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30. But is it so as one who has seen Carthage remembers it? No.
For a happy life is not visible to the eye, because it is not a body.
Is it, then, as we remember numbers? No. For. he that hath these
in his knowledge strives not to attain further; but a happy life we
have in our knowledge, and, therefore, do we love it, while yet we
wish further to attain it that we may be happy. Is it, then, as we
remember eloquence? No. For although some, when they hear this
name, call the thing to mind, who, indeed, are not yet eloquent,
and many who wish to be so, whence it appears to be in, their
knowledge; yet have these by their bodily perceptions noticed that
others are eloquent, and been delighted with it, and long to be so,
although they would not be delighted save for some interior
knowledge, nor desire to be so unless they were delighted, but a
happy life we can by no bodily perception make experience of in others.
Is it, then, as we remember joy? It may be so; for my joy I
remember, even when sad, like as I do a happy life when I am
miserable. Nor did I ever with perception of the body either see,
hear, smell, taste, or touch my joy; but I experienced it in my
mind when I rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clung to my memory, so
that I can call it to mind sometimes with disdain and at others with
desire, according to the difference of the things wherein I now
remember that I rejoiced. For even from unclean things have I been
bathed with a certain joy, which now calling to mind, I detest and
execrate; at other times, from good and honest things, which, with
longing, I call to mind, though perchance they be not nigh at hand,
and then with sadness do I call to mind a former joy.
31. Where and when, then, did I experience my happy life, that
I should call it to mind, and love and long for it? Nor is it I
alone or e a few others who wish to be happy, but truly l all; which,
unless by certain knowledge we knew, we should not wish with so certain
a will. But how is this, that if two men be asked whether they would
wish to serve as soldiers one, it may be, would reply that he would,
the other that he would not; but if they were asked whether they would
wish to be happy, both of them would unhesitatingly say that they
would; and this one would wish to serve, and the other not, from no
other motive but to be happy? Is it, perchance, that as one joys in
this, and another in that, so do all men agree in their wish for
happiness, as they would agree, were they asked, in wishing to have
joy, and this joy they call a happy life? Although, then, one
pursues joy in this way, and another in that, all have one goal,
which they strive to attain, namely, to have joy. This life, being
a thing which no one can say he has not experienced, it is on that
account found in the memory, and recognised whenever the name of a
happy life is heard.
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