Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 33 part 1/2

Now let a more refined intention approach, to unfold these very matters in due sequence with greater clarity. And first, since no one can at all love a thing wholly unknown, we must carefully consider of what sort is the love of those who are eager to learn—that is, of those not yet knowing, but still desiring to know, some branch of learning. For even in those matters in which 'study' is not usually spoken of, loves are wont to arise from hearsay, when the mind is inflamed to see and to enjoy by the report of some beauty, because it generally knows the beauties of bodies from the fact that it has seen very many, and there is within, whereby that may be approved after which one longs from without. And when this happens, love is not aroused of a thing wholly unknown, whose kind is thus known.

But when we love a good man whose face we have not seen, we love him from the knowledge of the virtues which we know in the truth itself. And to the knowing of doctrines we are most often kindled by the authority of those who praise and commend them; and yet, unless we had briefly impressed on the mind some notion of each doctrine, we would burn with no zeal to learn it. For who would expend any care and labor on knowing rhetoric, for example, unless he first knew that it is the science of speaking?

Sometimes, too, we admire the very ends of doctrines when we have heard or experienced them, and from this we are inflamed to procure by learning the faculty whereby we may be able to attain to them; just as if to one who knows not letters it were said that there is a certain art whereby anyone may be able to send words made by the hand in silence to one however far absent, which he in turn to whom they are sent may gather, not with the ears, but with the eyes, and may see this being done. Does he not, while he desires to know how this may be, move with all zeal about that end which he already holds as known? Thus are the studies of learners kindled. For what anyone wholly is ignorant of he can in no way love.

So also, if anyone hear an unknown sign, such as the sound of some word by which he is ignorant of what is signified, he desires to know what indeed it is—that is, to what thing that sound has been appointed to recall to mind—as if he should hear the word 'temetum' spoken and, not knowing what it is, should inquire. It is now necessary, then, that he already know it to be a sign—that is, that that utterance is not empty, but that something is signified by it; otherwise this trisyllable is already known, and has impressed its articulated form upon the mind through the sense of the ears. What more is required in it, that it may become better known—whose every letter and every interval of sound is known—except that at the same time it has become known to be a sign, and has stirred up the desire of knowing of what thing it is a sign?

The more, therefore, a thing is known but not fully known, the more the mind desires to know concerning it what remains; for if it knew only that this utterance existed, and did not know that it was the sign of some thing, it would now seek nothing further, the sensible thing having been perceived by sensing as far as it could. But because it now knows not only that it is an utterance but also that it is a sign, it wishes to know it perfectly; nor is any sign known perfectly unless it be recognized of what thing it is the sign. Whoever, then, seeks with burning care to know this, and, kindled by zeal, presses on—can he be said to be without love? What, then, does he love? For assuredly nothing can be loved unless it be known.

For it is not those three syllables which he loves, which he already holds as known (for if he now loves this in them, because he knows they signify something, that is not now under discussion; for it is not this that he seeks to know). But we are inquiring, in that which he studies to know, what he loves—which assuredly he does not yet know; and on that account we wonder why he loves, since we most firmly know that nothing can be loved unless it be known. What, then, does he love, save that he knows and beholds, in the reasons of things, what is the beauty of that doctrine which contains the knowledge of all signs; and what is the usefulness in that skill whereby human society communicates its perceptions to one another, lest the assemblies of men be worse to each other than any solitude, if they did not mingle their thoughts by conversing?

This comely and useful form, therefore, the soul discerns and knows and loves, and studies to have it perfected in itself as much as it can—whoever inquires after any meaning of significant words which he does not know; for it is one thing that he beholds it in the light of truth, another that he desires it within his own faculty. For he beholds in the light of truth how great and how good a thing it is to understand and to speak the tongues of all the nations of all peoples, and to hear no one as a foreigner, and by no one to be so heard.

The beauty of such knowledge is already discerned in thought, and the known thing is loved; and it is so beheld and so inflames the zeal of learners that they are stirred toward it and gape after it in all the labour they expend in attaining such a faculty, so that they may even embrace by practice what they foreknow by reason; and thus each one, the nearer he draws in hope to a given faculty, the more fervently he burns with love for it. For those studies are pursued more ardently which men do not despair of being able to grasp. For that which a man has no hope of acquiring he either loves lukewarmly or loves not at all, however beautiful he may see it to be. Wherefore, because the knowledge of all languages is despaired of by nearly everyone, each man studies most of all to know the tongue of his own nation.

