BOOK ONE. To follow and to hold the order of things, Zenobius — an order proper both to each individual and indeed to that universal order by which this world is held together and governed — either to see it or to disclose it is a most difficult and most rare thing for men. To this is added that, even if anyone should be able to do this, he is not likewise able to bring it about that he should find a worthy hearer for matters so divine and obscure, either by the merit of his life or by a certain habit of learning. And yet there is nothing
which all the best minds more eagerly seek after, and are more zealous to hear and to learn — those who, with head as it were erect (so far as is allowed), look upon the crags and storms of this life — than how it comes to pass that God cares for human affairs, and yet so great a perversity is everywhere diffused throughout human matters, that it seems to be attributable not to a divine, nor even to any servile administration, if such great power were given to it. Wherefore this is left, as though necessary, to be believed by those to whom such things are a care: either that divine providence does not extend even to these last and lowest things, or certainly that all evils are committed by the will of God — both impious, but the latter more so.
For although to believe anything to be deserted by God is both most ignorant and also most dangerous to the soul, yet among men themselves no one has accused anyone of having been unable to do something. But the reproach of negligence is far more pardonable than that of malice and cruelty. And so reason is, as it were, compelled — not unmindful of piety — to hold either that these earthly things cannot be administered by divine things, or that they are rather neglected and despised than so governed that every complaint about God should be mild and blameworthy. But who is so blind in mind that he would hesitate to attribute to divine power and governance whatever, in the movements of bodies, is beyond human arrangement and will?
unless perhaps either the limbs of even the tiniest of animals are fashioned by chance with so fixed and subtle a proportion — but what one denies to be by chance, he cannot but confess to have been made by reason; or else, throughout universal nature, that which in each single thing we marvel to be ordered without any human art busying itself about it, we shall dare, by some trifles of vain opinion, to alienate from the most secret judgement of majesty. But indeed this very thing is more full of questions: that the limbs of a flea are arranged wonderfully and distinctly, while in the meantime human life is tossed and fluctuates in the inconstancy of innumerable disturbances.
But in this manner: if anyone should discern things so minutely that in a mosaic pavement the edge of his sight could compass nothing beyond the size of a single tessera, he would blame the craftsman as though ignorant of ordering and composition, because he thought the variety of the little stones confused — the craftsman by whom those inlaid figures, converging into the appearance of a single beauty, could not be beheld and surveyed all at once. For nothing else happens to less-educated men, who, being unable with a feeble mind to grasp and consider the entire fitting-together and design of things, if anything offend them, think — because it is great to their own thought — that a great foulness inheres in things. Of which error the greatest cause is that man is unknown to himself.
Yet, in order to know himself, he has need of a great habit of withdrawing from the senses, and of gathering the mind into itself and retaining it within itself. This only those attain who cauterize certain blows of opinions, which the course of daily life inflicts, either by solitude or heal them by the liberal disciplines. For thus the mind, restored to itself, understands what is the beauty of the universe — which indeed is named from the One (unum), and therefore it is not permitted to be seen by the soul that goes forth into multiplicity and pursues, in its greed, a poverty which it knows not can be avoided only by separation from the multitude. But by multitude I speak not of men, but of all things that the senses reach.
Nor should you marvel that it suffers want the more, the more it desires to embrace more things. For as in a circle, however vast, there is one centre to which all things converge — which the geometers call the 'kentron' — and although the parts of the whole circumference can be divided innumerably, yet there is nothing except that one, by which the rest are equally measured, and which dominates them all as it were by a certain right of equality; but from here, if you should wish to go out into any part whatever, all things are lost the further one proceeds into the many — so the mind, poured out from itself, is battered by a certain immensity and is worn away by true beggary, when its own nature compels it to seek the One everywhere, and multitude does not permit it to find it.
But even these things which I have said — of what kind they are, and what cause there is for the error of souls, and in what manner all things both harmonize into one and are perfect, and yet sins are to be shunned — you will surely attain, my Zenobius; for so is your character known to me, a soul that loves beauty of every kind without immoderation of lust and without filth — which is a sign in you that divine right prescribes a future wisdom against pernicious desires, lest, allured by false pleasures, you desert your own cause, than which transgression nothing more base and more dangerous can be found. You will attain these things, then, believe me, when you have devoted your effort to that learning by which the mind is purged and cultivated, being in no way fit beforehand to have divine seeds committed to it.
