• . . By my soul itself will I mount up unto Him."

(Confessions, pp. 243-244.)

"Thcnce, again, I passed on to the reasoning

faculty, unto which whatever is received from the

senses of the body, is referred to be judged, which

J also, finding itself to be variable in me, raised itself

up to its own intelligence, and from habit drew

away my thoughts, withdrawing itself from the

crowds of contradictory phantasms; that so it might

find out that light by which it was besprinkled."

(Con]es_ions, pp. 163, 164.)

NOTE 28. " That light which illumines the soul,

he tells us in his De Gen. ad Lit. (Book XII, p. 31) is,

GodHimself, from whom all light cometh; and though

created in His image and likeness, when it tries to

discover Him, palpitat infirmltate et minus'valet ....

In his De Cir. Del (X, 2), he quotes from

Plotinus in regard to the Platonic doctrine as to

enlightenment from on high. He says: " Plotinus,

commenting on Plato, repeatedly and strongly as-

serts that not even the soul, which they believe to

Ntrtr_ 137

be the soul of the world, derives its blessedness from

any other source than we do, viz.: from that Light

which is distinct from it and created it, and by

whose intelligible illumination it enjoys light in

things intelligible, lie also compares those spiritual

things to the vast and conspicuous heavenly bodies,

as if God were the sun, and the soul the moon;

for they suppose that the moon derives its light

from the sun. That great Platonist, therefore, says

that the rational soul, or rather the intellectual soul,

--in which class he comprehends the souls of the

blessed immortals who inhabit heaven, -- has no

nature superior to it save God, the Creator of the

world and the soul itself, and that these heavenly

spirits derive their blessed life, and the light of

truth, from the same source as ourselves, agreeing

with the gospel where _e read 'There was a man

sent from God, whose name was John. The same

came for a witness, to bear witness of that Light,

that through IIim all might believe. He was not

that Light, but that he might bear witness of

the Light. That was the true Light which lighteth

every man that cometh into the world' (John 1:

6-9),--a distinction which sufficiently proves that

the rational or intellectual soul, such as John had,

cannot be its own light, but needs to receive illumi-

nation from another, the true Light," (Con]essions,

p. 1_, note.)

NOTE _9. At this time Augustine was not more a

a Catholic theologian than a Catholic theosophist.

The methods suggested by this statement that

" the vision of God can be attained even while still

in the body," betray his long affiliation with Nco-

platonism. In this connection Harnack refers to

138 N_

" suggestions " in this direction found in the Con-

]ess/orts (VII, 13-16, 23), and says: (History o/

Dogma, V, p. 111, note) " Here is described the in-

tellectual 'exercise' of the observation of the

mutabilia leading to the incommutabile. 'And

thus, with the flash of a trembling glance, it arrived

at that which is. And then I saw Thy invisible

things understood by the things that are made (this

now becomes his dominant saying). But I was not

able to fix my gaze thereon; and my infirmity being

beaten back, I was thrown again on my accustomed

habits, carrying along with me naught but a loving

memory thereof, and an appetite (quite as in

Plotinus) for what I had, as it were, smelt the

odour of, but was not yet able to eat.' But,

again, in his famous dialogue with his mother in

Ostia, a regular Neoplatonic ' exercise ' is really

described which ends with ecs'tasy (ccttigimus _'eri

tateru modice toto ictu cordis)." (If not familiar

to the reader, he will be grateful for the insertion

here of a part of this dialogue, which has been made,

if possible, even more vivid in its portrayal of Moniea

and her son at the window in Ostia overlooking the

sea, by the famous canvas of Ary Scheffer.)

"If to any man the tumult of the flesh were silenced

--silenced the phantasies of earth, waters, and air;

silenced, too, the poles; yea, the very. soul be silenced

to herself, and go beyond herself by not thinking

of herself,- silenced fancies and imaginary revela-

tions, every tongue," and every sign, and whatso-

ever exists by passing away, since, if any could

hearken, all these say, 'We created not ourselves

but were created by Itim who abideth forever:'

If, having uttered this, they now should be silenced,

having only quickened our ears to Him who created

N_n 139

them, and He alone speak, not by them, but by

Himself, that we may hear His word, not by fleshly

tongue, nor angehe voice, nor sound of thunder, nor

the obscurity of a similitude, but might hear Him

--Him whom in these we love -- xxithout these,

like as we two [his mother and himself at the Ostia

window] now strained ourselves, and with rapid

thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom which

remaineth over all. If this could be sustained, and

other visions of a far different kind be withdrawn.

and this one ravish and absorb, and envelope its be

holder, amid these inward joys, so that his life might

be eternally like that one moment of knowledge

which we now sighed after, were not this 'Enter

thou into the joy of thy Lord ? but when shall

tiffs be?'" (Con]essians, Book IX, chap. 10.)

Harnack adds (History o]Dogma, V, p. 111, note) :

"We afterwards meet extremely seldom with

anything of the same kind in Augustine: on the

other hand, the anti-Manichean writings still show

many echoes (' se rapere in deum,' "rapi in deum,"

' volitare,' ' amplexus dei '). Reuter says rightly

(p. 47£) that these are unusual expressions, only

occurring exceptionally. But he must have for-

gotten the passages in the Confessions, when he

adds that no instructions are given as to the method

to be followed."

The Soliloquies were written in 386, the Con-

]essions in 400, the four books on Christian Doc-

trine in 426. It _s interesting to compare the in-

structions in each for the attainment of wisdom or

the vision of God, and to note how the Neoplatonist

survives in all, inextricably confused with the

Church-father. (See Soliloquies above: Conies-

s/ona, Book VII, 13-16, 28; Book IX, 23, 25; and

140 Nat_

Christian Doctrine, p. 39.) The Church-father

emerges more clearly, and the theosophist retires,

in his criticism of Porphyry (City o] God, p. 430 et

seq.).

NoTs 30. " But sight shall displace faith: and

hope shall be swallowed up in that perfect bliss to

which we shall come: love, on the other hand, shaU

wax greater when these others fail. For if we love

by faith that which as yet we see not, how much

more shall we love it when we begin to see! And

if we love by hope that wlfich as yet we have not

reached, how much more shall we love it when

we reach it! For there is tiffs great difference be-

tween things temporal and things eternal, that a

tenlporal object is valued more before we possess

it, and begins to prove worthless the moment we

attain it, because it does not satisfy the soul, which

has its only true and sure resting-place in eternity:

an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with

greater ardour when it is in possession than while

it is still an object of desire, for no one in his long-

hag for it can set a higher value on it than really

belongs to it, so as to think it comparatively worthless

when he finds it of less value than he thought; on

the contrary, however high the value any man may

set upon it when he is on his way to possess it,

he will find it, when it comes into his possession,

of higher value still." (Christian Doctrine, p. 32.)

NOTE 31. Augustine tells us such a community

had been planned: "And many of us friends, con-

sulting on and abhorring the turbulent vexatious

of human life, had considered and now almost

determined upon living at ease and separate from

Nttte_ 141

the turmoil of men. And this was to be obtained

in this way; we were to bring whatever we could

severally procure, and make a common household,

so that, throngh the sincerity of ourfriendship, noth-

ing should belong more to one than the other; but

the whole, being derived from all, should as a whole

belong to each, and the whole unto all. It seemed to

us that this society might consist of ten persons,

some of whom were very rich, especially Romania-

nus, our townsman, an intimate friend of mine from

his childhood, whom grave business matters had

then brought up to Court; who was the most earnest

of us all for this project, and whose voice was of

great weight in commending it, because his estate

was far more ample than that of the rest. We had

arranged, too, that two officers should be chosen

yearly, for the providing of all necessary things,

whilst the rest were left undisturbed. But when we

began to reflect whether the wives wlfich some

of us had already, and others hoped to have, would

permit tiffs, all that plan, which was being so weU

framed, broke to pieces in our hands, and was utterly

wrecked and cast aside. Thence we fell again to

sighs and groans, and our steps to follow the broad

and beaten ways of the world." (Con]essf.ona,p.

135.)

• NoT_ 82. " In the ordinary course of study, I

lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose lan-

guage, though not his heart, almost all admire.