But even if a man feels that he does not suffice to master this fully, no one is nevertheless so slothful concerning this knowledge that, when he hears an unknown word, he does not wish to know what it is, and, if he can, does not seek it out and learn it. And while he seeks it, he is indeed engaged in the zeal for learning, and seems to love a thing unknown—yet it is not so. For that form touches the soul which it knows and thinks upon, in which shines the beauty of joining souls together in the hearing and rendering of known utterances; and this kindles with zeal the one who indeed seeks what he does not know, yet who looks upon and loves the known form to which that unknown thing belongs. And so, if to one who asks, for example, what 'temetum' is (for I had set this down as an example), it be said, 'What is that to you?' he will answer:

'Lest perhaps I hear someone speaking and do not understand, or somewhere read it and not know what the writer meant.' Who indeed would say to such a man, 'Do not understand what you hear; do not know what you read'? For to nearly all rational souls the beauty of this skill lies ready to be seen, whereby the thoughts of men, signified to one another by the utterance of meaningful sounds, are made known; and on account of this beauty, known and therefore loved, that unknown word is zealously sought. And so, when he has heard and learned that 'temetum' was called wine by the ancients, but that by the usage of speech which we now have this term has died out, he will perhaps reckon it needful to himself for the sake of certain books of the ancients.

But if he holds even those books to be superfluous, perhaps he will not think it worth committing to memory, because he sees that it in no way pertains to that form of learning which he beholds and loves as known in his mind. Wherefore all the love of a studious mind—that is, of one willing to know what it does not know—is not the love of that thing which it does not know, but of that which it does know, on account of which it wills to know what it does not know. Or if a man is so curious that he is snatched away not by any known cause but by the mere love of knowing things unknown, this curious man must indeed be distinguished from the name of the studious; yet neither does he love things unknown—rather it is more fitting to say he 'hates things unknown,' which he wishes to be none, in that he wishes all to be known.

But lest anyone bring back to us a harder question, asserting that a man can no more hate what he does not know than he can love what he does not know, we do not withstand the truth; but it must be understood that it is not the same thing to say, 'He loves to know things unknown,' as if one were to say, 'He loves things unknown.' For it can come to pass that a man loves to know things unknown, but that he love things unknown cannot be. For 'to know' is not set down there in vain, since he who loves to know things unknown loves not the unknown things themselves, but the very knowing. And unless he had this as known, he could confidently say neither that he knows anything nor that he does not know it. For not only he who says 'I know'—and says truly—must needs know what it is to know; but also he who says:

'I do not know'—and says this confidently and truly, and knows that he speaks truly—assuredly knows what it is to know, since he also distinguishes the one who does not know from the one who knows, when, truthfully looking upon himself, he says, 'I do not know.' And when he knows that he speaks this truly, whence would he know it if he did not know what it is to know? [II 4] Therefore any studious man whatsoever, any curious man whatsoever, does not love things unknown even when with the most ardent appetite he presses on to know what he does not know. For either he already holds as known in its kind that which he loves, and desires to know it also in some single thing, or among single things which are perhaps praised to him though not yet known to him; and he fashions in his mind an imaginary form by which he may be stirred to love. (But whence does he fashion it, save from those things which he already knew?

Yet if he finds the thing that was praised to be unlike that form fashioned in his mind and most well known in his thought, perhaps he will not love it; but if he does love it, he will begin to love it from the moment he learned it. For a little before, that which was loved was other than what the mind, forming it, had been wont to present to itself. But if he finds it like that form which report had proclaimed, so that he can truly say to it, 'I was already loving you,' not even then indeed was he loving a thing unknown, which he had known in that likeness.) Or in the form of the eternal reason we see something and there love it; and when it is expressed in the image of some temporal thing, we believe those who, having experienced it, praise it, and we love it—we love nothing unknown, concerning which we have already discoursed enough above.

Or we love something known on account of which we seek something unknown; the love of that unknown thing by no means holds us, but the love of that known thing, to which we know it belongs, so that we may know also that which, still unknown, we seek—just as I spoke a little before concerning the unknown word. Or each one loves the very knowing, which can be unknown to no one who desires to know anything. For these causes those seem to love things unknown who wish to know something they do not know; and because of their more ardent appetite for seeking, they cannot be said to be without love. But that the matter stands otherwise, and that nothing at all is loved while unknown, I think I have persuaded those who diligently look upon the truth.

But since the examples we have given are of those who desire to know something which they themselves are not, it must be seen whether perhaps some new kind of thing appears when the mind desires to know its own self. [III 5] What then does the mind love when it ardently seeks its own self in order to know itself, while it is unknown to itself? For behold, the mind seeks its own self in order to know itself, and is inflamed with this zeal. Therefore it loves. But what does it love? If it loves itself, how can it, when it does not yet know itself, since no one can love what he does not know? Or has report proclaimed to it its own appearance, as we are wont to hear of things absent? Perhaps, then, it does not love itself, but that which it imagines concerning itself—which is perhaps far other than it is.

