: that it is God, if there were nothing yet higher. Ac- (continued)
wise, and I see that it follows from those things that I conceded, that I should not hesitate to say I am a fool. A. Therefore the fool knows wisdom. For he would not be sure, as we said just now is the case, that he wished to be wise, and that he ought to wish it, if there were not inherent in his mind a notion of wisdom as having to do with those matters, concerning which you answered when asked about them separately, and which pertain to wisdom, and in the knowledge of which you rejoiced. E. It is as you say.
What else therefore do we do when we study to be 41. wise, except to concentrate our whole soul with all the ardor we can upon what we touch with our mind, and as it were place it there and fix it unshakeably; so that it may no longer enjoy privately what has entangled it in passing things, but freed from all influence of times or places may lay hold on that which is ever one and the same. For just as the soul is the whole life of the body, the happy life of the soul is God. While we do this, and until we have completed it, we are on the way
And it is granted to us to rejoice in these true and sure goods, albeit they are as yet but flickering lights on this dark road. For is not this what is written about wisdom, when we are told how she deals with her lovers when they come to her: She showeth herself joyfully to them along the ways, and runneth to meet them with all providence. [Wisd. 6:17] For whithersoever you turn, by certain marks imprinted on her works she speaks to you, and when you slip back into external things, she again calls you within by the very forms of those things outside; so that you see that whatever delights you in the body, or allures through the bodily senses, is numbered. And you ask why this is, and return within yourself and understand that you cannot approve or find fault with that which you touch with your bodily senses, unless you have at hand certain laws of beauty, to which you may refer whatever beautiful things you may perceive externally.
Look on earth and sky and sea, and whatsoever 42. things are in them or shine from above or creep beneath or fly or swim; they have forms because they have numbers: take these away, they will be nothing. From what then are they, if not from number, seeing that they have being only in so far as they have number?
And even human rtificers, makers of all corporeal forms, have numbers in their art to which they fit their works; and they move hands and tools in the fashioning till