This book of his contains an exhortation to philos-

ophy, and is called Horten._ius. This book, in

truth, changed my affections, and turned my prayers

to Thyself, O Lord, and made me have other hopes

and desires. Worthless suddenly became every

14_ _qtrtrn

vain hope to me; and, with an incredible warmth

of heart, I yearned for an immortality of wisdom,

and began now to arise that I might return to Thee."

(Con/ess/o_,p. 410

NOTE 33. "I was entangled in the life of this

world, clinging to dull hopes of a beauteous wife,

the pomp of riches, the emptiness of honors, and

the other hurtful and destructive pleasures." (De

Util. Credendi, See. 3.) " After I had shaken off

the Manicheans and escaped, especially when I had

crossed the sea, the Academics long detained me

tossing in the waves, winds from all quarters beating

against my helm. And so I came to tiffs shore,

and there found a pole-star to whom to entrust

myself. For I often observed in the discourses of our

priest (Ambrose), and sometimes in yours (Theo-

dorus), that you had no corporeal notions when you

thought of God, or even of the soul, which of all

things is next to God. But I was withheld, I own,

from casting myself speedily into the bosom of

true wisdom by the alluring hopes of marriage

and honors; meaning, when I had obtained these,

to press (as few singularly happy had before me),

with oar and sail into that haven, and there rest."

(De Vita Beala, See. 4.)

NOTE34. " Since that vehement flame which was

about to seize me as yet was not, I thought that

by which I was slowly -kindled was the very greatest.

When lo! certain books, when they had distilled a

very few drops of most precious unguent on that tiny

flame, it is past belief, Romanianus, past belief,

and perhaps past what even you believe of me (and

what could I say more ? ) nay, to myself also is

Ngl_s 143

it past belief, what a conflagration of myself they

lighted. What ambition, what human show, what

empty love of fame, or lastly, what incitement or

band of this mor'tal life could hold me then ? I

turned speedily and wholly back into myself. I

east but a glance, I confess, as one passing on, upon

that religion which was implanted into us as boys,

and interwoven with our very imnost selves; but

she drew me unknowing to herself. So, then,

stumbling, hurrying, hesitating, I seized the Apostle

Paul: ' for never,' said I, ' could they have wrought

such things, or lived as it is plain they did live, if their

writings and arguments were opposed to this so high

good.' I read the whole most intently and care-

fully. But then, never so little light ha_,ing been

shed thereon, such a countenance of wisdom gleamed

upon me, that if I could exhibit it -- I say not to you,

who ever hungeredst after her, though unknown-

but to your very adversary.., casting aside

and abandoning whatever now stimulates him so

keenly to whatsoever pleasures, he would, amazed,

panfing, enkindled, fly to her Beauty." (Con.

Aead. II, 5.)

NOTE 35. " This much hast Thou taught me,

that I should bring myself to take food as medicine.

• . . And whereas health is the reason of eating

and drinking, there joineth itself as an handmaid

a perilous delight, which mostly tries to precede it,

in order that I may do for her sake what I say I

do, or desire to do, for health's sake. Nor have both

the same limit; for what is sulficient for health is

too little for pleasure. And oftentimes it _qdoubtful

whether it be the necessary care of the body which

still asks nourishment, or whether a sensual snare

144 Noles

of desire offers its ministry. In this uncertainty

does my unhappy soul rejoice, and therein prepares

an excuse as a defence, glad that it doth not appear

what may be sufficient for the moderation of health,

that so under the pretence of health it may conceal

the business of pleasure. These temptations do I

daily endeavour to resist, and I summon Thy fight

hand to my help, and refer my excitements to Thee,

because as yet I have no resolve in this matter."

(Conlessions, p. _68.)

NOTE36. " And what more could we desire ? We

have crowds of influential friends, though we have

nothing else, and if we make haste a presidentskip

may be offeredus; and a wife with some money that

she increase not our expenses; and this shall be the

height of desire. Many men, who are great and

worthy of imitation, have applied themselves to

the study of wisdom in the marriage state." (Con-

[ess/ons, p. 131.)

NOTE S7. " But what they assert is this: they

say that all fools are mad, as all dunghills stink;

not that they always do so, but stir them, and you

will perceive it." (Cicero -- Tusculum Disputations,

Book IV, 9,4,translated by C. D. Yonge.)

NOTE38. " Nor was that wound of mine as yet

cured which had been caused by the separation

from my former mistress, but after inflammation and

most acute anguish it mortified, and the pain became

numbed, but more desperate." (Con]essions, p. 136.)

NOTE89. " For those who are most truly wise,

and whom alone it is fight to pronounce happy, have

N_ 145

maintained that fortune's favours ought not to be

the objects of either fear or desire." (Letters,

p. 8.)

NOTE 40. " Is it true, my beloved Augustine, that

you are spending your strength and patience on the

affairs of your fellow citizens (in Thagaste), and

that the leisure from distractions which you so

earnestly desired is still withheld from you ? Who,

I would like to know, are the men who thus take

advantage of your good nature, and trespass on your

time ? I believe that they do not know what you

love most and long for. Have you no friend at hand

to tell them what your heart is set upon ? Will

neither Romanianus nor Lucinianus do this ? Let

them hear me at all events. I will proclaim aloud:

I will protest that God is the supreme object of your

love, and that your heart's desire is to be His servant,

and to cleave to Him. Fain would I persuade you to

come to my home in the country, and rest here:

I shall not be afraid of being denounced as a robber

by those countrymen of yours, whom you love only

too well, and by whom you are too warmly loved

in return." (Letters, I, p. 11. Nebridius to Au-

gustine.)

NOTE 41 .... " It is a question whether man

is to be loved by man for his own sake, or for the

sake of something else. If it is for his own sake, we

enjoy him; if it is for the sake of something else,

we use him. It seems to me, then, that he is to be

loved for the sake of someflfing else. For if a thing

is to be loved for its own sake, then in the enjoyment

of it consists a happy life, the hope of which at least,

if not yet the reality, is our comfort in the present

146 _

time. But a curse is pronouncedon him who places

his hope in man." (Christian Doctrine, I, p. 18.)

NOTE 42. " Why are there times in which, speak-

ing, we do not fear death, and silent, even desire it ?

I say to you -- for I would not say it to every, one --

to you whose visits to the upper world I know well,

' Will you, who have often felt how sweetly the soul

lives when it dies to all mere bodily affections, deny

that it is possible for the whole life of man to become

at length so exempt from fear, that he may be justly

called wise ?' " (LeUers, p. 24.)

NOTE 43. " Thou didst at that time torture me

with toothache; and when it had become so exceed-

ing great that I was not able to speak, it came into

my heart to urge all my friends who were present

to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of

health. And I wrote it down on wax, and gave it to

them to read. Presently, as with submissive desire

we bowed our knees, that pain departed. But

what pain ? Or how did it depart ? I confess to being

much afraid, my Lord my God, seeing that from

my earliest years I had not experienced such pain."

(Coniessions, IX, p. 216.)

NOTE 44. "I was wrong in saying that more

than one way led to w_isdom; there is none outside of

Jesus who says: ' I am the way.' " (Retrad_/ons,

I, chap. 4.)

NOTE 45. "And I entered, and with the eye of

my soul (such as it was) saw above the same eye

of my soul, above my mind, the Unchangeable

Light. Not this common light . . . not like this was

Nai_n 147

that light,but different,yea, very differentfrom

allthese." (Con/e_siona,p. 157.) (See note _8

above.)

_rOTE 46. " Such a son ascends to w/,sdom, which

is the seventh and last step, and which he enjoys

in peace and tranquillity. For the fear of God

is the beginning of wisdom. From that beginning,

then, till we reach wisdom itself, our way is by the

steps now described." (Christian Doctrine, p. 40.)

This " order " (see note 29) was variously con-

ceived at different stages in Augustine's evolution,

as we have already seen.

NOTE 47. Augustine voices this, his one positive

assertion, nowhere better than in what Harnack

calls the "glorious sentence" in the prayer with

which he enters upon these soliloquies: "I know

nothing other than that the fleeting and the fading

should be spurned, the fixed and eternal sought

after." His correspondence with Nebridius repeats

constantly the same conviction.

" With what has the understanding to contend ?"

'" With the senses."

" Must we then resist the senses with all our

might ?"

"' Certainly."

