Augustine: Earlier Writings
86 AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WAITINGS syllables, you would have made no answer for I should apparently have asked no question. When I asked, utrum homo homo sit
I used three words, repeating one of them twice. It is clear that you took the first and last words not as mere syllables but as significant words, and so you thought you could reply with certainty and confidence. Ad.—That is true. Aug.—Why did you wish to take the middle word only in two senses, according to its sound and according to its sense? Ad.—Now I take the whole sentence according to the sense of the words. I agree with you that we cannot carry on a conversation at all unless the words we hear carry the mind to the things of which they are the signs. Show me, now, the fallacy of the reasoning which proved that I am not a man. Aug.—I shall put the questions again so that you may yourself detect your mistake. Ad.—That is better.
23. Aug.—I shall not repeat the first question, for that has been agreed. But now think. The syllable ho is ho, and mo is mo. Ad.—Obviously. Aug.—Together they form homo. Ad.—There I went wrong. I thought, rightly, that when a sign is given one should look to what it signified, and, with that in view, should answer yes or no. But I allowed significance to separate syllables when of course they have none. Aug.—You are quite certain, then, that no answer should be given to questions except in terms of the things signified by the words. Ad.—Why not, if words are used? Aug.—I should like to hear how you would reply to the man in the amusing story who drew the conclusion that a lion had come out of the mouth of his fellow-disputant. He first asked whether what we say comes out of our mouth. That was, of course, undeniable. Then he had no difficulty in getting the other, in the course of the discussion, to mention a lion. Whereupon he made fun of him, and insisted that, since he had confessed that what we say comes out of our mouth, and since he could not deny that he had said "lion," therefore with the best intentions he had let out a horrid beast from his mouth. Ad.—It would not be difficult to answer that clever jester. I should not concede that whatever we say comes out of our mouth. For our words are signs merely of things. It is the sign and not the thing signified which comes out of the mouth of the speaker. In some cases it may be simply the sign of another sign, as we have said earher in our discussion.
24. Aug.— I see you are well armed against that adversary. But if I ask whether homo is a noun, what answer will you give me? .4^.—What else could it be? Aug.—When I see you, do I see a noun? Ad.—No. Aug.—Shall I point out what follows from THE TEACHER 87 your reply? Ad,—Please don't. I see for myself that it must be that I am not a man because, when you asked whether homo was a noun I rep Hed that it was, though I had decided to look to the significance of words in giving an affirmative or a negative answer. Aug.—Still I think there was some advantage gained by your sHpping into that reply. The very law of reason stamped on our minds has awakened your vigilance. If I were to ask simply what is homo, you would probably reply, an animal. But if I were to ask what part of speech is homo, the only correct answer is, a noun. So homo is both a noun and an animal.
It is a noun when it is regarded as a sign, and an animal when regard is had to the thing signified by the sign. If anyone asks me whether homo is a noun I shall reply that it is, for the form of the question indicates sufficiently in what sense the word is to be taken—the sense in which it is a sign. If he asks whether homo is an animal I shall assent even more readily. But if he asks simply what homo is without mentioning either noun or animal, my mind, following the rule laid down for our discourse, would at once turn to the thing signified by these two syllables, and would give no other answer but "animal," unless it gave the whole definition, which is "a rational and mortal animal." Don't you think so? Ad.—I do. But if we have admitted that homo is a noun how shall we avoid the insulting conclusion that we are not men? Aug.—How else than by explaining that the conclusion is inferred by importing into the word a different sense from that which we had understood in giving our assent. And if he says that was the sense he intended, the conclusion is not to be feared in any way; for why should I fear to confess that I am not a man (hominem), that is, I am not these three syllables? Ad.—Very true. Why indeed should one be offended when one is said not to be a man in that sense? According to our argument nothing could be more true. Aug.— The rule, which naturally carries the greatest weight, is that, as soon as signs are heard, the attention is directed to the things they signify. So, when the rule is stated, it becomes impossible not to suppose that the conclusion refers to what is signified by the two syllables, ho-mo. Ad.—I understand and agree with what you say. ix, 25. Aug.—I want you now to understand that things signified are of greater importance than their signs. Whatever exists on account of something else must necessarily be of less value than that on account of which it exists. Do you agree?
Ad.—It seems to me we must not rashly agree to that statement.