The Essential Augustine (continued)
than the smallest as it is smaller than the largest; and in such a way at first that nature herself seems to be the criterion of our judgment. And here we should take special notice of how a thing might have given us slight displeasure when examined alone, but when compared with something better is completely rejected. Thus we find that ordinary art is merely a remembrance of things experienced and enjoyed, coupled with the exercise of certain bodily actions; and that, if you lack this art, you can still evaluate its products—a far more noble activity, despite the fact that you may not be able to do the handiwork.
But in all arts there is a symmetry which pleases 55. us and which imparts to everything a perfect and beautiful unity. It achieves its unity and its proportion either by a likeness of equal parts or by a gradation of unequal parts. But who could find the supreme proportion and likeness in material bodies; and who would dare assert, after diligent consideration, that any body is really and essentially one? For all bodies are changing by passage from one degree of beauty to another, or from one place to another; and they are composed of parts each with its own location, and through these parts they are separated in space. Furthermore, the real proportion and likehess, and the real and primary unity, are not perceived by the eyes of the body, or by any of the other senses, but by the intellect. For what would be the basis for a search for any proportion in material bodies, or for a conviction that their proportion differs by far from the perfect proportion, unless the perfect proportion itself were seen by the mind, even if it is the uncreated that we call perfect.
But all things which are beautiful to the senses, 56. whether they are brought forth by nature or worked d out by artistry, are beautiful because of their order in place and in time, as, for example, a body or the motion of a body. Thus that proportion and unity, known only to the mind, and serving as a criterion for the mind to pass judgment upon corporeal beauty, as reported to it by the senses, does not fluctuate in place and in time. For it is wrong to say that it is a criterion for judging the rotundity of a wheel but not of a bowl, or the rotundity of a bowl but not of a coin. The same is true when we consider the duration and movement of bodies: it is ridiculous to say that it is a criterion for judging proportioned years but not propor-