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9. But when the human mind knows itself and loves itself, it does
not know and love anything unchangeable: and each individual man
declares his own particular mind by one manner of speech, when he
considers what takes place in himself; but defines the human mind
abstractly by special or general knowledge. And so, when he speaks to
me of his own individual mind, as to whether he understands this or
that, or does not understand it, or whether he wishes or does not wish
this or that, I believe; but when he speaks the truth of the mind of
man generally or specially, I recognize and approve. Whence it is
manifest, that each sees a thing in himself, in such way that another
person may believe what he says of it, yet may not see it; but another
[sees a thing] in the truth itself, in such way that another person
also can gaze upon it; of which the former undergoes changes at
successive times, the latter consists in an unchangeable eternity.
For we do not gather a generic or specific knowledge of the human mind
by means of resemblance by seeing many minds with the eyes of the body:
but we gaze upon indestructible truth, from which to define perfectly,
as far as we can, not of what sort is the mind of any one particular
man, but of what sort it ought to be upon the eternal plan.
10. Whence also, even in the case of the images of things corporeal
which are drawn in through the bodily sense, and in some way infused
into the memory, from which also those things which have not been seen
are thought under a fancied image, whether otherwise than they really
are, or even perchance as they are; even here too, we are proved
either to accept or reject, within ourselves, by other rules which
remain altogether unchangeable above our mind, when we approve or
reject anything rightly. For both when recall the walls of Carthage
which I have seen, and imagine to myself the walls of Alexandria
which I have not seen, and, in preferring this to that among forms
which in both cases are imaginary, make that preference upon grounds of
reason; the judgment of truth from above is still strong and clear,
and rests firmly upon the utterly indestructible rules of its own
right; and if it is covered as it were by cloudiness of corporeal
images, yet is not wrapt up and confounded in them.
11. But it makes a difference, whether, under that or in that
darkness, I am shut off as it were from the clear heaven; or whether
(as usually happens on lofty mountains), enjoying the free air
between both, I at once look up above to the calmest light, and down
below upon the densest clouds. For whence is the ardor of brotherly
love kindled in me, when I hear that some man has borne bitter
torments for the excellence and steadfastness of faith? And if that
man is shown to me with the finger, I am eager to join myself to him,
to become acquainted with him, to bind him to myself in friendship.
And accordingly, if opportunity offers, I draw near, I address
him, I converse with him, I express my goodwill towards him in what
words I can, and wish that in him too in turn should be brought to
pass and expressed goodwill towards me; and I endeavor after a
spiritual embrace in the way of belief, since I cannot search out so
quickly and discern altogether his innermost heart. I love therefore
the faithful and courageous man with a pure and genuine love. But if
he were to confess to me in the course of conversation, or were through
unguardedness to show in any way, that either he believes something
unseemly of God, and desires also something carnal in Him, and that
he bore these torments on behalf of such an error, or from the desire
of money for which he hoped, or from empty greediness of human praise:
immediately it follows that the love with which I was borne towards
him, displeased, and as it were repelled, and taken away from an
unworthy man, remains in that form, after which, believing him such
as I did, I had loved him; unless perhaps I have come to love him
to this end, that he may become such, while I have found him not to
be such in fact. And in that man, too, nothing is changed: although
it can be changed, so that he may become that which I had believed him
to be already. But in my mind there certainly is something changed,
viz., the estimate I had formed of him, which was before of one
sort, and now is of another: and the same love, at the bidding from
above of unchangeable righteousness, is turned aside from the purpose
of enjoying, to the purpose of taking counsel. But the form itself of
unshaken and stable truth, wherein I should have enjoyed the fruition
of the man, believing him to be good, and wherein likewise I take
counsel that he may be good, sheds in an immoveable eternity the same
light of incorruptible and most sound reason, both upon the sight of my
mind, and upon that cloud of images, which I discern from above,
when I think of the same man whom I had seen. 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 displeased me, I
should correct it. We judge therefore of those particular things
according 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, in 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 intelligence what is above the eye of
the mind, viz., the reasons and the unspeakably beautiful skill of
such forms.
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