"What, then, if the things with which the senses

acquaint us give us pleasure ?"

"We must prevent them from doing so."

"How ? "

"By acquiring the habit of doing without them

and desiring better things." (Letters, p. 8.)

NOTE 48. (See Plato, Republic, Book VII.)

148 NaSa

NOTE 49. "Wherefore, since it is our duty fully

to enjoy the truth which lives unchangeably.., the

soul must be purified that it may have power to per-

ceive that light, and to rest in it when it is perceived.

And let us look upon this purification as a kind of

journey or voyage to our native land. For it is not

by change of place that we can come nearer to Him

who is in every place, but by the cultivation of

pure desires and virtuous habits." (Chr/st/ar_ Doc-

tr/ne, I, p. 13.)

NOTE 50. "And my whole hope is only in Thy ex-

ceeding great mercy. Give what Thou commandest,

and command what Thou wilt. Thou imposest conti-

nency upon us, 'nevertheless, when I perceived,'

saith one, 'that I could not otherwise obtain her

except G.od gave her me; . . . that was a point of

wisdom also to know whose gift she was.' For by

continency are we bound up and brought into one,

whence we were scattered abroad into many. For

he loves Thee too htfle who loves aught with Thee,

which he loves not for Thee, O Love, who ever

burnest, and art never quenched! O Charity, my

God, kindle me! Thou commandest continency;

give what Thou cominandest and command what

Thou wilt." (Con]essions, p. 265.)

Lord Byron has reserved for himself the dis-

tinction of admitting an envious pleasure in those

confessions of Augustine in which he refers to sins

of the flesh: " Augustine in his fine confessions

makes the reader envy his transgressions." (Don

Juan, I, 47.) It requires Byron's perversity to pick

out the congenial alloy, leaving unnoticed its setting

of pure gold, where blaze the jewels of passionate

penitence and humility, love, and greatness of soul.

Note_ 149

Nothing can exceed the healthy-mindedness and

holy-mindedness of this "hot-blooded man's"

(Harnaek) self accusations, unless it be their sever-

ity. Pressens6 comparing Augustine's Conlesaiona

with those of Rousseau, characterizes the one as " a

grand act of penitence and love," and the other as

"a cry of triumph in the very midst of his sin,

and robing his shame in a royal purple."

Paul Janet says, with exquisite accuracy, in the

Introduction to his translation of the Con]essions:

" Saint Augustine was a true sinner; he had, there-

fore, no need of fanatical faith in order to appease

exaggerated remorse; he was a genuine sceptie,

and had not, therefore, to seek in a fictitious faith

an inadequate remedy to unmeasured doubt: simple

faith sufficed him, but a faith which seeks to under-

stand: futes quaerens intellcctum; he remains a

philosopher in becoming a believer. With Saint

Augustine, the passions are the infirmities of a su-

perior soul, a soul tender and fiery, which from

infancy is revealed by two remarkable character-

istics: the ardor of imagination and the desire of

superiority and glory.

" Ile goes to the play to weep as he wept, when a

child, over the misfortunes of Dido. But the spectacle

of human passions does not suffice, he wishes to

experience them. ' To love and be loved seemed to

me the grandest thing in life.' IIe knew all the

pleasures, all the sorrows of forbidden passions,

and, as he himself tells us, with an incomparable

eloquence, 'in the very heart of pleasure, he was

bound by the knots of anguish, and tortured by the

burning irons of jealousy, by suspicions, by fears,

by furies, by quarrels.' Nothing more sensitive,

more alive, than this portrayal: perhaps it is even

150 _olea

too true to life, perhaps in the charm and emotion

of these too bold and too faithful portrayals, one

overlooks the moment of repentance and expia-

tion."

But it is Augustine himself who best explains,

apologizes, comments. He says of his Con]es_ions:

" What then have I to do with men, that they

should hear my confessions, as if they were going to

cure all my diseases ? . . . But yet do Thou, my

most sccret Physician, make clear to me what fruit

I may reap by doing it. For the confessions of my

past sins, -- which Thou hast ' forgiven' and' cov-

ered' that Thou mightest make me happy in Thee,

changing my soul by faith, and Thy sacrament, --

when they are read and heard, stir up the heart,

that it sleep not in despair and say 'I cannot:'

but that it may awake in the love of Thy mercy and

the swcctness of Thy grace, by which he that is weak

is strong, if by it he is made conscious of his own

weakness. As for the good, they take delight in

hearing of the past errors of such as are now freed

from them; and they delight, not because they are

errors, but because they have been, and are so no

longer." (Confessions, pp. 239, 240.)

NOTE 51. " Augustine devoted voluntarily a part

of the night to reviewing, in quiet and composure,

the questions which had occupied the day. One

may ,_e in Chapter 8 of the book on Order, in the

example of Augustine and his friends, what ac-

tivity, what passion, the men of his time carried

into their search after wisdom and truth, and how

justified is the remark of Erasmus, that' they were as

eager for knowledge as a trader is to make money.' "

(Soliloquies, Pelissier's translation, note _.)

_o_es 151

Book II

NOTE 5_. " The prayer with which this work

begins is of touching beauty; it e_idently inspired

the prayer which F6nelon placed at the conclusion

of his treatise on the Existence of God." (Histoire

de Saint Auffustin, Poujoulat, p. 113.)

NoTE 53. "The knowledge by which we know

that we live is the most inward of all knowledge,

of which even the Academic cannot insinuate "

(Trinity, p. 40_). " But, without any delusive

representation of images or phantasms, I am most

certain that I am, and that I know and delight in

flds. In respect of these truths, I am not at all

afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who

say: 'What if you are deceived?' For if I am

deceived, I am." (City o] God, Vol. I, p.

468.)

" This is one of the passages cited by Sir William

Hamilton, along with the Cogito, ergo sum of

Descartes, in confirmation of his proof, that in so

far as we are conscious of certain modes of existence,

in so far we possess an absolute certainty that we

exist." (Ibid. note.)

NOTE 54. " Yet who ever doubts that he himself

lives, and remembers, and understands, and wills,

and thinks, and knows, and judges V Seeing that

even if he doubts, he lives: if he doubts, he re-

members why he doubts: if he doubts, he under-

stands that he doubts: if he doubts, he wishes to be

certain: if he doubts, he thinks." (Trinity, Book

x, p. _56.)

152 _T_rt_s

NOTE 55. " Here is the whole of the philosophy

of Descartes. Subjective evidence considered as

the foundation of certainty. Without desiring to

despoil Descartes of his glory, we love to make it

apparent that Saint Augustine is the father of the

philosophic school of the seventeenth century, a

school altogether French and Catholic, dethroned

by Locke and Condillac, eloquently attacked twenty

years ago in the name of the interests of the Christian

faith, but destined, as we hope, to recapture the empire

in our midst." (Poujoulat, Saint Auffustin, p. 115.)

Poujoulat's hope, expressed over fifty years ago,

is already realized according to Foster, who says

of the philosophy of Kant and Descartes, without,

however, gluing Augustine the credit of being its

father: "This is the imperishable merit and

message of the Kantian epistemology- with Des-

cartes the father of modern philosophy, as fore-

runner, since he proclaimed the thinking self,

as the fixed point over against all doubt, and es-

pecially as tile starting point for the construction

of our world." (Finality o] the Christian Religion,

p. 225.) " For not only he who says, 'I know,'

and says so truly, must needs know what kno_-ing is;

but he also who says, 'I do not know,' and says

so confidently and truly, and knows that he says so

truly, certainly knows what knowing is; for he both

distinguishes him who does not know from him

who knows, when he looks into himself, and says

truly ' I do not know; ' and whereas he knows that

he says this truly, whence should he know it, if he did

not know what knowing is ?" (Trinity, X, p. _45.)

NOTE 56. " This entrance upon the second book

completely conformed to the habits of sceptic

_olr_ 153

and dialecticians, pursued by the fear of supply-

hag arguments against themselves, recalls file

systematic doubt of Descartes and the first pages

of his Second Meditation. Only the doubt of St.

Augustine is concerned here with problems, which

are really proper subjects of discussion, while that

of Descartes is applied to incontestable verities, like

that of the existence of the body." (Pelissier's

translation of Soliloquies, note _6.)

