The Essential Augustine
APPROACHING GOD THROUGH UNDERSTANDING 133
But since even irrational animals are admittedly 53. alive and sentient, that power in the human soul is not noblest by which man perceives sensible objects, but that by which man makes judgments about those objects. For most brutes see more clearly and perceive things more keenly with their other bodily senses than does man. But to form judgments about things is not the part of mere sentient life, but of rational life—a life which brutes lack, and in which men excel. Now, it is certainly easy to see that the judge is nobler than what he judges. The judgment of a rational being is exercised not only on the objects of the senses, but on the senses themselves; for example: why an oar should appear broken in water, although it is intact, and why the eyes perceive it as broken. A glance of the eyes can report the fact, but by no means can it pass judgment. Thus it is evident that, just as sentient life surpasses nonlife, so rational life surpasses both.
Thus, too, since to make judgments is the proper 30.54. activity of rational life, there is no nature more noble. However, even a rational nature is clearly changeable; for at one time it turns out to be skillful, at another time unskillful. Moreover, the worth of its judgments is proportioned to its skillfulness, and its skillfulness is proportioned to the degree in which it partakes of art or learning or wisdom. Let us, then, look into the nature of this art. By art in this context I do not mean what is picked up by experimentation; I.mean what is developed at the cost of much ratiocination. For a man displays no great learning in knowing that the preparation made from lime and sand clings more tenaciously to rubble than does mud, or in building with such good taste as to balance off designs that are alike, and to centralize those that are unique. However, this sense of proportion does come closer to reason and to truth. But here is a real problem: why does it displease us to have two windows placed, not one above the other, but side by side, when they are of different sizes, and could have been of equal size? Why, on the other hand, are we not equally displeased with the inequality when one is even twice the size of the other, so long as they are placed one above the other? Why, again, does their being two prevent our caring how much larger or smaller one is than the other? For when there are three, our eyes themselves seem to cry out that either there be complete equality, or that between the largest and smallest there be a middle one, as much larger