Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
for what it does is not to be disapproved simply on the ground that it does not accomp Ush everything. vi, 14. But let us examine closely, if you please, how far evil deeds are to be punished by the law which governs states in this life. Then we shall consider what remains to be inevitably and secretly punished by divine providence. Ev.—That is my wish, if only it is possible to reach the end of so vast a theme. I think it is infinite. Aug.—Be brave and enter on the path of reason trusting in piety. There is nothing so hard and difficult which with God's help will not become plain and easy. Depending on God and praying for his help, let us persevere in our inquiry. And first tell me whether the law that is promulgated in writing brings aid to men while they live this life. Ev.—Manifestly, for states and nations are composed of these men. Aug.—Do men and peoples belong to the class of things which cannot perish or change but are altogether eternal? Or are they mutable and subject to time's changes? Ev.—Who can doubt that this class of things is mutable and liable to the changes of time? Aug.—If a people, then, is well balanced and serious-minded, a careful guardian of the common good; if everyone in it thinks less of his private interests than of the public interest, it would be right to pass a law allowing that people to appoint its own magistrates to administer its affairs, that is, its public affairs? Ev.—Quite right. Aug.—Now if that same people degenerated little by little, put private interests before the public interest, sold its votes and, corrupted by men who love honours, committed rule over itself to wicked and criminal men, in such a case, if there existed some good and powerful man, would he not be right to strip that people of the power to bestow honours, and to give that power into the hands of a few good men or even of one man? Ev.—Again entirely right. Aug.—These two laws are exactly contrary the one to the other. The one gives to the people the power to bestow honours; the other takes it away. The second was passed under such conditions that both could not exist simultaneously in one state. Shall we say, then, that one of them is unjust and ought not to have been passed? Ev.—By no means. Aug.—Let us, then, if you please, call that a temporal law, which, though it be just, may be justly changed to suit altered circumstances. Ev.—Let us so call it.
15. Aug.—What about that law which is called supreme reason, which must always be obeyed, by which the evil deserve an unhappy life and the good a blessed life, by which the ON FREE WILL 121 law we have agreed to call temporal is rightly laid down and rightly changed? Can any intelligent person not see that it is unchangeable and eternal? Can it ever be unjust that the evil should be unhappy and the good happy? Or that a good and serious-minded people should appoint its own magistrates, and that a dissolute and worthless people should be deprived of that liberty. Ev,—I see that that is an eternal and unchangeable law. Aug.—I am sure you see also that there is nothing just or legitimate in temporal law save what men have derived from the eternal law. For if the people we have been speaking of at one time bestowed honours justly and at another time unjustly, the change in question belongs to the temporal sphere, but the judgment as to justice or injustice is derived from the eternal sphere in which it is abidingly just that a serious-minded people should bestow honours, and a fickle people should not. Don't you agree? Ev.—I do. Aug.—Briefly to express in words as best I can the idea of eternal law as it is stamped upon our minds I should say this: it is just that all things should be in perfect order. If you have any other view, tell me. Ev.—What you say is true and I have nothing to urge against it. Aug.—Since, then, there is one law, of which all temporal laws by which men are ruled are variants, that one law surely cannot vary in the least degree? Ev.—I know that is absolutely impossible. No force, no accident, no corruption of things can ever bring it about that justice ceases to mean that all things should be in perfect order. vii, 1 6. Aug.—Now let us see what it means to say of a man that he is perfectly in order, for a people is composed of men associated under one law, a temporal law, as we have said. Tell me whether you are quite certain that you are alive. Ev.—To no question can I give a more unhesitating reply in the affirmative. Aug.—Can you distinguish living from knowing that you live? Ev.—I know that no one can know he is alive unless he is alive. But I do not know whether everyone who is aHve knows it. Aug.—How I wish you would beheve it. Then you would know that beasts lack reason, and our disputation would speedily pass on from that question. But since you say you do not know, you necessitate a long disquisidon. So important is the question and so closely knit the argument required, that we cannot leave it aside and go on to our goal. We often see beasts tamed by men, not only their bodies but also their souls, so that they are subject to men's wills at a touch and by force of custom. Do you think that any beast however fierce or huge or keen of sense could ever try in the same way to subjugate a man to its service, though many beasts could destroy man's body by violence or in some secret way? Ev.— I agree, that could not happen. Aug.—Very well. Since it is obvious that man is far surpassed by many beasts in strength and in other bodily functions, tell me how it is that man excels so that no beast can order him about as he orders many of them. Is it because he has what we usually call reason or intelligence? Ev,— I can think of nothing else. That whereby we excel the beasts must be something in the soul, since to have a living soul would make us excel dead beasts. They too are living creatures (animals), but there is something lacking in their souls which allows them to be subjected by us, and there is something in our souls that makes us better than they. Now no one can imagine that that is a trifle, and I know no more correct word for it than reason. Aug.—You see how easy a problem becomes if God grant his aid, even a problem which men think most difficult.