What that whole matter is of, and what order it demands, and what reason promises to the studious and the good, and what kind of life we lead — we, your dear ones — and what fruit we gather from our liberal leisure: these books will sufficiently teach you, as I think, being sweeter to us for your name's sake than for our own elaboration, especially if, choosing better things, you should wish to insert and fit yourself into that very order concerning which I write to you. For when a pain of the stomach had compelled me to abandon the school — I who already, as you know, even without any such necessity was contriving to take refuge in philosophy — at once I betook myself to the country house of our most intimate friend Verecundus. What shall I say, he being so willing? You know very well the man's singular benevolence, both toward all and indeed toward us.
There we discussed among ourselves whatever seemed useful, with the pen duly employed, by which all things might be taken down — a thing which I saw to be conducive to my health. For since I was detained by some care of speaking, no immoderate contention crept in during our disputation; and at the same time, so that, if it pleased us to commit anything of ours to writing, there might be neither the necessity of speaking otherwise nor the labour of recollection. These things carried on with me Alypius, and Navigius my brother, and Licentius, suddenly and admirably devoted to poetry; Trygetius likewise had military service restored to us, who, as though a veteran, fell in love with history; also we had something in books.
But on a certain night, when I had awakened after my custom and was turning over silently within myself the things which came into my mind from I know not where — for this had already become a habit for me, from love of finding the truth, that either the first part of the night (if such cares were present) or at least the last, yet nearly the half of the night, I should keep vigil pondering whatever I might, nor would I suffer myself to be called away from myself by the young men's lucubrations, because they too were doing so much throughout the whole day that it seemed too much to me if they should also usurp any of the night for the labour of studies, and they had this too as a precept from me, that they should carry on something even apart from their books, and accustom the mind to dwell with itself — therefore, as I said, I was awake, when lo, the sound of water behind the baths, which it flowed past, drew me into my ears, and was noticed more attentively than usual.
It seemed exceedingly strange to me that the same water now more clearly, now more subduedly, made its noise as it rushed against the stones. I began to ask myself what the cause might be. I confess, nothing occurred to me, when Licentius, striking a piece of wood beside his bed, frightened away the troublesome mice, and thus indicated that he was awake. To whom I said: 'Do you notice, Licentius — for I see that your Muse has kindled a lamp for you to work by night — how inconstantly that channel sounds?' 'Already,' said he, 'this is nothing new to me. For out of desire for clear weather, when once, being awakened, I had put my ear to it, lest a shower should come on, this water was doing what it does now.' Trygetius approved.
For he too, lying on his bed in the same chamber, was awake without our knowing it — for it was dark, which in Italy is almost a necessity even for the well-to-do. Therefore, when I saw that our school, however small it was present — for both Alypius and Navigius had gone into the city — was even at those hours not lulled to sleep, and that that course of the waters was admonishing me to say something about it: 'What,' said I, 'does there seem to us to be the cause, that this sound thus alternates? For we do not suppose that anyone at these hours, either by passing through or by some thing to be washed, so often interrupts that channel.'
'What do you suppose,' said Licentius, 'except that somewhere leaves of some kind or other — which in autumn continually and copiously fall — thrust into the narrows of the channel are at times overcome and give way; but when the wave, which was pressing, has passed through, they are again collected and packed together; or that something else happens by the various chance of the floating leaves, which likewise avails now to check, now to release, that flow?' It seemed probable to me, having nothing else, and I confessed, praising his talent, that I had found nothing, though I had long sought why it should be so. Then, after a little silence interposed: 'Rightly,' said I, 'did you marvel at nothing, and kept yourself within, with Calliope.' 'Rightly,' said he, 'but just now you have plainly given me something great to marvel at.' 'What then is this?'
'That you,' said he, 'marvelled at these things.' 'Whence,' said I, 'is wonder wont to arise, or what is the mother of this fault, except an unusual thing beyond the manifest order of causes?' And he: '"Beyond the manifest" I accept,' said he; 'for nothing seems to me to happen beyond order.' Here I, more erect with a livelier hope than I am wont to have when I inquire something of these young men — because so great a matter, and so suddenly (having yesterday almost turned to such things), the young man's mind had conceived, though no question about these matters had ever before been stirred among us — 'Well,' said I, 'well; but you have felt much, and altogether well, and much you have dared. This, believe me, transcends by a long interval Helicon, to whose summit you strive to arrive as though to heaven.'
