The Essential Augustine (continued)
A. I recognize that, whatever it is, and do not hesi9. tate to call it the interior sense. But unless it goes beyond what is brought to us by our bodily senses, it cannot attain to knowledge. For what we know, we hold in the grasp of reason. But, not to mention other things, we know that we cannot perceive colors by hearing, nor voices by sight. And when we know this, we know it neither by our eyes nor by our ears, nor by that interior sense which the beasts also have. For one cannot believe that they know that ears do not perceive light, nor eyes voices, since we discern such things only by rational attention and thought. E. I cannot say that I see that clearly. For what if they do discern also by that interior sense, which you admit they have, that colors cannot be perceived by hearing, nor voices by sight? A. Well, do you think that they can distinguish from one another the color that is perceived, and the sense that is in the eye, and that interior sense within the soul, and the reason by which these are defined and enumerated one by one? E. By no means. A. Could reason, then, distinguish these four from one another, and set bounds to them by definitions, if color were not referred to it by the sense of the eyes, and that sensation again by the interior sense that presides over it, and that same interior sense by itself, assuming that there is not yet another something interposed? E. I do not see how else it could. . A, And do you see that color is perceived by the sense of the eyes, but that the sensation itself is not perceived by the same sense? For you do not see the seeing itself by the same sense by which you see color. : E. Not at all. A. Try also to distinguish these; for I think you will not deny that color is one thing, and seeing color another, and that it is yet another, when color is not present, to have the sense by which it could be seen if it were present. E. I distinguish those too, and grant that they are different. A. Do you see any of these three with your eyes, except color? E. Nothing else. A. Tell me then how you do see the other two; for if you did not see them, you could not distinguish them. E. I know nothing further. I know that I do, nothing more. A. You do not know then whether this is reason itself, or