Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (continued)
A. Which now of these two do you judge to be the better: the sense itself or what the sense perceives?
E. The sense, of course.
A. Why?
E. Because that which lives is better than that which merely is.
12. A. How about \the interior sensé? It is below reason, to be sure, and our earlier investigations have shown that we share it with the beasts. But would you hesitate to rank it above the senses by which we perceive bodies and which you have just said are to be ranked above the bodies themselves?
E. I should not hestiate at all.
A. I should like also to hear from you why you do not hesitate. For you will not be able to say now that the interior sense should be put in that one of the three classes which also understands, but it must still go in the class that exists and lives, albeit without understanding; for the beasts, who have no understanding, have this sense. This being the case, I ask why you prefer the interior sense to the sense by which bodies are perceived, since both belong to the class that lives. For you placed the sense by which we perceive bodies above those bodies because they are in the class that merely exists, while it is in the class that also lives; so that when you find the interior sense also in that class, tell me why you think it superior. For you say it is because the one perceives the other, I do not believe you will be able to find a rule by which we can establish that everything that perceives is better than that which is perceived by it, lest perhaps we should thence be constrained to say that everything that understands is better than that which is understood by it. But this is false: because man understands wisdom, but he is not better than wisdom itself. See, there- | fore, for what reason it appears to you that the interior sense is to be preferred to those senses by which we perceive bodies. E. Because I perceive the former to be a sort of regulator and judge of the latter. For if anything is lacking in the performance of its office, it is demanded of it as a service owing, as was argued a little while ago. For the sense of the eyes does not see that it sees or that it does not see; and not seeing this, cannot judge what is lacking or what is sufficient. But the interior sense tells the soul of the beast when to open closed eyes, and perceives when they are supplied with what was lacking. But there is no doubt that he who judges is superior to him whom he judges. A. Do you see too that those bodily senses also judge of bodies after a fashion? For pleasure and pain are their affairs, as when