Augustine: Earlier Writings
gS AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS
and he who could have given the same answers when asked are proved to have learned nothing from my words. xiii, 41. Wherefore in matters which are discerned by the mind, whoever cannot discern them for himself listens vainly to the words of him who can, except that it is useful to believe such things so long as ignorance lasts. Whoever can discern them for himself is inwardly a disciple of the truth, and outwardly a judge of the speaker, or rather of what he says. For often enough the hearer knows what is said even when the speaker does not. For example, suppose some believer in the Epicureans, who held that the soul is mortal, should expound the arguments used by wiser men in favour of the soul's immortality in the hearing of one who can behold spiritual things. The latter judges that the former has spoken the truth, though the speaker does not know whether his words are true, and indeed believes them to be utterly false. Are we to think that he can teach what he does not know? Yet he uses the same words as he might use who does know.
42. Hence words do not even have the function of indicating the mind of the speaker, if it is uncertain whether he knows what he is saying. There are liars too and deceivers, so that you can easily understand that words not only do not reveal the mind, but even serve to conceal it. I do not of course in any way doubt that the words of truthful people are endeavouring to reveal the mind of the speaker and make some claim to do so, and would do so, all would agree, if only liars were not allowed to speak. And yet we have often experienced in ourselves and others that words do not correctly convey thoughts. This can happen in one or other of two ways. A speech committed to memor)- and frequently conned may be spoken when we are thinking of something else entirely. This often happens when we are singing a hymn. Or by a slip of the tongue some words will get substituted for others against our will, so that those which are heard are not signs of what is in our minds. Liars, too, think of the the things they speak about, so that even if we do not know whether they speak the truth, at least we know that they intend what they say, unless either of the two accidents occur which I have mentioned. If anyone contends that this sometimes occurs and can be noticed when it occurs, I make no objection, though it often is hidden and has often escaped my notice when I have been listening.
43. There is the other kind of accident, very wide-spread and the seed of innumerable dissensions and strifes. The speaker in-