The Essential Augustine
es to find happiness in possessing something; well then, find out what you want to possess to be happy. When you attain to happiness, of course you will be better off than now that you are unhappy. But it is impossible for anything falling short of yourself to add to your happiness. You are a human being; whatever you covet as a source of happiness is inferior to yourself. Gold and silver and various material things, which you so eagerly long to obtain, to possess, to enjoy, are of less value than yourself. You are more excellent, you are more important; and when you wish to be happy because you are unhappy undoubtedly you wish to be better off than you are. Certainly it is better to be happy than unhappy. You want to be better off than you are now; yet as means to that end you are seeking and searching for things inferior to yourself. Whatever you possess on earth is inferior to yourself. Every man wishes well to his friend thus, charging him in suchlike terms as these: "I hope you fare better," "I hope to see you better off," "I hope to have the joy of knowing you are better off," What he wishes his friend is what he wants for himself. Now take a piece of trustworthy advice. You want to be better off; I know it, we all know it, we all want the same thing. Look for what is better than yourself, so that by that means you may become better off than you are.
Now consider heaven and earth: physical beauty 16. must not so delight you that you want to find your happiness in it. What you are looking for is in the soul. You want to be happy; look for something better than your soul itself. Granted that there are these two things, namely, soul and body, then, since that which is called soul is the nobler of the two, your body can benefit through that which is superior, because the body is subject to the soul. Hence your body can benefit through your soul, so that when your soul is found just, your body also may hereafter become immortal. Through the enlightenment of your soul, your body earns incorruption; thus the nobler restores the integrity of the less noble. Hence if your body's good is your soul because it is superior to your body, when you seek your own good, seek that which is better for your soul.
Now, what is your soul? Pay attention; otherwise perhaps despising your soul and esteeming it some mean and worthless thing, you may be seeking yet more worthless things to make: your soul happy. In your soul is the image of God; the human mind contains that image. It received it and by stoop-