Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
go AUGUSTINE! EARLIER WRITINGS
is inferior to knowledge of the vices. Ad.—Do you think that knowledge is preferable even when it makes us more miserable? For above all the penalties thought of by the cruelty of tyrants or calculated by their greed, Persius sets this one penalty which tortures men who are compelled to acknowledge vices which they cannot avoid. Aug.—In the same way you could deny that knowledge of the virtues is preferable to knowledge of the word
'virtue," for to see and not to possess virtue was the punishment which the satirist wished tyrants to suffer. Ad.—May God avert such madness! Now I understand that the knowledge imparted to the mind by a good education is not to be blamed, but those are to be judged most miserable of all who are affected by a disease which no medicine can cure. This, I think, was Persius' view too. Aug.—Quite right. But it does not matter to us what Persius thought. In such matters we are not subject to the authority of such as he. It is not easy to explain how one kind of knowledge is preferable to another. It is enough for my present purpose that we agree that knowledge of things signified is better than the signs even if not better than knowledge of the signs. Now let us discuss the greater problem. What kind of things, as we said, can be pointed out by themselves without signs such as speaking, walking, lying, and suchlike? Ad.— remember the problem.
X, 29. Aug.—Do you think that all actions which we can perform on being interrogated can be demonstrated without a sign? Or is there any exception? Ad.—Considering this whole class of things I find none which can be shown without a sign, except perhaps speaking or possibly teaching. For whatever
I do by way of demonstration when someone has asked a question, I see that he cannot learn immediately from the action which he wants to have demonstrated to him. Even if I am doing nothing, or am doing something else, when I am asked what walking is, and if I immediately set about walking, and try to give an answer to the question without a sign, how am I to make sure that "walking" is not taken to mean walking the exact distance that I actually walked. In that case my questioner would be deceived, and would imagine that anyone who walked further or less far than I had walked, had not in fact walked at all. And what I have said of this one action applies to all those which I thought could be demonstrated without a sign, except the two I have mentioned.
30. Aug.—I grant that. But now, don't you think speaking and teaching are different things? Ad.—Certainly. If they were