Or if the mind fashions something like itself, and therefore, when it loves this figment, it loves itself before it knows itself, because it beholds that which is like itself, then it knows other minds from which it fashions itself, and is known to itself in the kind itself. Why then, when it knows other minds, does it not know itself, since nothing can be more present to itself than itself? But if, as with the eyes of the body, other eyes are better known than they are to themselves, then let it not seek itself, since it will never find itself; for the eyes will never see themselves except in mirrors, and it must in no way be thought that in the contemplation of incorporeal things any such thing is applied, so that the mind should know itself as in a mirror.

Or does it, in the reason of eternal truth, see how beautiful a thing it is to know itself, and love this that it sees, and strive that it may come to pass in itself, because, although it is not known to itself, yet it is known to it how good it is that it should be known to itself? And this indeed is most marvelous, that it does not yet know itself, and yet already knows how beautiful it is to know itself. Or does it see some best end, that is, its own security and blessedness, through a certain hidden memory which did not desert it as it went forth into far regions, and does it believe that unless it knows its own self it cannot come to that same end? Thus, while it loves the one, it seeks the other, and loves the known thing on account of which it seeks the unknown.

But why could the memory of its own blessedness endure, while the memory of itself could not endure together with it, so that it should know itself, which wishes to arrive, as well as it knows that at which it wishes to arrive? Or when it loves to know itself, does it love not itself, which it does not yet know, but the very knowing, and does it more bitterly bear that it itself is lacking to its own knowledge, by which it wishes to comprehend all things? For it knows what it is to know, and while it loves this which it knows, it also desires to know itself. Where then does it know its own knowing, if it does not know itself? For it knows that it knows other things, but that it does not know itself; for from this it knows also what it is to know. In what manner then does it know itself as knowing something, which does not know its own self? For it does not know some other mind as knowing, but its own self. Therefore it knows its own self.

Furthermore, when it seeks itself in order to know itself, it already knows itself as seeking. Therefore it already knows itself. Wherefore it cannot at all be ignorant of itself; for while it knows itself as not-knowing, it assuredly knows itself. But if it were ignorant of itself as not-knowing, it would not seek itself in order to know itself. Wherefore, by the very fact that it seeks itself, it is proved to be more known than unknown to itself. For it knows itself as seeking and as not-knowing, while it seeks itself in order to know itself. What then shall we say? That it knows itself in part, and in part does not know itself? But it is absurd to say that it does not know as a whole that which it knows. I do not say, 'It knows the whole,' but, 'What it knows, it knows as a whole.' When therefore it knows something of itself which it cannot know except as a whole, it knows its whole self. But it knows itself as knowing something, and it cannot know anything except as a whole.

Therefore it knows itself as a whole. Furthermore, what of it is so well known to it as that it lives? [IV] But it cannot both be a mind and not live, since it has even more, namely that it understands; for the souls of beasts also live, but do not understand. As therefore the mind is wholly mind, so it wholly lives. But it knows that it lives; therefore it knows its whole self. Finally, when the mind seeks to know itself, it already knows that it is a mind; otherwise it does not know whether it seeks itself, and perhaps seeks one thing for another. For it can come to pass that it is not itself a mind, and thus, while it seeks to know a mind, it does not seek its own self. Wherefore, since, when the mind seeks what a mind is, it knows that it seeks its own self, it assuredly knows that it itself is a mind.

Further, if it knows this concerning itself, that it is a mind, and it is wholly a mind, then it knows its whole self. But behold—suppose it did not know itself to be a mind when it seeks itself; suppose it knew only this, that it seeks itself. For even so it can seek one thing for another, if it does not know this; but that it may not seek one thing for another, it doubtless knows what it seeks. But if it knows what it seeks, and it seeks its own self, then assuredly it knows its own self. Why then does it still seek? But if it knows itself in part, and in part still seeks, then it seeks not its own self but a part of itself; for when it is called by its own name, the whole is meant. Furthermore, because it knows that it has not yet been found by itself as a whole, it knows how great its whole is.

