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Wherefore let us consider more carefully that example which we have
adduced, wherein it was shown that not knowing a thing is different
from not thinking [conceiving] of it; and that it may so happen that
a man knows something of which he is not thinking, when he is thinking
of something else, not of that. When any one, then, who is skilled
in two or more branches of knowledge is thinking of one of them, though
he is not thinking of the other or others, yet he knows them. But can
we rightly say, This musician certainly knows music, but he does not
now understand it, because he is not thinking of it; but he does now
understand geometry, for of that he is now thinking? Such an
assertion, as far as appears, is absurd. What, again, if we were
to say, This musician certainly knows music, but he does not now love
it, while he is not now thinking of it; but he does now love
geometry, because of that he is now thinking, is not this similarly
absurd? But we say quite correctly, This person whom you perceive
disputing about geometry is also a perfect musician, for he both
remembers music, and understands, and loves it; but although he both
knows and loves it, he is not now thinking of it, since he is thinking
of geometry, of which he is disputing. And hence we are warned that
we have a kind of knowledge of certain things stored up in the recesses
of the mind, and that this, when it is thought of, as it were, steps
forth in public, and is placed as if openly in the sight of the mind;
for then the mind itself finds that it both remembers, and
understands, and loves itself, even although it was not thinking of
itself, when it was thinking of something else. But in the case of
that of which we have not thought for a long time, and cannot think of
it unless reminded; that, if the phrase is allowable, in some
wonderful way I know not how, we do not know that we know. In
short, it is rightly said by him who reminds, to him whom he reminds,
You know this, but you do not know that you know it; I will remind
you, and you will find that you know what you had thought you did not
know. Books, too, lead to the same results, viz. those that are
written upon subjects which the reader under the guidance of reason
finds to be true; not those subjects which he believes to be true on
the faith of the narrator, as in the case of history; but those which
he himself also finds to be true, either of himself, or in that truth
itself which is the light of the mind. But he who cannot contemplate
these things, even when reminded, is too deeply buried in the darkness
of ignorance, through great blindness of heart and too wonderfully
needs divine help, to be able to attain to true wisdom.
10. For this reason I have wished to adduce some kind of proof, be
it what it might, respecting the act of conceiving, such as might
serve to show in what way, out of the things contained in the memory,
the mind's eye is informed in recollecting, and some such thing is
begotten, when a man conceives, as was already in him when, before he
conceived, he remembered; because it is easier to distinguish things
that take place at successive times, and where the parent precedes the
offspring by an interval of time. For if we refer ourselves to the
inner memory of the mind by which it remembers itself, and to the inner
understanding by which it understands itself, and to the inner will by
which it loves itself, where these three always are together, and
always have been together since they began to be at all, whether they
were being thought of or not; the image of this trinity will indeed
appear to pertain even to the memory alone; but because in this case a
word cannot be without a thought (for we think all that we say, even
if it be said by that tuner word which belongs to no separate
language), this image is rather to be discerned in these three
things, viz. memory, intelligence, will.
And I mean now by intelligence that by which we understand in
thought, that is, when our thought is formed by the finding of those
things, which had been at hand to the memory but were not being thought
of; and I mean that will, or love, or preference which Combines
this offspring and parent, and is in some way common to both. Hence
it was that I tried also, viz. in the eleventh book, to lead on the
slowness of readers by means of outward sensible things which are seen
by the eyes of the flesh; and that I then proceeded to enter with them
upon that power of the tuner man whereby he reasons of things temporal,
deferring the consideration of that which dominates as the higher
power, by which he, contemplates things eternal. And I discussed
this in two books, distinguishing the two in the twelfth, the one of
them being higher and the other lower, and that the lower ought to be
subject to the higher; and in the thirteenth I discussed, with what
truth and brevity I could, the office of the lower, in which the
wholesome knowledge of things human is contained, in order that we may
so act in this temporal life as to attain that which is eternal;
since, indeed, I have cursorily included in a single book a subject
so manifold and copious, and one so well known by the many and great
arguments of many and great men, while manifesting that a trinity
exists also in it, but not yet one that can be called an image of
God.
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