Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine
they are touched gently or roughly by a body. For just as the interior sense judges what is lacking or sufficient in the sense of the eyes, so the sense itself of the eyes judges what is lacking or sufficient in colors. So too, just as the interior sense judges our hearing, whether or not it be sufficiently alert, our hearing itself judges of voices, when they breathe softly, and when they grate harshly. There is no need to run through the other bodily senses, for now you perceive, J think, what I want to say: namely, that the interior sense judges those bodily senses, approving their integrity or demanding what they owe; and in like manner the bodily senses themselves judge of bodies, appropriating their light touch and rejecting the opposite.
E. I see clearly and most heartily agree.
CHAPTER 6 Reason is more excellent than all else in man: tf there is anything more excellent, it 1s God.
13. A. Consider now whether reason judges the interior sense. For I do not ask whether you think it is better, because I have no doubt that you do—though for that matter I do not think it need be asked whether reason judges this sense. For in those very things that are below it, that is, in bodies and the bodily senses and in the interior sense, what indeed but reason tells us how one thing is better than another, and that it itself is superior to them; and this it certainly could not do if it did not judge them. |
E. That is evident.
A. Since, therefore, a nature that neither lives nor understands but only is, such as a dead body, is surpassed by a nature such as the soul of a beast, which not only is but lives too, though it does not understand; and this again is surpassed by one that is and lives and understands, such as the rational mind of man; do you think you can discover in us, that is, among those things that go to make up our nature as men, anything more excellent than that which we have placed highest among these three? For it is clear that we have a body and a certain vital principle by which that body lives and grows, which two we recognize also in the beasts; and a third something which the beast's nature has not—a sort of head or eye of the soul, not to think of a more appropriate name for reason and understanding. So pray see whether you can find anything in man's nature higher than reason. |
E. I see nothing at all better.
14. A. What if we could find something of which you were sure,