And thus it seeks what is lacking, in the way that we are wont to seek that there may come to mind what has slipped away, which yet has not wholly slipped away, because it can be recognized, when it comes, to be that which was being sought. But how can a mind come to mind, as though a mind could be not-in-mind? To this is added that, if, part having been found, it does not seek its whole self, yet it seeks its whole self. Therefore its whole self is present to it, and there is nothing further to be sought; for that is lacking which is sought, not the one who seeks. When therefore it seeks its whole self, nothing of it is lacking. Or if it does not seek its whole self, but the part which has been found seeks the part which has not yet been found, then the mind does not seek itself, no part of which seeks itself. For the part which has been found does not seek itself;

and the part which has not yet been found does not itself seek itself either, since it is sought by that part which has already been found. Wherefore, since neither does the whole mind seek itself, nor does any part of it seek itself, the mind does not seek itself at all. [V 7] Why then is it commanded to know its own self? I believe it is so that it may think upon itself and live according to its own nature—that is, that it may desire to be ordered according to its nature: beneath Him to whom it ought to be subject, above those things over which it ought to be set; beneath Him by whom it ought to be ruled, above those things which it ought to rule. For it does many things through depraved desire, as though it had forgotten itself. For it sees certain beautiful things within, in a more excellent nature, which is God.

And when it ought to stand fast that it may enjoy them, willing to attribute these things to itself and to be, not from Him and like Him, but of its own self, what He is, it turns away from Him, and is moved and slips down into less and less, which is thought to be more and more; because neither is it itself sufficient for itself, nor is anything sufficient for it when it withdraws from Him who alone is sufficient. And therefore through neediness and difficulty it becomes overly intent upon its own actions and the restless delights which it gathers through them; and thus, by the desire of acquiring knowledge from those things which are without—whose kind, once known, it loves, and perceives can be lost unless held by anxious care—it loses its security, and it thinks upon itself the less, the more secure it is that it cannot lose itself.

Thus, since it is one thing not to know oneself, and another not to think upon oneself (for we do not say that a man skilled in many branches of learning is ignorant of grammar when he does not think upon it, because he is then thinking upon the art of medicine)—since therefore it is one thing not to know oneself, and another not to think upon oneself, so great is the force of love that those things which the mind has long thought upon with love, and to which it has clung by the glue of care, it draws along with itself even when it returns in some manner to think upon itself. And because those are bodies which it has loved without through the senses of the flesh, and it has been entangled by a certain long familiarity with them, and yet cannot carry those very bodies inward with it, as it were into the region of incorporeal nature, it rolls up their images and snatches them, made within itself out of itself.

For it gives something of its own substance to the forming of them; but it keeps back something whereby it may freely judge concerning the appearance of such images, and this is more properly the mind—that is, the rational understanding, which is kept back that it may judge. For those parts of the soul which are informed with the likenesses of bodies, we perceive that we have in common even with the beasts. [VI 8] But the mind errs when it joins itself to these images with so great a love that it even reckons itself to be something of this kind. For thus it is conformed to them in a certain manner, not by being that thing, but by thinking it—not that it thinks itself to be an image, but altogether that very thing whose image it has with it.

For there flourishes in it the judgment of discerning the body, which it leaves without, from the image which it carries within concerning that body—except when these same images are so expressed as though they were perceived without and not thought within, as is wont to happen to those asleep, or raving, or in some ecstasy. [VII 9] When therefore it thinks itself to be some such thing, it thinks itself to be a body. And because it is well conscious of its own primacy, whereby it rules the body, hence it has come to pass that certain men have inquired what in the body is of greater power in the body, and have reckoned this to be the mind, or altogether the whole soul. And so some have thought it to be the blood, others the brain, others the heart—not as the Scripture says: 'I will confess to Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart,' and: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart';

(for this is said by an abuse or a transferring of the term from the body to the soul)—but the very particle of the body itself, which we see in the torn-open entrails, they supposed it to be. Others believed that it is compounded of the most minute and indivisible little bodies, which they call atoms, running together and cohering into one. Others said that air, others that fire, was its substance. Others said that it is no substance at all, because they could conceive of no substance save a body, and did not find it to be a body, but supposed it to be the very tempering of our body, or the framework of those first elements by which this flesh is, as it were, knit together.