NOTE 57. " Erasmu_s calls attention with reason

to this sophism concerning Truth, which is treated

like an actual entity at one time, at another, like a

true judgment. The manner in which Reason

here plays with her interlocutor, recalls the malicious

pleasure which Socrates often found in embarrassing

his disciples or his adversaries. One suffers in

seeing a pure and true doctrine compromised by

such an admixture of wretched arguities." (Pelis-

sier's translation of Soliloquies, note _7.)

NOTE 58. "As then we speak of bodies feeling

and living, though the feeling and life of the body are

from the soul, so also we speak of bodies being

pained, though no pain can be suffered by the body

apart from the soul." (City o] God, XXI, p. 416.)

"Nor did 1 ever with perception of the body either

see, hear, smell, taste or touch my joy; but I ex-

perienced it in my mind when I rejoiced." (Con-

]ess/ons, X, p. 259.)

NOTV. 59. " The same sophism concerning the

false, considered here in the character of certain

judgments; there in that of false things; and again,

as a sort of entity of which he strives to determine

154 Notes

the existence. Erasmus has again called attention

to this bad argumentation." (Soliloquies, Pelis-

sier's translation, note 8.)

NOtE 60. "There is a tendency to call the

argument or statement that, whatever faculty man

possesses, the Deity must have also, by the term

'Anthropomorphism;' but it seems to me a

misnomer, and to convey quite wrong ideas. The

argument represented by ' He that formed the eye,

shall he not see ? He that planted the ear, shall

he not hear ?' need not assume for a moment that

God has sense organs akin to those of man, or that

He appreciates ethereal and aerial vibrations in the

same sort of way." (Lodge, Li]e and Mater, p. 64.)

NOTE 61. If Augustine lived to-day, how would

the theologians, philosophers, psychologists classify

him ? The answer to this question must depend,

alas! on the patti pris of the individual. Monism

in any guise except that of materialistic monism

might claim him, for constantly he suggests pan-

theism, acosmism, even solipsism, either of which,

in a last analysis, resolves itself into the All in All.

Dualism could claim him, for, after his conversion,

he nowhere allows that man was of the same sub-

stance with God; and though man was created by

God in His own image, he was no more than a

/ candidate for immortality, and only could, by it,

arrive at reality. Man actually exists only if he

"persists, for only that which abides has true being.

His DuaLism was therefore hypothetical. As

Harnack says: "Everything which was not God,

including his own soul . . . appeared as the abso-

lutely transient, therefore as non-existent; for no true

_ oles 155

being exists, where there is also not-being; there]ore

God exists alone (God the only substance). On the

other hand, as far as it possessed a relative exSstence,

it seemed good, very good, as an evolution of the

di_ine Being (the many as the embodiment, eman-

ating and ever-returning, of the One)." Later his

Dualism was less ewtnescent. H.is theory of crea-

tion, founded on a literal adoption of the statement

in Genex/s, introduced the '" other " substance, " not

nothing," "not ahnost nothing," but not God,

yet, " created by IIis breath " (See note 4). 5'latter

appears, and Dualism is alive forevermore in the

thought and speech of men. Logic is king with a

tyrant's power, to use it henceforth like a tyrant. Its

sanest victims take their refuge to-day in the becom-

ing watchword " Ignoramus," and if a venturesome

one, under strong pro_,ocation, makes a protest,

he does it in the subjunctive mood as does Sir

Oliver Lodge: " There seems some reason to sup-

pose that anything that actually exists, must be in

some way or other perpetual . . . there may be in

each a fundamental substratum which, if it can be

reached, will be found to be eternal." (Li]e and

Ma_ter, p. 30.) Augustine affirmed his ignorance, but

in " phrases slightly different from the parish priest"

(Faust) or the modern Academician, for he affirmed

his belief as well; and he made his hypotheses;

but his beliefs and hypotheses never petrified into

rigid dogmas in his own mind. Harnack says:

" Where Augustine put the question of creation

in the form 'How is the unity of being related to

plurality of manifestation ?' the notion of creation

is really always eliminated But he never entirely

gave up this way of putting the question, for, at

bottom things possess their independence only in

156 _o_s

their manifestation, while in so far as they exist,

they form the ground of knowledge for the exist-

ence of God. But besides this Augustine slill

asserted vigorously the crea_/o ex nihilo (or_nes

naturae ex deo, non de deo. De nat. bon. e. Manieh.

I)." (History o] Dogma, V, p. 115, note S.)

Yes, he did; and he may be right or wrong. But

the reason, the sole reason, for this great man's

theological, i. e. philosophical, inconsistency in this

assertion, as well as his ethical inconsistency in his

affirmations concerning predestination, arose from

his wholesale acceptance of the most extreme doc-

trine of plenary inspiration; he was obliged to accept

" Moses " (Con]essions, p. 344 et seq.) and Paul as

the speaking tubes for the " Eternal Truth " to the

last word and punctuation of its verbal form.

Let no modern man, with his modern inconsist-

encies, throw the first stone! With Augttstine it was

" Let God be true but every man a liar." Authority

construed " God " and " true " and pushed Reason

to the rear. What agony this submission to con-

science cost him, let only him who recants righteous

reason in obedience to authority say! But oh, the

pity of it! and oh, for an Augustine to stand with

like loyalty to a less encumbered Truth in the fore-

front of to-day's battle!

NOTE 6_2. " Bossuet has reproduced this defini-

tion in his treatise on the knowledge of God and the

self.'" (Saint Augustin, Poujoulat, p. 116.)

NOTE 63. "Alas for me, that I do not, at least,

know the extent of my own ignorance! Behold,

O my God, before Thee I lie not. As I speak so is

my heart. Thou shalt light my candle: Thou,

Noh_ 157

O Lord my God, wilt enlighten my darkness."

(Con]essions, Book II, chap. _5.)

NOTE 64. A little later Augustine wrote his six

books upon music. Villemain says (Tableau de

l'_loquence, p. 4_1) : "The duration of syllables, their

value and their combinations, all the effects of

rhythm, all the varieties of metre, all the forms of

verse, are explained with a curious exactitude wtfich

resembles that of Quintilian in some chapters, or of

a compatriot of Augustine's, Tcrentianus _¢iaurus in

his didactic poem. One is not surprised that this

oratorical and poctic science of numbers, to which

Cicero attaches so much importance in his essays

upon eloquence, should have so greatly occupied the

brilliant rhetorician. But that, after all, is only a

part and the material part of the art. Six other

books should have treated of melody, and would,

undoubtedly, have comprised the moral views of

Plato upon music and the poetry which Christian

inspiration would have also added."

The faithful Poujoulat explains this deviation

of the church father-to-be thus: " The six books

upon Mus/c composed in his hours of leisure, had

for their aim to lead those who lovc lctters and poetry

to God, the eternal harmony. Augustine recog-

nixed the fact that music i_ one of the greatest

agencies for arriving at the magnificent marvels

of the Infinite. In his review (Retractations) of

these works, the doctor treated his six books on

music severely because he judged them from the

point of view of the seriousness of his position as

bishop; and pious authors have believed it their duty

to agree in this severity. But it becomes a less

exclusive appreciator to give to genius all the glory

158 N_B

of its work, and to acquit it when it blames itse'f

too scrupulously."

NOTE 65. " This absurd conclusion is a conse-

quence of the confusion made by the interlocuteurs

between the different applications of the words

false and true. Augustine ought to have said that

it is by the resemblance to others, that certain things

deceive us as to their nature, and cause us to enter-

tain false judgments; such is really the rhle of

resemblance in this case." (Soliloquies, Pelissier's

translation, p. 154.)

NoTE 66. Augustine, always true to human

nature, commends to all readers the unhappy truth

of his obser_'afion: "The science of reasoning is

of very great service in searching into and unravelling

all sorts of questions that come up in Scripture, only

in the use of it we must guard against the love of

wrangling, and the childish vanity of entrapping

an adversary." (Christian Doarine, p. 68.)

NOTE 67. This looks very much as if Augustine,

in the land of crocodiles, evolved his idea of it from

the bowels of his consciousness. The crocodile

(see Cicero, Tuseulum Disputations V: 27) was held

sacred by the Egyptians, and, like some specially

venerated and privileged species in the genus lwmo,

developed, therefore, extraordinary powers!

