Chapter 2 [II.]—The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin.

And they are these: The first, that I did not venture to make a definite statement touching the origin of those souls which have been given, or are being given, to human beings, since the first man—because I confess my ignorance of the subject; the second, because I said I was sure the soul was spirit, not body. Under this second point, however, you have included two grounds of censure: one, because I refused to believe the soul to be corporeal; the other, because I affirmed it to be spirit. For to you the soul appears both to be body and not to be spirit. I must therefore request your attention to my own defence against your censure, and ask you to embrace the opportunity which my self-defence affords you of learning what points there are in yourself also which require your amendment. Recall, then, the words of your book in which you first mentioned my name. “I know,” you say, “many men of very great reputation who when consulted have kept silence, or admitted nothing clearly, but have withdrawn from their discussions everything definite when they commence their exposition. Of such character are the contents of sundry writings which I have read at your house by a very learned man and renowned bishop, called Augustin. The truth is, I suppose, they have with an overweening modesty and diffidence investigated the mysteries of this subject, and have consumed within themselves the judgment of their own treatises, and have professed themselves incapable of determining anything on this point. But, I assure you, it appears to me excessively absurd and unreasonable that a man should be a stranger to himself; or that a person who is supposed to have acquired the knowledge of all things, should regard himself as unknown to his very self. For what difference is there between a man and a brute beast, if he knows not how to discuss and determine his own quality and nature? so that there may justly be applied to him the statement of Scripture: ‘Man, although he was in honour, understood not; he is like the cattle, and is compared with them.’114    See above, Book i. 4 and Book ii. 5.    Ps. xlix. 12. For when the good and gracious God created everything with reason and wisdom, and produced man as a rational animal, capable of understanding, endowed with reason, and lively with sensation,—because by His prudent arrangement He assigns their place to all creatures which do not participate in the faculty of reason,—what more incongruous idea could be suggested, than that God had withheld from him the simple knowledge of himself? The wisdom of this world, indeed, is ever aiming with much effort to attain to the knowledge of truth; its researches, no doubt, fall short of the aim, from its inability to know through what agency it is permitted that truth should be ascertained; but yet there are some things on the nature of the soul, near (I might even say, akin) to the truth which it has attempted to discern. Under these circumstances, how unbecoming and even shameful a thing it is, that any man of religious principle should either have no intelligent views on this very subject, or prohibit himself from acquiring any!”

CAPUT II.

2. Haec autem sunt: unum, quod de origine animarum, quae post primum hominem datae sunt, vel dantur hominibus, non sum ausus aliquid definire, quia fateor me nescire; alterum, quod animam scire me dixi spiritum esse, non corpus. Sed in hoc altero duo reprehendisti: unum, quod non eam crederem corpus esse; alterum, quod eam spiritum crederem. Tibi enim videtur et corpus esse animam, et non esse spiritum. Audi igitur purgationem meam contra reprehensionem tuam, et ex hac occasione qua me tibi purgo, in te ipso disce quae purges. Recole verba libri tui, ubi me primitus nominasti. «Scio,» inquis, «plerosque et facile peritissimos viros, insuper et consultos tenuisse silentium, aut nihil expressius elocutos, cum definitionem disputationibus suis inchoata expositione subtraherent; sicuti nuper apud te Augustini doctissimi viri praedicatique episcopi comprehensum litteris lectitavi: modestius quidem, ut reor, ac verecundius hujusce rei arcana rimantes, intra se ipsos tractatus sui devorasse judicium, neque se posse ex hinc aliquid determinare professos. Sed mihi, crede, satis superque videtur absurdum atque incongruum rationi, ut homo ipse expers sui sit, aut is qui rerum omnium creditur adeptus esse notitiam, sibi ipsi habeatur ignotus. Quid autem differt homo a pecore , si nescit de sua qualitate naturaque disquirere atque disserere; ut merito in illum conveniat quod scriptum est, Homo cum esset in honore, non intellexit; assimilatus est jumentis, et comparatus est eis (Psal. XLVIII, 13). Nam cum Deus bonus nihil non ratione condiderit, ipsumque hominem animal rationale, intellectus capacem, rationis compotem, sensuque vivacem, qui omnia rationis expertia prudenti ordinatione distribuat , 0525 procreaverit; quid tam inconvenienter dici potest, quam ut eum sola sui notione fraudarit? Et cum sapientia mundi, quae sese usque ad veri cognitionem supervacua quidem investigatione protendit, quia scire nequit per quem licet quae sunt vera cognosci, aliqua tamen vicina, imo affinia veritati tentaverit super animae natura dispicere: quam indecens atque pudendum est, religiosum quemquam de hoc ipso aut nihil sapere, aut penitus sibi interdixisse ne sapiat.»