Chapter 5.—Whether the Mind of Infants Knows Itself.

What, then, is to be said of the mind of an infant, which is still so small, and buried in such profound ignorance of things, that the mind of a man which knows anything shrinks from the darkness of it? Is that too to be believed to know itself; but that, as being too intent upon those things which it has begun to perceive through the bodily senses, with the greater delight in proportion to their novelty, it is not able indeed to be ignorant of itself, but is also not able to think of itself? Moreover, how intently it is bent upon sensible things that are without it, may be conjectured from this one fact, that it is so greedy of sensible light, that if any one through carelessness, or ignorance of the possible consequences, place a light at nighttime where an infant is lying down, on that side to which the eyes of the child so lying down can be bent, but its neck cannot be turned, the gaze of that child will be so fixed in that direction, that we have known some to have come to squint by this means, in that the eyes retained that form which habit in some way impressed upon them while tender and soft.867    Bks. viii. c. 4, etc., x. c. 1.    [This occurred in the the case of Edward Irving. Oliphant’s Life of Irving.—W.G.T.S.] In the case, too, of the other bodily senses, the souls of infants, as far as their age permits, so narrow themselves as it were, and are bent upon them, that they either vehemently detest or vehemently desire that only which offends or allures through the flesh, but do not think of their own inward self, nor can be made to do so by admonition; because they do not yet know the signs that express admonition, whereof words are the chief, of which as of other things they are wholly ignorant. And that it is one thing not to know oneself, another not to think of oneself, we have shown already in the same book.868    Bk. x. c. 5.

8. But let us pass by the infantine age, since we cannot question it as to what goes on within itself, while we have ourselves pretty well forgotten it. Let it suffice only for us hence to be certain, that when man has come to be able to think of the nature of his own mind, and to find out what is the truth, he will find it nowhere else but in himself. And he will find, not what he did not know, but that of which he did not think. For what do we know, if we do not know what is in our own mind; when we can know nothing at all of what we do know, unless by the mind?

CAPUT V.

Infantium mens an se noverit. Quid itaque dicendum est de infantis mente, ita adhuc parvuli 1041 et in tam magna demersi rerum ignorantia, ut illius mentis tenebras mens hominis quae aliquid novit exhorreat? An etiam ipsa se nosse credenda est, sed intenta nimis in eas res quas per corporis sensus tanto majore, quanto noviore coepit delectatione sentire, non ignorare se potest, sed cogitare se non potest? Quanta porro intentione in ista quae foris sunt sensibilia feratur, vel hinc solum conjici potest, quod lucis hujus hauriendae sic avida est, ut si quisquam minus cautus aut nesciens quid inde possit accidere, nocturnum lumen posuerit ubi jacet infans, in ea parte ad quam jacentis oculi possint retorqueri, nec cervix possit inflecti, sic ejus inde non removeatur aspectus, ut nonnullos ex hoc etiam strabones fieri noverimus, eam formam tenentibus oculis, quam teneris et mollibus consuetudo quodam modo infixit. Ita et in alios corporis sensus, quantum sinit illa aetas, intentione se quasi coarctant animae parvulorum, ut quidquid per carnem offendit aut allicit, hoc solum abhorreant vehementer aut appetant: sua vero interiora non cogitent, nec possint admoneri ut hoc faciant; quia nondum admonentis signa noverunt, ubi praecipuum locum verba obtinent, quae sicut alia prorsus nesciunt. Quod autem aliud sit non se nosse, aliud non se cogitare, jam in eodem volumine ostendimus (Lib. 10, cap. 5).

8. Sed hanc aetatem omittamus, quae nec interrogari potest quid in se agatur, et nos ipsi ejus valde obliti sumus. Hinc tantum certos nos esse suffecerit, quod cum homo de animi sui natura cogitare potuerit, atque invenire quod verum est, alibi non inveniet, quam penes se ipsum. Inveniet autem, non quod nesciebat, sed unde non cogitabat. Quid enim scimus, si quod est in nostra mente nescimus; cum omnia quae scimus, non nisi mente scire possimus?