NOTE 68. " Everywhere, O Truth, dost Thou

direct all who consult Thee, and dost at once answer

all, though they consult Thee on divers things.

Clearly dost Thou answer, though all do not with

clearness hear. All consult Thee upon whatever

_ 159

they wish, though they hear not always that which

they wish. He is Thy best servant who does not so

much look to hear that from Thee which he him-

self wishes, as to wish that which he heareth from

Thee." (Con[essiona, p. 263.)

NOTZ 69. Pelissier (Note 35, Soliloquies) ap-

pends a tabulated rtsumd of the foregoing reasoning

which he calls "a long tissue of sophisms." We

must own, with M. Saisset (Preface to translation

of City of God), that some of Augustine's arguments

are "more ingenious than solid " and, with Eras-

mus, that he indulges sometimes in "obscure

subtility and unpleasant prolixity," although he

adds " the toil of penetrating the apparent obscur-

ities will be rewarded by finding a real wealth of

insight and enlightment."

NOTE 70. We have this testimony of Seipio re-

corded in Cicero: " They 0he Romans) consid-

ered comedy and all theatrical performances as

disgraceful, and therefore not only debarred players

from offices and honors open to ordinary citizens,

but also decreed that their names should be branded

by the censor, and erased from the roll of their

tribe." (City of God, Book II, p. 62.)

NOTE 71. " Again, the science of definition, of

division, of partition, although it is frequently

applied to falsities, is not itself false, nor framed by

man's device, but is evolved from the reason of

things. For although poets have applied it to their

fictions, and false philosophers or even heretics-

that is, false Christians- to their erroneous doc-

trlnes, that is no reason why it should be false, for

160 Nol_,a

example, that neither in definition, nor in division,

nor in partition, is anything to be included that

does not pertain to the matter in hand, nor anything

to be omitted that does. This is true, even though

the things to be defined or divided are not true. The

definition and division, therefore, of what is false

may be perfectly true, although what is false cannot,of

course, itself be true." (Christian Doctrine, pp. 70, 71.)

NOTE 7_. "After that I was put to school to

get learning of which I (worthless as I was) knew

not what use there was; and yet, if slow to learn, I

was flogged! for this was deemed praiseworthy by

our forefathers, and many before us, passing the

same course, had appointed beforehand for us these

troublesome ways by which we were compelled to

pass, multiplying labour and sorrow upon the sons

of Adam. But we found, O Lord, men praying to

Thee, and we learned from them to conceive of Thee,

according to our ability, to be some Great One,

who was able (though not visible to our senses) to

hear and help us.

"For as a boy I began to pray to Thee my' help'

and my ' refuge,' and in invoking Thee, broke the

bands of my tongue, and entreated Thee, though

little, with no little earnestness, that I might not

be beaten at school. And when Thou heardest me

not, giving me not over to folly thereby, my elders,

yea, and my own parents too, who wished me no

ill, laughed at my stripes, my then great and grievous

ill." (Con]essions, Book I, p. 11.)

NOTE 73. In all this worrying of the reader over

" the science of disputation," we, of the modern mind

and method, must remember that to those of Augus-

_olea 161

fine's day, this worrying was, as it had been for

centuries, the sine qua non of intellectual life. No

one, in that day of the world, dreamed of excavating

" Truth " after the modern Teutonic's method, in

the solitude of an attic with no companions save

his beer-mug and his pipe. Men talked it over;

they h',u:l words with each other; to the victor be-

longed the spoils, and it was 'devil take the hind-

most.' It was the method of Socrates, Plato, and

Aristotle, and revered, as these masters were re-

vered. Socrates declared that the most excellent

men, file happiest and the most eloquent, were

formed by this art. Augustine says: "I studied

books of eloquence, wherein I was eager to be emi-

nent, from a damnable and inflated purpose, even

a delight in human vanity;" . . . and he says that

Ambrose, to whom his mother appealed in his

behalf, told her that he had already perplexed

divers inexperienced persons with vexatious ques-

tions. In an interesting passage in his work against

Manichteism, he tells us that his victories over

" inexperienced persons " stimulated him to fresh

conquests, and thus kept him bound longer than he

would otherwise have been in the chains of this

heresy. (Con]essions, p. 55, note.)

But he had a conscience even then about the use

he made of his dialectical skill. " In those years

I taught the art of rhetoric and, overcome by cu-

pidity, put to sale a loquacity by which to over-

come. Yet I preferred, Lord, Thou knowest, to

have honest scholars (as they are esteeemd); and

these I, without artifiee, taught artifices, not to be

put in practice against the life of the guiltless, though

sometimes for the life of the guilty." (Con/ess/ons,

Book IV, p. 57.)

16_ N_a

This conscience asserted itself more and more.

In the first book, itself tile product of discussion

with his friends, written from Cassiacum, he says:

" When one disputes, the great matter is, not to have

made great progress in wisdom, but to be moved only

by the desire of attaining truth and reason, and to

feel only contempt for x4ctory." (Against the Acad-

emician, Book I, chap. 9.)

And when his long life of controversy was nearly

ended, he writes: " The art of qlisputation pre-

_iously spoken of, which deals with inferences, and

definitions, and divisions, is of the greatest assist-

ance in the discovery, of the meaning, provided only

that men do not fall into the error of supposing

th_tt when they have learnt these things they have

learnt the true secret of a happy life .... And in

regard to all these laws, we derive more pleasure

from them as exhibitions of truth, than assistance

in arguing or forming opinions, except perhaps

that they put the intellect in better training. We

must take care, however, that they do not at the

same rime make it more inclined to mischief or

vanity, that is to say, that they do not give those

who have learnt them an inclination to lead people

astray by plausible speech and catching questions,

or make them think that they have attained some

great thing that gives them an advantage over the

good and innocent." (Christian Doctrine,Book II,

pp. 7_, 73.)

NOTE 74. Augustine here suggests his familiarity

with Aristotle, the acquisition of which he thus

describes: " And what did it profit me that when

scarce twenty years old, a book of Aristotle's, en-

rifled The Ten Predicaments, fell into my hands,

N_B 163

w on whose very name I hung as on something great

and divine, when my rhetoric master of Carthage

and others who were esteemed learned, referred to

it with cheeks swelling with pride, -- I read it alone

and understood it ? . . . And the book appeared to

me to speak plainly enough of substances, such as

man is, and of their qualities, such as the figure

of a man, of what kind it is; and his stature, how

many feet high; and his relationship, whose brother

he is, or where placed, or when born, or whether

he stands or sits, or is shod or armed, or does or

suffers any thing; and whatever innumerable things

might be classed under these nine categories,- of

which I have given some examples, -- or under that

chief category of substance. What did all this

profit me, seeing it even hindered me, when, im-

agining that whatsoever existed was comprehended

in those ten categories, I tried so to understand, O

my God, Thy wonderful and unchangeable Unity,

as if Thou also hadst been subjected to Thine own

greatness or beauty, so that they should exist in

Thee as their subject, like as in bodies, whereas

Thou, Thyself, art Thy greatness and beauty."

(Con]essions, Book IV, pp. 78, 79.)

But he found later the more excellent way. Har-

nack says: " He became, because he was the

counterpart of Aristotle, the true Aristotle of a new

science, which seems indeed to have forgotten that

as a theory of perception, and as inner observation,

it originated in the monotheistic faith and life of

prayer." We must add a few sentences from a

parallel between Augustine and Aristotle by Siebeck,

which Harnack quotes in full: "Questions of

ethics which Aristotle handles from the standpoint

of the relation of man to man, appear in Augustine

164 Note_

in the light of the relations between his own heart

and that of this known and felt God."

"Aristotle knows the wants of the inner life only

so far as they are capable of developing the life,

supported by energetic effort and philosophic

equanimity, in and with society. He seems to hold

that clear thinking and restfully energetic activity

prevent all suffering and misfortune to society or

the individual. The deeper sources of dispeaee,

of pain of soul, of unfulfilled wants of the heart,

remain dark in his investigation. Augustine's sig-

nificance begins just where the problem is to trace

the unrest of the believing or seeking soul to its

roots, and to make sure of the inner facts in which

the heart can reach its rest. Even the old problems

which he reviews and examines in their whole extent

and meaning from the standpoint of his rich scientific

culture, now appear in a new light. Therefore

he can grasp, and at the same time deepen, every-

thing which has come to him from Hellenism." . . .