'But I could well wish you were present to this opinion, for I shall attempt to shake it.' 'Leave me,' said he, 'just now to myself, I beseech you; for I have strongly bent my mind to another thing.' Here I, fearing somewhat lest, utterly rolled forward by his zeal for poetry, he should be carried far away from philosophy: 'I am provoked,' said I, 'by you to harass those verses of yours by singing and howling them in every kind of metre — verses which attempt to raise between you and truth a wall more monstrous than that between your lovers; for they at least breathed through even an inborn little chink.' For he had then set himself to sing of Pyramus. And when I had said this with a voice sterner than he thought, he was silent for a while. And I had already left off what I had begun, and had returned to myself, lest in vain and ineptly I should wish to occupy one already preoccupied; then he:
'I myself, by my own token, like a shrew-mouse,' said he — 'it was not said more aptly in Terence than it can now be said by me of myself; but perhaps that last part will be turned to the contrary. For what he says: "Today I have perished," I perhaps today shall be found. For if you do not despise — as the superstitious are wont — even to take auguries from mice: if I warned that mouse or shrew, which betrayed me to you as being awake, by my noise, that (if it has any sense) it should return to its lair and rest quietly with itself, why should not I myself be warned by this noise of your voice to philosophize rather than to sing? For that is — as I have now begun to believe, since you daily prove it — our true and unshaken dwelling.'
'Wherefore, if it is not troublesome to you, and you judge that it ought to be done, ask what you will; I shall defend, as much as I can, the order of things, and shall assert that nothing can happen beyond order. For I have so imbibed and drunk it into my mind that, even if anyone should overcome me in this disputation, I shall attribute even this not to any rashness but to the order of things. For it is not the matter itself, but Licentius, that will be overcome.' Rejoicing, I restored myself to them again. Then to Trygetius: 'What,' said I, 'seems to you?' 'I favour the order much indeed,' said he, 'but I am nevertheless uncertain, and I desire so great a matter to be most diligently discussed.' 'Let that party, then,' said I, 'have your favour; for as to your being uncertain, I think you have this in common with Licentius and with myself too.'
'Absolutely,' said Licentius, 'I am certain of this opinion. For why should I hesitate to demolish the wall, of which you made mention, before it has plainly raised itself up? For poetry cannot truly turn me away from philosophy so much as distrust of finding the truth can.' Then Trygetius, with rejoicing words: 'We have now,' said he, 'what is more, a Licentius who is no Academic; for those he used most zealously to defend.' 'Omit these things now, I beseech you,' said he, 'lest this cunning and captious something from I know not what divine thing, which has begun to show itself to me, and toward which I hang gaping, should twist me aside and break me off.'
Here I, perceiving my joys to abound far more richly than I ever once dared even to wish, exultingly poured forth that verse: 'So may that father God bring it to pass!' For He Himself will lead — if we follow — whither He bids us go, and where to set our seat, He who now gives augury and glides into our minds. For it is not the lofty Apollo who, in caves, on mountains, in groves, stirred up by the smoke of incense and the slaughter of cattle, fills the frenzied ones; but another, assuredly, is another — that other lofty and truth-speaking one, and truth itself (for why should I go about with words?) — whose seers are whoever can be wise. Therefore let us go forward, Licentius; relying on piety, as worshippers let us, with our footsteps, crush out the destructive fire of smoky lusts.
'Now,' said he, 'ask, I pray you, whether I can unfold this something, I know not what, so great, both in words and in my own words.' 'Answer me this very thing,' said I: 'first, whence it seems to you that this water flows not at random thus, but in order. For that it glides over the little wooden channels and is led as far as our uses may pertain to order; for it was done by men using reason, that by one course of it they might at once both drink and wash, and, according to the conveniences of the places, it was consequent that it should so be done. But as to those leaves which, as you say, so fell in that this thing which we marvelled at should come about — by what order of things, pray, and not rather by chance, shall we suppose it to have been done?'
'As though indeed,' said he, 'it could seem to anyone gazing most serenely — that nothing can happen without a cause — that they ought to have, or could have, fallen otherwise than they did fall. What? Do you now wish me to pursue the positions of the trees and the branches, and the very weight, as much as nature imposed upon the leaves? What? The mobility of the air, by which they flutter, or the softness, by which they descend, and the various fallings according to the disposition of the sky, according to the burden, according to their shapes, and the other innumerable and more obscure causes — what concern is it of mine to inquire? These things lie hidden from our senses, deeply hidden; yet that which is enough for the question undertaken does not, in some way I know not, lie hidden from the mind: that nothing happens without a cause. For an odious questioner can go on to ask:
what was the cause that trees should be placed there? I shall answer that men followed the richness of the soil. What, if the trees are not fruitful and have grown up at random? Here too I shall answer that we see too little; for the nature that begot them is by no means rash. Why say more? Either let me be taught that something happens without a cause, or believe that nothing happens except by a fixed order of causes.' To whom I: 'You may,' said I, 'call me an odious questioner — for I can scarcely not be one, having stormed the wall so that you might not converse with Pyramus and Thisbe — yet I shall go on to inquire of you. This nature, which you would have seem ordered, for whose good — to be silent about the other innumerable things — did it bring forth these very trees which bear no fruit?'
