|
24. And hence that noble philosopher Plato endeavored to persuade
us that the souls of men lived 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 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.
For none the more does this fleshly eye, too, distinguish black
things from white without a teacher, because it had already known them
before it was created in this flesh. Why, lastly, is it possible
only in intelligible things that any one properly questioned should
answer according to any branch of learning, although ignorant of it?
Why can no one do this with things sensible, except those which he has
seen in this his present body, or has believed the information of
others who knew them, whether somebody's writings or words? For we
must not acquiesce in their story. who assert that the Samian
Pythagoras recollected some things of this kind, which he had"
experienced when he was previously here in another body; and others
tell yet of others, that they experienced something of the same sort in
their minds: but it may be conjectured that these were untrue
recollections, such as we commonly experience in sleep, when we fancy
we remember, as though we had done or seen it, what we never did or
saw at all; and that the minds of these persons, even though awake,
were affected in this way at the suggestion of malignant and deceitful
spirits, whose care it is to confirm or to sow some false belief
concerning the changes of souls, in order to deceive men. This, I
say, may be conjectured from this, that if they really remembered
those things which they had seen here before, while occupying other
bodies, the same thing would happen to many, nay to almost all; since
they suppose that as the dead from the living, so, without cessation
and continually, the living are coming into existence from the dead;
as sleepers from those that are awake, and those that are awake from
them that sleep.
25. If therefore this is the right distinction between wisdom and
knowledge, that the intellectual cognizance of eternal things belongs
to wisdom, but the rational cognizance of temporal things to
knowledge, it is not difficult to judge which is to be preferred or
postponed to which. But if we must employ some other distinction by
which to know these two apart, which without doubt the apostle teaches
us are different, saying, "To one is given by the Spirit the word
of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit:"
still the difference between those two which we have laid down is a most
evident one, in that the intellectual cognizance of eternal things is
one thing, the rational cognizance of temporal things another; and no
one doubts but that the former is to be preferred to the latter. As
then we leave behind those things which belong to the outer man, and
desire to ascend within from those things which we have in common with
beasts, before we come to the cognizance of things intelligible and
supreme, which are eternal, the rational cognizance of temporal things
presents itself. Let us then find a trinity in this also, if we can,
as we found one in the senses of the body, and in those things which
through them entered in the way of images into our soul or spirit; so
that instead of corporeal things which we touch by corporeal sense,
placed as they are without us, we might have resemblances of bodies
impressed within on the memory from which thought might be formed,
while the will as a third united them; just as the sight of the eyes
was formed from without, which the will applied to the visible thing in
order to produce vision. and united both, while itself also added
itself thereto as a third. But this subject must not be compressed
into this book; so that in that which follows, if God help, it may
be suitably examined, and the conclusions to which we come may be
unfolded.
|
|