"Aristotle, the Greek, was only interested in the

life of the soul, in so far as it turned outward and

helped to fathom the world theoretically and practi-

cally; Augustine, the first modern man.., only

took it into consideration, in so far as reflection upon

it enabled him to conceive the inner character of

personal life as something really independent of

the outer world." Harnack adds: " It was possible

to travel back along the line which had been traced

by a millennium down to Augustine, and the positive

capital which Neoplatonism and Augustine had

received from the past, and had changed into nega-

tive values, could also be re-established with a posi-

tive force. But something had undoubtedly been

lost: we find it surviving in almost none but those

N_ 165

who were ignorant of theology and philosophy;

we do not find it among thinkers; and that is frank

joy in the phenomenal world, in its obvious mean-

rag, and in calm and energetic work. If it were

possible to unite in science and in the disposition, the

piety, spirituality, and introspection of Augustine,

with the openness to the world, the restful and ener-

getic activity, and unclouded cheerfulness of an-

tiquity, we should have reached the highest level."

(History ol Dogma, chap. IV, pp. 108, e_ seq.)

NOTr: 75. Augustine has, perhaps, in mind here

sentiments from the lost Hortensius, which he

quotes many years later in his work on the Trinity

with criticism matured in the interval. He says:

"This contemplative wisdom, I say, it is that Cicero

commends in the end of the dialogue Hortena/us,

when he says: 'While, then, we consider these

things night and day, and sharpen our understand-

ing, which is the eye of the mind, taking care that

it be not ever dulled, that is, while we live in phil-

osophy: we, I say, in so doing, have great hope that

if, on the one hand, this sentiment and wisdom

of ours is mortal and perishable, we shall still, when

we have discharged our human offices, have a

pleasant setting, and a not painful extinction, and

as it were a rest from life: or of, on the other, as

ancient philosophers thought- and those, too, the

greatest and far the most celebrated- we have

souls eternal and divine, then must we needs think,

that the more these shall have always kept in their

own proper course, i. e. in reason and in the desire

of inquiry, and the less they shall have mixed and

entangled themselves in the vices and errors of men,

the more easy ascent and return they will have to

166 N_e_

heaven.' And then he says, adding this short sen-

tence, and finishing his discourse by repeating it:

' Wherefore, to end my discourse at last, if we wish

either for a tranquil extinction after living in the

pursuit of these subjects, or if to migrate without

delay from this pxesent home to another in no little

measure better, we must bestow all our labour and

care upon these pursuits.' And here I man-el, that

a man of such great ability should promise to men

living in philosophy, which makes man blessed by

contemplation of truth, ' A pleasant setting after the

discharge of human offices, if this our sentiment

and wisdom is mortal and perishable,' as if that which

we did not love, or rather which we fiercely hated,

were then to die and come to nothing, so that its

setting would be pleasant to us. But indeed he had

not learned this from flae philosophers, whom he

extols with great praise; but this sentiment is redo-

lent of that New Academy, wherein it pleased him

to doubt of even the plainest things. But from the

philosophers that were greatest and far most cele-

brated, as he himself confesses, he had learned that

souls are eternal. For souls that are eternal are not

unsuitably stirred up by the exhortation to be found

in ' their own proper course ' when the end of this

life shall have come, i.e., 'in reason and in the

desire of inquiry,' and to mix and entangle them-

selves the less in the vices and errors of men, in order

that they may have an easier return to God."

(Trinity, Book IV, pp. 375, 876.)

NOTE 76. Two years later Augustine writes to

Nebridius: " To occupy one's thoughts throughout

life with journeyings which you cannot perform

tranquilly and easily, is not the part of a man whose

Notrit 167

thoughts are engaged with that last journey which

is called death, and which alone, as you understand,

really deserves serious consideration. God has

indeed granted to some few men whom He has

ordained to bear rule over churches, the capacity

of not only awaiting calmly, but even desiring

eagerly, that last journey, while at the same time

they can meet without disquietude the toils of those

other journeyings: . . . Believe me there is need of

much withdrawal of oneself from the tumult of

the things which are passing away, in order that

there may be formed in man, not through insensi-

bility, not through presumption, not through vain

glory, not through superstitious blindness, the

ability to say ' I fear nought.' " (Letters, pp. 23,

24.)

NOTE 77. "Ambrose was sovereign among

Western bishops, and at the same time the Greek

trained exegete and theologian. In both qualities

he acted on Augustine, who looked up to him as

Luther did to Staut,itz." It was "in Ambrose, the

priestly Chancellor of the state, that the imperial

power (imperium)of the Catholic church dawned

upon him, and his experiences of the confusion and

weakness of the civil power at the beginning of the

fifth century completed the impression. Along with

this Ambrose's sermons fall to be considered. If

on one side, they were wholly dependent on Greek

models, yet they show, on the other hand, in their

practical tone, the spirit of the West. Augustine's

demand that the preacher should 'teach, sway,

and move' (docere, fleetere, movere) is as if drawn

from those sermons." (History o] Dogma, V, pp.

so,_8.)

168 N_Ir_

NOTE78. " Nor did I now groan in my prayers

that Thou would'st help me; but my mind was wholly

intent on knowledge, and eager to dispute. And

Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man, as the

world counted happiness, in that such great per-

sonages held him in honour; only his celibacy

appeared to me a painful thing. But what hope he

cherished, what struggles he had against the tempta-

tions that beset his very excellences, what solace in

adversities, and what savoury joys Thy bread pos-

sessed for the hidden mouth of his heart when rumi-

nating on it, I could neither conjecture nor had I

experienced. Nor did he know my embarrassments,

nor the pit of my danger. For I could not request

of him what I wished as I wished, in that I was

debarred from hearing and speaking to him by

crowds of busy people, whose infirmities he devoted

himself to. With whom when he was not engaged

(which was but a little time) he either was refreshing

his body _'ith necessary sustenance, or his mind

with reading. But while reading, his eyes glanced

over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense,

but his voice and tongue were silent. Ofttimes, when

we had come (for no one was forbidden to enter,

nor was it his custom that the arrival of those who

came should be announced to him), we saw him thus

reading to himself, and never otherwise; and having

long sat in silence (for who durst interrupt one so

intent?) we were fain to depart, inferring that in

the little time he secured for the recruiting of his

mind, free from the clamour of other men's business,

he was unwilling to be taken off .... But whatever

was his motive in so doing, doubtless, in such a

man, was a good one. But verily no opportunity

could I find of ascert_inlng what I desired from

NgI_l_ 169

that Thy so holy oracle, his breast, unless the thing

might be entered into briefly. But those surgings in

me required to find him at full leisure, that I might

pour them out to him, but never were they able to

find him so." (Con[essions, pp. 11_, 113.)

NOTE 79, " Zenobius, man of letters and poet,

who, without doubt, belonged or inclined to the new

faith by philosophic contemplation. ]_[ore than

once Zenobius had asked concerning the question

of Providence, and in hurried interviews and by

verse,- 'and by good verse, too'--says Augus-

fine. While exposing his own views and doubts,

he had besought a response." (Tableau de l'I_lo-

quence, p. 394.)

NOTE 80. " Tu enim si deseris, peritur; sed

non deseris, quia tues suramum bonum, quod nerno

recte quaesivit et minime invenit." (Soliloquies,

1,6.)

NOTE 81. " For verses and poems I can turn

into true food, but the 'Medea flying' though I

sang, I maintained it not; though I heard it sung,

I believed it not." (Confess/ons, p. 45.)

Nol"E 82. "This expression 'incapable of wit-

hess-bearing ' signified both ineligibility as a witness

and also as assisting at the making of a will." (Pe-

lissier's translation of Soliloquies, note 44.)

No_ 8S. " I perceive that all those images which

you as well as many others call phantav/ae, may

be most conveniently and accurately divided into

three dasses, according as they originate with

170 N_H

the senses, or the imagination, or the faculty of

reason.

" Examples of the first class are when my mind

forms within itself and presents to me the image of

your face, or of Carthage, or of our departed friend

Verecundus, or of any other thing at present or

formerly existing, which I have myself seen and

perceived.