But while he was considering what to say, Trygetius said: 'Is the usefulness of groves furnished to men in fruits alone? How many other things there are, which come about by shade, by timber, and, however lastly, by the very foliage or leaves?' 'Do not, I beseech,' said he, 'give these answers to his questions. For there are innumerable things which can be brought forward, from which there is no usefulness to men, or which certainly lie so hidden or are so feeble that they cannot be dug out or defended by men, especially by us. Let him rather teach us how anything comes about which no cause has preceded.' 'Afterward,' said I, 'we shall see these things.'
For it is no longer necessary that I be the teacher, since you, who have already professed yourself certain of so great a matter, have so far taught nothing to me, who am exceedingly eager to learn and who for this reason alone keep watch day and night. 'Where are you sending me?' he says; 'or is it because I follow you more lightly than those leaves follow the winds, leaves which are cast into the flowing stream so that it is not enough for them to fall unless they are also dragged along? For what else will it be, when Licentius teaches both Augustine and the very matters that lie in the midst of philosophy?' 'Do not, I beg you,' I said, 'either cast yourself down so low or exalt me. For I too am but a child in philosophy, and I do not much care, when I put a question, through whom that One answers me who receives me daily as a complainer, and of whom indeed I believe you will one day be the prophet;
and this 'one day' is perhaps not far off. Yet even others, though far removed from studies of this kind, are able to teach something, when they are constrained, as if by the fetters of questions, into the fellowship of those who reason. And to teach something is not to teach nothing. Do you not see — for I would gladly use your own comparison — those very leaves that are borne along by the winds, that float upon the waves, resisting a little the river that hurls them headlong, and reminding men of the order of things, if indeed that which you maintain is true?' At this he, leaping up even from his bed for joy, said: 'Who could deny, O great God, that You administer all things in order? How all things hold together! By what fixed successions they are pressed on into their own knots!
How great and how many things have come to pass, that we might speak these words! How great things are happening, that we might find You! For whence does this very thing flow and derive, except from the order of things — that we awoke, that you noticed that sound, that you sought within yourself the cause, that you did not find the cause of so tiny a matter? Even a shrew-mouse comes forth, that I, being awake, might be brought forth. Finally your very own discourse, perhaps without your intending it — for it is not in anyone's power what comes into his mind — is somehow so turned about that it itself teaches me what I ought to answer you.'
'For I beseech you: if these things which have been said by us should, committed to writing as you have arranged, spread somewhat more widely into the knowledge of men, does not the matter seem so great that some mighty seer or Chaldean, when consulted about it, ought to have given an answer long before it came to pass? And if he had answered, he would be called so divine, he would be so extolled with everyone's praises, that yet no one from this would ask why a leaf fell from a tree, or whether a mouse running about was a nuisance to a man lying down. For did any of them ever say of his own accord that such things would come to pass, or was he compelled by an inquirer to say it?
And yet if he were to say that some not undistinguished book would exist in the future, and were to see that it would necessarily come to pass — for otherwise he could not divine it — then assuredly whatever tossing of leaves in a field, whatever the meanest little creature does in a house, is as necessary in the order of things as those writings. For by these words they come to be, words which, without those preceding, meanest of things, could neither come into the mind nor issue from the mouth nor be handed down to posterity. Wherefore now, I ask, let no one seek from me why each thing comes to pass. It is enough that nothing comes to be, nothing is begotten, which some cause has not begotten and set in motion.' 'It is plain,' I said, 'young man, that you do not know how many things, and by what sort of men, have been said against divination.'
'But answer now — not whether anything comes to pass without a cause, for I already see that you are unwilling to answer that — but whether this order you have taken up seems to you to be something good or something bad.' And he, hesitating a little: 'You did not,' he said, 'so put the question that I can answer one of the two. For here I see a certain middle ground. For order seems to me neither good nor bad.' 'What at least,' I said, 'do you judge to be contrary to order?' 'Nothing,' he said; 'for how can anything be contrary to that thing which has occupied the whole, has taken possession of the whole? For whatever shall be contrary to order must needs be outside order; but I see that nothing is outside order: therefore one ought to think nothing contrary to order.'
'Is not then error contrary to order?' said Trygetius. 'By no means,' he said; 'for I see that no one errs without a cause; and the chain of causes is included in order, and error itself is not only begotten by a cause but also begets something, for which it becomes a cause. For which reason, insofar as it is not outside order, so far it cannot be contrary to order.'
