The Essential Augustine
Do you think then that this truth, which we have 34. been discussing at such length, and in which, single though it be, we have discerned so many things, is more excellent than our minds, or equal to them, or is it even inferior?
But if it were inferior we would judge not according to it, but concerning it; just as we judge of bodies because they are below us, and say commonly not only that they are so or not so, but that they ought to be so or not so. So too of our minds we know not only that the mind is so, but frequently also that it should be so. And of bodies to be sure we judge thus when we say: this is not as white as it should be, or not as square, and many similar things. But of minds: it is less apt than it should be, or less gentle, or less vehement, according as the manner of our character shows itself. And we judge of these things according to those inner rules of truth that we discern in common, but no one judges in any way of the rules themselves. For when anyone says that eternal things are better than temporal, or that seven and three are ten, no one says that it ought to be so, but knowing that it is so, he does not correct it as an examiner, but Tejoices in it as a discoverer.
If again the truth were equal to our minds, it would be also mutable. For our minds perceive it sometimes more and sometimes less, and thereby acknowledge themselves mutable, while it, continuing in itself, is neither enhanced when we see it more, nor diminished when we see it less, but whole and uncorrupted it makes glad those who turn to it, and punishes with blindness those who turn away. But what then, if also we judge of those same minds according to that truth, while we can in no way judge of it? For we say of our mind: it understands less than it should or it understands as much as it should. But a mind should understand in the measure that it is able to draw near to and cleave to immutable truth. Wherefore, if that truth be neither inferior nor equal Hs our minds, it remains that it is higher and more excel-
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You conceded, however, that if I should show you 39. something higher than our minds, you would confess: that it is God, if there were nothing yet higher. Accepting this concession of yours, I said that it would be enough if I should prove this. For if there is something yet more excellent than truth, that rather is God; but if not, then truth itself is God. Whether therefore there is this more