" Under the second class come all things which

we imagine to have been, or to be so and so: e. 9.

when for the sake of illustration in discourse, we

ourselves suppose things which have no existence,

but which are not prejudicial to truth: or when we

call up to our own minds a lively conception of the

things described while we read histor)', or hear, or

compose, or refuse to believe fabulous narrations.

Thus, according to my own fancy, and as it may

occur to my own mind, I picture to myself the ap-

pearance of iEneas, or of Medea with her team of

winged dragons, or of Chremes or Parmeno ....

As for the third class of images, it has to do chiefly

with numbers and measures; which are found partly

in the nature of things, as when the figure of the

entire world is discovered and an image consequent

upon this discovery is formed in the mind of one

thinking upon it; and partly in sciences, as in

geometrical figures and musical harmonies, and

in the infinite variety of numerals; which, although

they are, as I think, true in themselves as objects

of the understanding, are nevertheless the causes

of illusive exercises of the imagination, the mis-

leading tendency of which reason itself can only

with difficulty withstand; although it is not easy

to preserve even the science of reasoning free from

this e_41, since in our logical divisions and conclu-

Ngl_ 171

sions we form to ourselves, so to speak, ca/eu/i or

counters to facilitate the process of reasoning."

(Letters, I, p. 15, et seq.)

NoT_ 84. This is, of course, Plato's doctrine of

reminiscence, as we find it in the Phaedo and else-

where. Augustine thought differently later. He

says in his Retractations, referring to this passage:

"I recant this doctrine. It is more credible that

ignorant persons make correct replies to questions

which are put to them because they have in them,

as much as they are capable of ha_4ng, the fight of

eternal reason, where they see these unchangeable

verities. It is not that they have once known and

have forgotten them, according to that opinion of

, Plato and his disciples. I have refuted this opinion

/ as far as my subject furnished me an occasion, in

Book XH of the treatise concerning the Trinity,

/ Chapter 15."

He refers to this passage: " And hence that noble

philosopher, Plato, endeavored to persuade us that

the souls of men lived here, even before they bare

these bodies; and that hence those things which are

learnt, are rather remembered as having been known

already, than taken into knowledge as things new.

For he has told us that a boy, when questioned I

know not what respecting geometry, replied as if he

were perfectly skilled in that branch of learning.

For being questioned step by step, and skillfully,

he saw what was to be seen, and said that which he

saw. But if this had been a recollecting of things

previously known, then certainly every one, or

almost every one, would not have been able so to

answer when questioned. For not every one was a

geometrician in the former life, since geometricians

172 _T_tt,_

are so few among men that scarcely one can be

found anywhere. But we ought rather to believe

that the intellectual mind is so formed in its nature

as to see those things, which by the disposition of

the Creator are subjoined to things intelligible

in a natural order, by a sort of incorporeal light of

an unique kind; as the eye of the flesh sees things

adjacent to itself in this bodily light, of which light,

it is made to be receptive and adapted to it," (Trin-

/ty, Book XII, p. 304.)

" Again, when I call back to my mind some arch

turned beautifully and symmetrically, which, let

us say, I saw at Carthage; a certain reality that had

been made known to the mind through the eyes,

and transferred to the memory., causes the imaginary

view. But I behold in my mind yet another thing,

according to which that work of art pleases me, and

whence also, if it displeases me, I should correct it.

We judge therefore of those particular things accord-

ing to that (form of eternal truth), and discern that

form by the intuition of the rational mind. But

those things themselves we either touch if present

by the bodily sense, or if absent remember their

images as fixed in our memory, or picture, ha the way

of likeness to them, such things as we ourselves also,

if we wished and were able, would laboriously

build up; figuring in the mind after one fashion

the images of bodies, or seeing bodies through the

body; but after another, grasping by simple intelli-

gence what is above the eye of the mind, viz.: the

reasons and the unspeakably beautiful skill of such

forms. We behold then by the sight of the mind,

in that eternal truth from which all things temporal

are made, the form according to which we are,

and according to which we do anything by true and

_olr_ 173

right reason, either in ourselves, or in things cor-

poreal; and we have the true knowledge of filings,

thence conceived, as it were as a word within us,

and by speaking we beget it from within; nor by

being born does it depart from us." (Trinity, Book

IX, p. _88.)

NOTE 85. Pelissier says of this:

" The distinction is delicate and exact. It is

necessary to distinguish, among the operations of

the intellect, apart from the poetic and creative

imagination, the faculty of representing objects

under images and the conceptional faculty, which

operates as abstract thought and has no help from

the material world. Less seductive and less feted,

this latter faculty is rarer and more elevated in the

order of intellectual things." He also adds a fine

passage from M. Cournot and refers the reader to

Descartes' Meditation Cinquibrae (Soliloquies, Pelis-

sier's translation, note 50.)

NOTE 80. " But if the soul die, what then ?"

"Why then troth dies, or intelligence is not truth,

or intelligence is not a part of the soul, or that which

has some part immortal is liable to die; conclusions

all of which I demonstrated long ago in my Solilo-

qu/es to be absurd because impossible; and I am

firmly persuaded that this is the case, but somehow

through the influence of custom in the experience of

evils we are terrified, and hesitate." (Letters, I, p. 8.)

INDEX

A Birthday, xxxv.

Academicians xl, 15, 132, Bishop, o£ Hlppo, vii, viii,

142, 151, 155. ix, xxxi, xxxii, 130, 131,

Achilles, 100. 157.

Adam, sons of, 160. Blessedness, father of, 3 ;

Adeodatus, xxxii, attain to, 24.

Aeneas, 170. Body, inferior, 37 ; eyes of,

Age, xxxv, 28. 42; consciousness of,

Alfred, King, xlli, xiv, 55; form of, 101, 102,

xllil, xliv. 103, 104.

Algiers, xl. Bossuet, 156.

Alpine, xxvii, xxxill ; trans. Botticelli, xxxix, xl, xlI.

xxxiv. Byron, 148.

Alyplus, xxxi, 12, 14, 129,

130. C

Ambrose, referred to, 92, Carthage, xxvili, 129, 163,

93, 142, 161, 167, 168. 172.

Anaxlmenes, 135. Cassiacum (Casciago), ix,

Andromache, 79. xxvi, xxvii, xxxi to

Antl-Manichaean, 139. x'xxiv, xxxvii, xxxlx.

Aquinas, xxvl. Charity, 22, 24, 25.

Aristotle, 161 to 164. Chastity, 46.

Athanasius, xx. Chremes, 170.

Atheism, 116. Christian, x-xv, xxvii,

xxxili, xxxvli.

Church, x; of S. Lorenzo,

B xxxlll ; Latin, xlv.

Baylor, University, xlili. Church father, vii, ix, xlii,

Beauty, of this world, 2 ; xiv, xv, 140, 157.

Father of, 3 ; seen, 24 ; Cicero, xxix, xxx_v, 29, 132,

superior, 30; of wisdom, 141, 157, 159.

39 ; looked upon, 44. City of God, vii, viii, xvii,

Believing, xlx, xxlv. xxv.

Benedictine, xlll. Clifford, 119.

176 Sm_x

Community, 140. Dogmatic, xv, xxtii.

Condillac, 152. Dualism, xx, 116, 119, 154,

Confessions, vii, viii, ix, 155.

xii to xiv, xxlx.

Consciousness, possible E

only to soul, 61 ; cause Ecclesiastic, xllv.

of body, 62. Ecclesiastical, ix, xlll, xv,

Controversialist, peerless, xvl.

vii ; prince of, xvi, xxlit. Erasmus, xlii, 150, 153,

Convert, viii. 154, 159.

Conversion, ix, xiv, xxxll. Eternal, xxxvlil, xxxlx, 8,

Cornelius Celsus, 37. 53, 112, 123.

Country, 125. Eternity, 123.

Creation, 116, 117. Ethics, 163.

Created, the world out of Evil, the worst, xxxvi ; is

nothing, 2 ; man in nothing, 3; flee from, 5,

image of God, 125. 7; greatest, 38; defined,

Crocodile, 158. 121

Cuvier, x. Evodius, xxxii.

