Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine
truth of number throughout things innumerable, if we do not perceive it by that inner light which the sense of the body knows note
24. By this and many like proofs, those to whom God has given an inquiring mind and who are not blinded by obstinacy, are compelled to acknowledge that the reason and truth of numbers is not related to the bodily sense, and that it is established pure and unalterable for all reasoning men to see in common. Wherefore, while many other things might be thought of which are present and as it were public to reasoning men, and which remain inviolate and changeless while they are perceived by the mind and reason of each individual perceiver; I was yet by no means sorry that the reason and truth of numbers was what first came to your mind when you wished to answer my question. For not for nothing is number joined to wisdom in the Sacred Books, where it is said: J and my heart have gone round, that I might know, and consider, and inquire the wisdom and the number. (Eccles. 7:25)
CHAPTER 9 What wisdom is, without which no one is happy; whether it is one in all wise men. 25. But I would like to know how you think wisdom itself is to be regarded. Do you think that individual men have each their individual wisdoms, or that one wisdom is present to all in common, and that each is wise in the measure that he partakes of it?
E. I do not know what you call wisdom; for I see, forsooth, that what is said or done wisely seems different to different men. For those who go to war seem to themselves to be acting wisely; and those who, disdaining war, devote their care and labor to the cultivation of the land, praise this more highly and attribute it to wisdom; and those who are shrewd in devising ways to make money think themselves wise; and those who disregard or put from them all these and suchlike temporal things, and devote all their zeal to the investigation of truth, that they may know themselves and God, judge this to be the great reward of wisdom; and those who are loath to give themselves to this leisure of seeking and contemplating truth, but prefer to busy themselves with exacting cares and duties, that they may take counsel with men and be employed in the control and just government of human affairs, think themselves wise; and those who do both of these things and live partly in the contemplation of truth and partly in official labors, which they think they owe to human society, seem to themselves to hold the palm of wisdom. I omit innumerable sects, of which there is none that, placing its own adherents above all others, does not hold that they alone are wise. Wherefore, since the question before us demands an answer, not as to what we believe but as to what we hold with clear understanding, I shall be quite unable to reply to your question until I know also by contemplating and discerning reason that which by believing I hold wisdom to be.
A. Do you think that there is any wisdom other than the truth in which the supreme good is discerned and held? For all those sectarians that you have mentioned seek the good; but they are split into different sects because different things seem good to different men. Whoever therefore seeks what he should not seek, even though he seeks what to him seems good, errs notwithstanding. But he who seeks nothing cannot err, nor can he who seeks that which he should seek. In so far, therefore, as all men seek a happy life, they do not err. But in so far as anyone does not hold to that way of life which leads to happiness, though he acknowledges and professes that he wants only to attain happiness, he errs. For it is error when we follow something which does not lead to that which we wish to attain. And the more anyone strays in the path of life, the less wise is he; for he is that much farther from the truth in which the supreme good is discerned and known. But/if anyone has pursued and attained the supreme good, he is happy; which indisputably we all desire. Therefore, as it is certain that we wish to be happy, so also is it certain that we wish to be wise, because no one is happy without wisdom. But no one is happy except by the supreme good, which is discerned and known in that truth which we call wisdom. And so, just as before we are happy the notion of happiness is yet impressed on our minds, so also before we are wise we have impressed on our minds a notion of wisdom;|so that each of us, if he were asked whether he wished to be wise, would reply without a shade of hesitation that he so wished.
97, Wherefore, since we are now agreed as to what wisdom is, albeit you were not able to explain it in words (for if you were quite unable to see this with your mind, you could never know both that you wish to be wise, and that you ought so to wish).
I would have you tell me whether you think that like the reason and truth of numbers wisdom offers itself to all reasoning men in common; or whether, since there are as many minds as there are men, so that I perceive nothing of your mind, nor you of mine, you think there are also as many wisdoms as there are wise men.
E. If the supreme good is one for all, the truth also in which it is discerned and known, that is wisdom, should be one and common for all.
A. But do you doubt that the supreme good, whatever it be, is for all men one?
E. I doubt it indeed; because I see different men taking delight in different things as if they were their supreme goods.
A. I should have wished indeed that no one were in doubt as to the supreme good, just as no one doubts that whatever it is a man cannot be happy until he has attained it. But since this is a large question and requires perhaps a long discourse, let us assume that there are just as many supreme goods as there are different things themselves, which by different men are sought as their supreme goods; does it then follow that wisdom itself is not one to all in common, because those goods which men discern and choose in it are many and diverse? For if you think this, you may also doubt that the light of the sun is one, because the things we discern by it are many and diverse: from which things each one selects at will that which he would enjoy through his sense of sight; and one man is pleased to look upon the height of some mountain and rejoices in that sight; another, the level surface of a field; another, the slopes of the valleys; another, the greenness of the woods; another, the inconstant evenness of the sea; and another, brings together in one view all of these things, or certain of them that are fair, for the joy of regarding them. Just as, therefore, those things are many and diverse which in the light of the sun men behold and choose for their enjoyment, although that light itself is one in which the gaze of each beholder sees and dwells upon that which rejoices it; even so are the goods many and diverse from which each one chooses what he will, and seeing it and holding it for his enjoyment rightly and truly makes it his supreme good; but it may yet be that the light itself of wisdom, in which these things are seen and held, is one and common to all wise men.
E. I admit that it may be, and that there is nothing to prevent there being one wisdom common to all, even though the supreme goods be many and various; but I would like to know whether it is so. For what we concede may be so, is not thereby conceded to be so.
A. In the meanwhile we know that there is wisdom; but whether it be one and common to all, or whether individual wise men