And when Trygetius had fallen silent, and I could scarcely contain myself for joy, because I saw the young man, the son of a most dear friend, becoming even my own — and not only that, but truly rising up and growing into a friend to me — and because he whose zeal I had despaired of even for middling letters was, as if with an eye to his own possession, coming with all his impetus into the very midst of philosophy — while I silently marvel at this and burn inwardly with congratulation, suddenly he, as if seized by some inspiration of mind, cried out: 'Oh, if only I could say what I wish! I beg you, wherever you are, O words, come to my aid. Both good things and evil things are in order. Believe it, if you will; for how to explain it I do not know.' I was marveling, and kept silent.
But Trygetius, when he saw the man become somewhat affable again, as if his intoxication had been digested, and restored to conversation, said: 'It seems to me absurd, Licentius, and plainly foreign to the truth, what you say; but I beg you to allow me a little, and not to overwhelm me with shouting.' 'Say what you will,' he said; 'for I do not fear that you will carry me away from that which I see and almost hold.' 'Would,' he said, 'that you were not straying from the very order you defend! May you not be borne along in such — to speak more mildly — carelessness toward God. For what could be said more impious than that even evils are contained in order? For surely God loves order.' 'Truly He loves it,' he said; 'from Him it flows, with Him it is; and if anything can be said more fitly about a matter so lofty, ponder it yourself, I pray, within your own mind.
For I am not fit to teach you these things now.' 'What should I ponder?' said Trygetius; 'I accept outright what you say, and it is enough for me in what I understand. For surely you have said both that evils are contained in order, and that order itself flows from the most high God and is loved by Him. From which it follows that both evils are from the most high God, and that God loves evils.' At this conclusion I feared for Licentius. But he, groaning at the difficulty of the words, and not at all seeking what he should answer but in what manner he might bring forth what had to be answered, said: 'God does not love evils, and for no other reason than because it is not of order that God should love evils; and He therefore greatly loves order, because through it He does not love evils.
But how can evils themselves not be in order, since God does not love them? For this very thing is the order of evils, that they be not loved by God. Or does it seem to you a small order of things, that God both loves goods and does not love evils? Thus evils, which God does not love, are not outside order, and yet He loves the order itself; for this very thing He loves — to love goods and not to love evils — which belongs to the great order and the divine disposition. And because this order and disposition preserves the harmony of the universe by that very distinction, it comes about that it is even necessary that evils exist. Thus, as it were from antitheses, in a certain manner which is pleasing to us even in speech, out of opposites the beauty of all things together is fashioned.
After this he paused moderately, and suddenly raising himself up toward the side where Trygetius had his bed: 'For I ask of you, I beg,' he said, 'whether God is just.' The other was silent for a very long time, as he afterwards related, marveling and shuddering at the utterance of his fellow-pupil and intimate friend, breathed upon by a new inspiration. And as he kept silent, the other continued thus: 'For if you shall have answered that God is not just, look you to what you are doing, you who a little while ago were accusing me of impiety. But if — as it is handed down to us and as we ourselves perceive by the very necessity of order — God is just, then by distributing to each his own He is assuredly just. But what distribution can be spoken of where there is no distinction? Or what distinction, if all things are good?
Or what can be found outside order, if by the justice of God, according to the merits of good and evil men, to each his own is rendered? But that God is just we all confess: therefore the whole is included in order.' Having said this, he sank back upon his couch, and now in a gentler voice, since no one made a word to him: 'Do you make me no answer,' he said, 'not even you, who compelled me to these things?' To whom I: 'This new religiousness has now come upon you; give way, I say. But what shall seem good, I will answer by daylight, which now seems to me to be returning — unless it is the moon's radiance that is poured in through the windows. At the same time we must be silent, lest oblivion swallow up such great goods of yours, Licentius. For when will our writings not demand that these things be committed to them? I will plainly tell you what I feel.
I will dispute against you, as much as I can; for no greater triumph can be given me than if you overcome me. But if your weakness — which, being less nourished by the training of the disciplines, will perhaps not be able to sustain so great a God — should yield to the craftiness or to some sharp error of men, whose part I shall try to take up, the matter itself will remind you how great strength you must prepare, that you may return the stronger against it. At the same time, I wish this disputation of ours to come out more polished; for I ought not to entrust it to coarse ears. For our friend Zenobius has often conferred much with me about the order of things, and, though he questioned me on lofty matters, I could never satisfy him, whether because of the obscurity of the things or because of the shortness of time.