Daedalus, 82, 83. F

Dante, xi. Fairbairn, xxiv, 118.

David, psalms of, xxxvli. Faith, defender of, xlv,

Death, end of troubles, 24 ; xix, xxl, xxlii, x_xiv ;

fear of, 27; result of, purifies, 21 ; causes

89, 128, 146, 167. blessedness, 23; opposed

Deity, immanent, xvlii, to sense, 24, 149.

Democritus, 119. Falsity, defined, 78; dis-

Descartes, xvll, 151, 152, similitude mother of, 72.

153, 173. Flesh, delusion of, 24 ; life

DesJardins, 116. in, 27; desires of, 30;

Dialectic, xvi, xvii, xxlli, pleasures of, 31; plague

xx-vi, of, 43.

Dido, 149. Fenelon, 151.

Dlsputation, xxvlli; science Fiesole, 114.

of, 80; art of, 82; truth Friendship, law of, 14.

itself, 86, 103, 105, 160, Friends, love of, 11, 12,

162. 128, 129.

Divine, xl ; flood, xxiil,

xxlv ; source, x_vl ; G

kealer, 45. Geometry, 15, 19, 104, 171.

Do'd, xxv. Getullans, xl.

_n_x 177

God, xvi; the One Reality, J

xxii; true eternal sub- James, William, 124.

stance, 6; nothing like, Janet, Paul, xiv, xxix, 149.

18, 19, 20; Intelligibil-

ity of, 26 ; Knowledge of, K

36, 61 ; immortality of, Kabyle, xl, xll.

103. Kant, xxlv, 116, 130, 152.

Goethe, 119. Knowledge, xix, 17, 18,

Good, father of, 3 _ follow 19; not probability, 26;

after, 5; rewards to, 7; love of, 53, 54, 91.

sum of, 9 ; greatest, 38.

Greek, 107. L

Labothoni_re, xtv.

H Lleentlus, xxxil, xxxlll

Hamilton, 151. Life, perfect, 3 ; bread of,

Hargrove, xlill. 5.

Harnack, ix, x, xvl, xxxl, Light, intelligible, 3 ;

115, 149, 154, 155, 163, promised, 4, 22 ; near-

164. ness of, 45, 123, 127,

Health, 2 ; of soul, 25 ; 136, 137, 146.

benefited, 31 ; of mind, Literary works, 132, 139,

33 ; light is, 39, 44, 113, 157.

146. Locke, 152.

Heart, vii, viii, x. Lodge, 120, 130.

Hector, 79. Lombardy, xxvll.

Hecuba, 79. Love, of friends, 11, 145;

Hellenism, 164. of knowledge, 53, 54; of

Hercules, 79. wisdom, 38, 39.

Hlppo, vii, viii, ix, x. Lucinianns, 145.

Homer, xl. Luther, 167.

Honors, desire for, 29, 33,

34. M

Hope, 22, 23. Malebranche, 125.

Hugo, of St. Victor, xii.

Manichaean, xiil, xxiil,

xxxvii, xxxix, 127, 131,

I _ 142.

Immortal, 52, 59. Mantchaeanism, 161.

Immortality, xxix ; per- Marriage, xxlx, rx'xii,

sonal knowledge of, 52, xxxlii, 30, 142, 144.

53, 54, 59; by succes- Matter, 119; and mind,

sion, 60, 61, 106; nature 120, 155.

of, 112, 154. Medea, 97, 169, 170.

178 3ut_z

Memory, x'vl ; a custodian, Pellssler, xl, grit, xlrv, 159,

1, 15, 108 ; how kindled, 173.

109. Perfection, xxxvl.

Mercy, 10. Personality, vii, x; see-

Milan, xli, xxvli, xxvili, ondary, xx, xxxv.

126. Phaedo, 171.

Milton, 123. Phantasy, 107, 111, 169,

Mind, freedom of, 30; is 170.

superior, 37 ; instinct Phllosophy, Carteslan, xvii,

with life, 88 ; continues xxvili, xxxv; school of,

forever, 90, 103 ; is real- 152.

lty, 104. Physician, 39, 43; secret,

Modern, first m. man, xlv, 150.

xxv Place, of spirits, 125.

Modernism, xv. Plato, xvil, 15, 121, 131,

Monica, xxxi, 138. 132, 133, 136, 157, 161,

Monism, xx, xxli, 154. 171.

Monist, xxii. Platonic, xxxlv, 136.

Moses, 156. Platonist, xxili, 131.

Music, hooks on, 157. Plotinus, 15, 131, 132, 136,

Musicians, 70. 138.

Myron, 80. Porphyry, 140.

PouJoulat, xll, xxxix, 152,

N 157.

Nature, human, 121. Prayer, 2, 65 ; not in vain,

Nebrldlus, xxxlll, 128, 132, 70, 114, 126, 140, 160.

133, 134, 147, 166. Priam, 79.

Neoplatonlc, xlll, xvli, 114, Psychological, xvi, xvll.

121, 127, ]37, ]38, ]64. Psychologist, x.

Neoplatonlst, xxiil, 139 Psychology, x, xvll, xlz,

xx.

Order, xl; Dc Ordin¢, 150. Q

Ostla, 114, 133. Quintilian, 157.

Otto, x.xlv.

P Reality, xxll; God, the

Pain, fear of, 27, 36; con- one, xxxvli, 124.

sclousness of, 37; great- Reason, xxl, xxill, xxlv, 12,

est evil, 37 ; in chest, 44. 20: sight of mind, 21;

Paradise, xxxlv, gaze of soul, 22; per-

Paul. 143, 156. fected r. virtue, 23, 90,

Pauline, xxxlv. 126, 153, 156.

_m_tx 179

Reasoning, chain of, xxvill. T

Retractattons, xxi. T6rentlanus Maurus, 157.

Reuter, 139. Thagaste, xxvii, xxxi.

Rhetoric, xrviiL Theodorus, 142.

Rhetorical, xxxv. Theologian, xxvl, 137.

Rhetorician, xxv, 157. Theosophies, xx.

Riches, 28 ; not to be Theosophist, 137, 140.

craved, 29, 34. Tillemont, xii.

Romanianus, xxxll, 141, Trinity, 165, 171.

142, 145. True, absolutely, 64.

Rome, xxvlll. Truth, xxxvi ; father of,

Roscius, 79. 3 ; desire to comprehend,

Rousseau, 149. 46; distinct from true,

46 ; not in mortal things,

47, 48, 49 ; imperish-

able, 55 ; similitude, the

S mother of, 72; sought

Salsset, xt, xll, xxvl, 159. by soliloquies, 73, 80 ;

Sallust, xl. why called, 96 ; not the

Schaff, xliv. inane, 101 ; immutable,

Scheffer, Ary, xxxix, 138. 110, 153, 156, 158, 161.

Science, demonstrations of, Tyndall, 120.

20; truths of, 21; why

true, 84. U

Senses, testimony of, 13; Unity, 120, 163.

inadequate, 16 ; of soul,

21 ; impediment of, 41;

falsity of, 57 ; deceive V

by similitude, 70. Verecuadus, xrxlll.

Siebeck, J63. Vlllemuin, 125.

Similitude, of false and Virtue, xlx, 22. Is per-

true, 66 ct seq. fected reason, 23.

Socrates, xvil, xxvi, 153, Vision, 24, 25, 139.

161.

Son, xxlx, xxxiL W

Souk Aras, xxvli. Ward, 116, 120, 130.

Soul, seat of intellect, 56; Wicked, penalties to the,

lives forever, 59; living, 7

60; immortal, 88, 106. Wife, 29 ; concerning s,

St. John, 137. 32, 34 ; desire for a, 43.

Staupttz, 167. Will, xviti, xx; corruption

Starbuck, xliv. of, xxxvi ; is free, 7, 8,

Stoics, 17. 114, 115, 116.

180 _m_x

Wisdom, God source of, 3 ; Woman, xvltl, rxlx ; garb

Father of, 3, 10, 16; of, xxarvii, 99, 100.

study of, 32, 35; great- Women, blandishments of,

est good, 37; unique 29.

good, 39; order of ap-

proach to, 41 ; beauty of, Z

42 ; loved for itself Zenoblus, xxxlv ; (re-

alone, _t3. ferred to) 93, 169.

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