Chapter XIV
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury alone art uncircumscribed and eternal. How then are other spirits called uncircumscribed and eternal? Thou indeed art alone eternal; because Thou alone of all beings neither beginnest nor ceasest to be. But how art Thou alone uncircumscribed? May we say that the created spirit in comparison of Thee is circumscribed, though in comparison of the body, uncircumscribed? For the body is altogether circumscribed, since it is altogether in some certain place, and cannot be at the same time in any other; and this we see only in what is of the nature of body. That again is uncircumscribed, which is altogether in all places at the same time; and this is conceived to be true of Thee only. But that is at once circumscribed and uncircumscribed which being wholly in some certain place, can be at the same time wholly elsewhere; and this we know to be true of created spirits. For if the soul were not wholly in every member of its body, it would not be able wholly to have feeling in every member.27 Thou then, O Lord, art in a sense wherein it is true of nothing else, at once uncircumscribed and eternal; and yet other spirits also are uncircumscribed and eternal.
CHAPTER XIV
HAST thou then found, O my soul, that which thou wast seeking? Thou wast seeking God and thou hast found that He is that thing which is supreme among all things, than which nothing better can be conceived, and that this is very life, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal bliss and blissful eternity, and that this is everywhere and always. For if thou hast not found thy God, how can He be this which thou hast found, and which thou hast with so certain an assurance, so assured a certainty understood Him to be? But if thou hast found Him, why dost thou not perceive that which thou hast found? Why doth my soul not perceive Thee, O Lord God, if she hath found Thee? Hath she not found Thee, whom she hath found to be light and truth? Or could she understand anything at all concerning Thee, except by Thy light and truth? If then she hath seen light and truth, she hath seen Thee; if she hath not seen Thee, she hath seen neither light nor truth. Or is it rather that that which she hath seen is indeed both truth and light; and yet she hath not yet seen Thee because she
That is, when I feel, for example, a pain in my finger, it is I that feel it; I am not conscious of a division in my consciousness.
The body is divided into parts, but not the consciousness: the finger has not a consciousness of its own, distinct from that of the next finger, but I, one and the same consciousness, am conscious of feelings now in one finger, now in another. This remains true, notwithstanding the facts now known, but unknown to St Anselm, which show that particular kinds of consciousness are connected with particular parts of the brain; so that injury to, or removal of a particular part of the brain makes one incapable of a certain kind of consciousness. For despite this fact, the consciousness is not divided into parts one outside of another; the consciousness is one at each moment; the division into parts, one out side of the other, is only true of the brain, which by experiments (not by immediate consciousness) we find to be bound up with our consciousness. We are not directly conscious of our brains at all; and for many centuries it was held to be uncertain whether the brain was the organ of consciousness or not.