Letter IX.

(a.d. 389.)

To Nebridius Augustin Sends Greeting.

1. Although you know my mind well, you are perhaps not aware how much I long to enjoy your society. This great blessing, however, God will some day bestow on me. I have read your letter, so genuine in its utterances, in which you complain of your being in solitude, and, as it were, forsaken by your friends, in whose society you found the sweetest charm of life. But what else can I suggest to you than that which I am persuaded is already your exercise? Commune with your own soul, and raise it up, as far as you are able, unto God. For in Him you hold us also by a firmer bond, not by means of bodily images, which we must meanwhile be content to use in remembering each other, but by means of that faculty of thought through which we realize the fact of our separation from each other.

2. In considering your letters, in answering all of which I have certainly had to answer questions of no small difficulty and importance, I was not a little stunned by the one in which you ask me by what means certain thoughts and dreams are put into our minds by higher powers or by superhuman agents.22    Dæmonibus. The question is a great one, and, as your own prudence must convince you, would require, in order to its being satisfactorily answered, not a mere letter, but a full oral discussion or a whole treatise. I shall try, however, knowing as I do your talents, to throw out a few germs of thought which may shed light on this question, in order that you may either complete the exhaustive treatment of the subject by your own efforts, or at least not despair of the possibility of this important matter being investigated with satisfactory results.

3. It is my opinion that every movement of the mind affects in some degree the body. We know that this is patent even to our senses, dull and sluggish though they are, when the movements of the mind are somewhat vehement, as when we are angry, or sad, or joyful. Whence we may conjecture that, in like manner, when thought is busy, although no bodily effect of the mental act is discernible by us, there may be some such effect discernible by beings of aërial or etherial essence whose perceptive faculty is in the highest degree acute,—so much so, that, in comparison with it, our faculties are scarcely worthy to be called perceptive. Therefore these footprints of its motion, so to speak, which the mind impresses on the body, may perchance not only remain, but remain as it were with the force of a habit; and it may be that, when these are secretly stirred and played upon, they bear thoughts and dreams into our minds, according to the pleasure of the person moving or touching them: and this is done with marvellous facility. For if, as is manifest, the attainments of our earth-born and sluggish bodies in the department of exercise, e.g. in the playing of musical instruments, dancing on the tight-rope, etc., are almost incredible, it is by no means unreasonable to suppose that beings which act with the powers of an aërial or etherial body upon our bodies, and are by the constitution of their natures able to pass unhindered through these bodies, should be capable of much greater quickness in moving whatever they wish, while we, though not perceiving what they do, are nevertheless affected by the results of their activity. We have a somewhat parallel instance in the fact that we do not perceive how it is that superfluity of bile impels us to more frequent outbursts of passionate feeling; and yet it does produce this effect, while this superfluity of bile is itself an effect of our yielding to such passionate feelings.

4. If, however, you hesitate to accept this example as a parallel one, when it is thus cursorily stated by me, turn it over in your thoughts as fully as you can. The mind, if it be continually obstructed by some difficulty in the way of doing and accomplishing what it desires, is thereby made continually angry. For anger, so far as I can judge of its nature, seems to me to be a tumultuous eagerness to take out of the way those things which restrict our freedom of action. Hence it is that usually we vent our anger not only on men, but on such a thing, for example, as the pen with which we write, bruising or breaking it in our passion; and so does the gambler with his dice, the artist with his pencil, and every man with the instrument which he may be using, if he thinks that he is in some way thwarted by it. Now medical men themselves tell us that by these frequent fits of anger bile is increased. But, on the other hand, when the bile is increased, we are easily, and almost without any provocation whatever, made angry. Thus the effect which the mind has by its movement produced upon the body, is capable in its turn of moving the mind again.

5. These things might be treated at very great length, and our knowledge of the subject might be brought to greater certainty and fulness by a large induction from relevant facts. But take along with this letter the one which I sent you lately concerning images and memory,23    See Letter VII. and study it somewhat more carefully; for it was manifest to me, from your reply, that it had not been fully understood. When, to the statements now before you, you add the portion of that letter in which I spoke of a certain natural faculty whereby the mind does in thought add to or take from any object as it pleases, you will see that it is possible for us both in dreams and in waking thoughts to conceive the images of bodily forms which we have never seen.