I confess I thought that the question which we have settled, as I understand, would have kept us as long, perhaps, as all the other questions we have handled since our conversation began. Now notice how relevant reason is to our argument. I am sure you know that when we say: "we know," we mean simply that we have grasped something by reason. Ev.—That is so. Aug.— So he who knows he is alive has reason. Ev.—That follows. Aug.—Beasts are alive, but, as we have shown, have no part in reason. Ev.—Clearly. Aug.—So now you know what you said you did not know. Not everything which lives knows that it lives, although everything that knows it lives is necessarily a living thing.
17. Ev.—I have no further doubts. Go on as you have proposed. I have clearly learned that to live is one thing, and to know that one lives another thing altogether. Aug.—Which of the two do you think is the better? Ev.—Why of course to know that one lives. Aug.—Do you think it is better to know that one lives than to have life? But perhaps you understand knowledge to be a superior and purer form of life which none can know unless he has intelligence. For what is to have intelligence but to live more intensely and more perfectly in the very light of the mind? So, unless I am mistaken, you have not preferred something else to life, but have preferred a better life to any kind of commonplace life. Ev.—You have exactly understood and expounded my views, that is, if knowledge can never be a bad thing. Aug.—It never can, unless by knowledge we mean
ON FREE WILL I23 knowledge gained by experience. Experience is not always a good thing, for we can experience punishments. But knowledge strictly and purely so called, because it is gained by reason and inte Uigence, cannot be evil. Ev,—I grasp that difference too. Go on to the next subject. viii, 18. Aug.—This is what I want to say. Whatever it is that puts man above the beasts, mind or spirit (perhaps it is best called by both names, for we find both in the divine Scriptures), whatever it is called, if it dominates and rules the other parts of which man is composed, then a man is most perfectly ordered. We see that we have many things in common not only with the beasts but also with plants and trees. For we see that trees also have power to take nourishment, to grow, to reproduce themselves, to flourish, and yet they have the lowest form of life. And we observe that animals can see, hear, smell, taste and feel corporeal objects, many of them more keenly than we can. Add strength, vigour and firmness of limb, speed and easy motion of the body. In all these things we surpass some of them, are the equals of others, and are surpassed by not a few. We also have with the animals a common attitude to external things. To seek bodily pleasures and to avoid pain is the whole endeavour of animal life. There are some things which do not seem to occur in animals yet they do not belong to the higher part of human nature, such as jesting and laughing. Whoever judges rightly of human nature will hold these to be human qualities certainly, but to belong to the lower part of man. Then there is love of praise and glory, and ambition to dominate. These are not characteristic of beasts, and yet we must not think we are better than the beasts because we have these desires. For when such desires are not subject to reason they make us miserable. No man has ever thought that his superiority consists in a capacity for greater unhappiness. When reason rules these emotions, a man must be said to be well ordered. There is no right order, indeed there is no order at all, where the better is subordinated to the worse. Don't you agree? Ev.—Undoubtedly. Aug.—When reason or mind or spirit rules the irrational emotions, then the part dominates in a man which ought to dominate according to what we have discovered to be eternal law. Ev.—I see and I follow. ix, 19. Aug.—When a man is so constituted and ordered, don't you think he is wise? Ev.— I know of no other whom I could think wise if not such a man. Aug.—I suppose you know that most men are foolish. Ev,—That, too, I know well. Aug.— If the fool is the opposite of the wise man, now that we know who the wise man is, you also know who the fool is. Ev.—Evidently he is the man in whom mind has not the chief power. Aug.—What are we to say, then, when a man is in that condition? Does he lack mind? or does the mind he has fail to control? Ev.—The latter rather, I think. Aug.—I should very much like to know what signs indicate that a man has mind even when it does not exercise its leadership. Ev.—I wish you would answer your own question for it is not easy for me to play the part you are forcing on me. Aug.—At least it is easy for you to remember what you said a moment ago. Beasts are made tame and gentle by men and so come to serve them. Men might suffer this in their turn, as the argument showed, if they were not somehow superior to beasts. That superiority we did not find in their bodies. Because it was something evidently to do with their souls, we found no other name for it than reason, recognizing that it might also be called mind or spirit. If reason and mind are different things we at least agree that only mind can make use of reason. Hence it is concluded that he who has reason cannot lack mind. Ev.—Yes I remember that. Aug.—Do you believe that the tamers of beasts must be wise men? I mean by wise men those whom truth bids us call such, that is, those in whom mind rules and all lust is subdued, and who therefore are at peace with themselves. Ev.—It is ridiculous to give that name to men who are vulgarly known as beast-tamers or shepherds or ploughmen or charioteers, whose work it is to tame wild animals and to make use of them when they are tamed. Aug.—There, then, you have a clear indication of the presence of mind in a man even when it does not rule. There is mind in the men you have mentioned, for they do things that could not be done without mind. But mind does not rule, for they are still fools; and we know that there is no reign of mind except in wise men. Ev.—It is surprising that we had proved this so easily, and yet I could not think what to answer.
X, 20. But now let us go on to a further stage in the discussion. We have now found that human wisdom is the rule of the human mind, but that there may be mind where it does not rule. Aug.—Do you think that lust is more powerful than mind, though we know that, by the eternal law, to mind is given rule over the lusts? I cannot believe it in the least. For it is not consistent with good order that the weaker should rule the stronger.
I think that mind must necessarily be more powerful than cupidity simply because it is right and just that cupidity should