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29. How, then, do I seek Thee, O Lord? For when I seek
Thee, my God, I seek a happy life. I will seek Thee, that my
soul may live.' For my body liveth by my soul, and my soul liveth by
Thee. How, then, do I seek a happy life, seeing that it is not
mine till I can say, "It is enough!" in that place where I ought
to say it? How do I seek it? Is it by remembrance, as though I
had forgotten it, knowing too that I had forgotten it? or, longing
to learn it as a thing unknown, which either I had never known, or
had so forgotten it as not even to remember that I had forgotten it?
Is not a happy life the thing that all desire, and is there any one
who altogether desires it not? But where did they acquire the
knowledge of it, that they so desire it? Where have they seen it,
that they so love it? Truly we have it, but how I know not. Yea,
there is another way in which, when any one hath it, he is happy; and
some there be that are happy in hope. These have it in an inferior
kind to those that are happy in fact; and yet are they better off than
they who are happy neither in fact nor in hope. And even these, had
they it not in some way, would not so much desire to be happy, which
that they do desire is most certain. How they come to know it, I
cannot tell, but they have it by some kind of knowledge unknown to me,
who am in much doubt as to whether it be in the memory; for if it be
there, then have we been happy once; whether all individually, or as
in that man who first sinned, in whom also we all died? and from whom
we are all born with misery, I do not now ask; but I ask whether the
happy life be in the memory? For did we not know it, we should not
love it. We hear the name, and we all acknowledge that we desire the
thing; for we are not delighted with the sound only. For when a
Greek hears it spoken in Latin, he does not feel delighted, for he
knows not what is spoken; but we are delighted. as he too would be if
he heard it in Greek; because the thing itself is neither Greek nor
Latin, which Greeks and Latins, and men of all other tongues, long
so earnestly to obtain. It is then known unto all, and could they
with one voice be asked whether they wished to be happy, without doubt
they would all answer that they would. And this could not be unless
the thing itself, of which it is the name, were retained in their
memory.
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