Augustine: Earlier Writings
THE TEACHER gg deed expresses his thoughts but is understood only by himself and by some others. What he says does not convey the same meaning to those who hear him. For example, someone might say in our hearing that some wild beasts surpass man in virtue. Our impulse would be not to endure it, but to use every effort to refute such a false and pestilential opinion. But possibly he is giving the name of virtue to bodily strength, and has correctly expressed his mind. He is not lying. He is not substantially wrong. He is not uttering words committed to memory while he he has something else in mind. He has not spoken the wrong word by a sHp of the tongue. He has simply called the thing he has in mind by a different name from the one we are accustomed to use. We should at once agree with him if we could see into his thought, which he had not made clear by the words he used in expressing his opinion. It is said that definition is the remedy for this mistake. If in this question he would define virtue, it would be apparent, they say, that the controversy was not about the substance of his statement but about a word. I should agree that that is so, but how often is a man to be found who is good at definition? Many things, too, are urged against the discipline of definition, but this is not the opportune place to deal with them, and I do not approve of them.
44. I need not mention the fact that often we do not rightly hear what is said, and enter into lengthy arguments over things we wrongly thought we heard. For example, recently, when I said that a certain Punic word meant mercy, you said that you had heard from those who knew the language better that it meant piety. I objected, insisting that you had quite misunderstood what you had been told, for I thought you said not piety but faith. Now you were sitting quite close to me, and these two words are not so ahke in sound as to deceive the ear. For a long time I thought you did not know what had been told you, while all the time I did not know what you had said. If I had heard you aright I should not have thought it absurd that piety and mercy should be expressed by one word in Punic. Such misunderstandings often occur, but, as I said, let us omit them lest
I should put upon words the blame that is due to the negligence of Usteners, or seem to be troubled by human deafness. My chief troubles are those I have mentioned, where by means of words clearly heard, Latin words when Latin is our mothertongue, we are yet unable to learn the thoughts of those who speak to us. xiv, 45. Putting aside all these exceptions, I agree that