EPISTOLA IX . Quaestioni de somniis per superiores potestates immissis respondet.

0072

NEBRIDIO AUGUSTINUS.

1. Quanquam mei animi cognitor sis, fortasse tamen ignoras quantum velim praesentia tua frui. Verum hoc tam magnum beneficium Deus quandoque praestabit. Legi rectissimam epistolam tuam, in qua de solitudine questus es, et quadam desertione a familiaribus tuis, cum quibus vita dulcissima est. Sed quid aliud hic tibi dicam, nisi quod te non dubito facere? Confer te ad tuum animum, et illum in Deum leva, quantum potes. Ibi enim certius habes et nos, non per corporeas imagines, quibus nunc in nostra recordatione uti necesse est; sed per illam cogitationem, qua intelligis non loco esse nos simul.

2. Epistolas tuas cum considerarem, quibus non dubium tibi quaerenti magna respondi, vehementer me illa terruit, qua percontaris quomodo fiat ut nobis a superioribus potestatibus vel a daemonibus, et cogitationes quaedam inserantur et somnia. Magna enim res est, cui tu quoque pro tua prudentia perspicis, non epistola, sed aut praesenti collocutione, aut aliquo libello respondendum esse. Tentabo tamen, callens ingenium tuum, quaedam quaestionis hujus lumina praeseminare, ut aut caetera tecum ipse contexas, aut posse ad rei tantae probabilem investigationem perveniri minime desperes.

3. Arbitror enim omnem motum animi aliquid facere in corpore. Id autem usque ad nostros exire sensus, tam hebetes, tamque tardos, cum sunt majores animi motus; velut cum irascimur, aut tristes, aut gaudentes sumus. Ex quo licet conjicere, cum etiam cogitamus aliquid, neque id nobis in nostro corpore apparet, apparere tamen posse aeriis aethereisve animantibus , quorum et sensus acerrimus, et in cujus comparatione noster ne sensus quidem putandus est. Igitur ea quae, ut ita dicam, vestigia sui motus animus figit in corpore, possunt et manere, et quemdam quasi habitum facere; quae latenter cum agitata fuerint et contrectata, secundum agitantis et contrectantis voluntatem, ingerunt nobis cogitationes et somnia; atque id fit mira facilitate. Si enim nostrorum corporum terrenorum et tardissimorum exercitationes, agendis organis musicis, seu in funambulo, caeterisque hujuscemodi spectaculis innumerabilibus, ad quaedam incredibilia pervenisse manifestum est; nequaquam est absurdum, eos qui aerio vel aethereo corpore aliquid in corporibus agunt, quae naturali ordine penetrant, longe majore uti facilitate ad movendum quidquid volunt, non sentientibus nobis, et tamen inde aliquid perpetientibus. Ne 0073 que enim etiam quomodo fellis abundantia nos ad iram crebriorem cogat sentimus; et tamen cogit, cum haec ipsa, quam dixi, abundantia facta sit irascentibus nobis.

4. Sed hoc tamen si non vis simile a nobis paetereunter accipere, versa id cogitatione quantum potes. Nam si animo existat assidue aliqua difficultas agendi atque implendi quod cupit, assidue irascitur. Ira est autem, quantum mea fert opinio, turbulentus appetitus auferendi ea quae facilitatem actionis impediunt. Itaque plerumque non hominibus tantum, sed calamo irascimur in scribendo, eumque collidimus atque frangimus; et aleatores tesseris, et pictores penicillo, et cuique instrumento quilibet, ex quo difficultatem se pati arbitratur. Hac autem assiduitate irascendi fel crescere etiam medici affirmant. Cremento autem fellis rursus et facile ac prope nullis causis existentibus irascimur. Ita quod suo motu animus fecit in corpore, ad eum rursus commovendum valebit.

5. Possunt latissime ista tractari, et multis rerum testimoniis ad certiorem plenioremque perduci notitiam. Sed huic epistolae adjunge illam quam tibi nuper de imaginibus et de memoria misi, et eam diligentius pertracta: nam minus plene a te intellecta, rescripto tuo mihi apparuit. Huic ergo quam nunc legis, cum adjunxeris de illa quod dictum ibi est, de naturali quadam facultate animi minuentis et augentis cogitatione quodlibet; fortasse etiam formae corporum, quas nunquam vidimus, vel cogitando apud nos vel somniando figurentur .