And all these judged it to be mortal, because whether it were a body or some composition of a body, it certainly could not remain immortally. But those who held its substance to be a certain life, by no means corporeal—since they found life to be that which animates and vivifies every living body—consequently endeavored to prove, as each was able, that it is also immortal, because life cannot lack life. But concerning that fifth body, I know not what, which certain men, joining it to the four best-known elements of this world, said the soul to be thence—on this I do not think it needful to discourse at length in this place; for either they call 'body' that of which, in the extent of place, a part is less than the whole, and these are to be numbered among those who believed the mind to be corporeal;

or if they call 'body' either every substance or every mutable substance, since they know that not everything is contained in the spaces of places by some length and breadth and height, we need not contend with them concerning a question of terms. In all these opinions, whoever sees that the nature of the mind both is a substance and is not corporeal—that is, does not occupy a lesser space of place with a lesser part of itself, and a greater with a greater—must at the same time see that those who suppose it to be corporeal err not because the mind is lacking to their knowledge, but because they adjoin those things without which they can conceive of no nature;

for without the phantasms of bodies, whatever they be bidden to conceive, they judge to be nothing at all; and therefore the mind does not seek itself as though it were lacking to itself. For what is so present to knowledge as that which is present to the mind, or what is so present to the mind as the mind itself? Whence also that which is called 'invention' (inventio), if we trace back the origin of the word, what else does it sound but that to invent (invenire) is to come into (in-venire) that which is sought? Therefore those things which come into the mind as of their own accord are not usually called inventions—found things—although they can be called known, because we were not tending toward them in seeking, so as to come into them, that is, to find them.

Wherefore, just as those things which are sought by the eyes or by any other sense of the body, the mind itself seeks (for it is the mind itself that also directs the sense of the flesh, and then finds when that same sense comes into the things which are sought), so other things which it ought to know not through a corporeal sense as intermediary, but through itself, it finds when it comes into them—either in a higher substance, that is, in God, or in the other parts of the soul, as when it judges concerning the very images of bodies; for it finds them within, in the soul, impressed through the body. [VIII 11] Therefore how it may seek and find its own self is a marvelous question—whither it tends that it may seek, or whither it comes that it may find. For what is so in the mind as the mind itself?

But because it is in those things which it thinks upon with love, and it has been habituated with love to sensible things—that is, to corporeal things—it is not able to be within itself without the images of them. Hence there arises to it the disgrace of error, while it cannot separate from itself the images of sensed things, so as to see itself alone; for they have clung together marvelously by the glue of love. And this is its uncleanness, that while it strives to think itself alone, it supposes itself to be that thing without which it cannot think itself. When therefore it is commanded to know its own self, let it not seek itself as though it had been drawn away from itself, but let it draw away that which it has added to itself.

For it itself is more inward not only than these sensible things which are manifestly without, but even than their images, which are in a certain part of the soul which the beasts also have, although they lack understanding, which is proper to the mind. Since therefore the mind is inward, in a certain manner it goes forth from its own self when it puts forth the affection of love into these, as it were, footprints of its many attentions. Which footprints are, as it were, impressed upon the memory, when these corporeal things which are without are sensed, so that even when these are absent, their images are nevertheless present to those thinking upon them. Let it therefore know its own self, and not seek itself as though absent, but let it fix upon itself the intention of will by which it was wandering through other things, and let it think upon itself.

Thus it will see that it never did not love itself, never was ignorant of itself; but by loving another thing along with itself, it confounded itself with that thing, and in a certain manner grew together with it, and thus, while it embraced diverse things as though one, it supposed to be one that which are diverse. [XI 12] Let it not therefore seek to behold itself as though absent, but let it take care to discern itself as present. Nor let it come to know itself as though it did not know itself, but let it distinguish itself from that which it knows to be another. For that very thing which it hears—'Know thyself'—how will it take care to do, if it does not know either what 'know' is or what 'thyself' is? But if it knows both, then it knows also its own self; for it is not said to the mind, 'Know thyself,' in the way it is said, 'Know the cherubim and the seraphim';

for concerning those absent beings we believe, according to what is proclaimed—that they are certain heavenly powers. Nor as it is said, 'Know the will of that man,' which is present to us neither for perceiving nor for understanding in any way, except by corporeal signs put forth, and this in such a way that we believe rather than understand. Nor as it is said to a man, 'See thy face,' which cannot be done except in a mirror. For our very face is absent from our sight, because it is not there whither our sight can be directed. But when it is said to the mind, 'Know thyself,' by that very stroke by which it understands what is said, 'thyself,' it knows its own self, and for no other reason than that it is present to itself.

But if it does not understand what is said, it assuredly does not do it. This therefore is commanded to it, that it do that which it does when it understands the command itself. Let it not then adjoin anything else to that whereby it knows its own self, when it hears the command that it know its own self. For it certainly knows that this is said to it—namely, to itself, which is, and lives, and understands. But a corpse also is, and a beast also lives; yet neither a corpse nor a beast understands. So therefore it knows that it is and lives in the way that intelligence is and lives. [X] When therefore, for example, the mind supposes itself to be air, it supposes that air understands; yet it knows that it itself understands, but it does not know that it is air—it supposes it. Let it separate that which it supposes itself to be; let it discern that which it knows;