LETTERS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. LETTER I. (A.D. 386.) that the one thing to be feared was the possibility of error being approved. For every one who had been driven by the arguments of the sceptiTO HERMOGENIANUS' AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING. cal philosophers from a position which he had 1. I WOULD not presume, even in playful discus- supposed to be impregnable, set himself to seek sion, to attack the philosophers of the Academy; 2 some other in its stead, with a perseverance and for when could the authority of such eminent caution corresponding to the greater industry men fail to move me, did I not believe their which was characteristic of the men of that time, views to be widely different from those com- and the strength of the persuasion then prevailmonly ascribed to them? Instead of confuting ing, that truth, though deep and hard to be dethem, which is beyond my power, I have rather ciphered, does lie hidden in the nature of things imitated them to the best of my ability. For it and of the human mind. Now, however, such seems to me to have been suitable enough to is the indisposition to strenuous exertion, and the times in which they flourished, that whatever the indifference to the liberal arts, that so soon issued pure from the fountainhead of Platonic as it is noised abroad that, in the opinion of the philosophy should be rather conducted into dark most acute philosophers, truth is unattainable, and thorny thickets for the refreshment of a very men send their minds to sleep, and cover them few men, than left to flow in open meadow-land, up for ever. For they presume not, forsooth, where it would be impossible to keep it clear to imagine themselves to be so superior in disand pure from the inroads of the vulgar herd. I use the word herd advisedly; for what is more brutish than the opinion that the soul is material? For defence against the men who held this, it appears to me that such an art and method of concealing the truth 3 was wisely contrived by the new Academy. But in this age of ours, when we see none who are philosophers, - for I do not consider those who merely wear the cloak of a philosopher to be worthy of that venerable name, it seems to me that men (those, at least, whom the teaching of the Academicians has, through the subtlety of the terms in which it was expressed, deterred from attempting to understand its actual meaning) should be brought back to the hope of discovering the truth, lest that which was then for the time useful in eradicating obstinate error, should begin now to hinder the casting in of the seeds of true knowledge. 2. In that age the studies of contending schools of philosophers were pursued with such ardour, 1 Hermogenianus was one of the earliest and most intimate friends of Augustin, and his associate in literary and philosophical studies. [Academy was a grove dedicated to the Attic hero Academos, on the banks of the Kephissos near Athens, where Plato taught. Hence it became the name of the Platonic school of philosophy. It had three branches, - the Older, the Middle, and the Younger Academy. The study of Platonism was a preparatory step to the conversion of Augustín in 386.-P. S.] 3 We follow the reading " tegendi veri.” cernment to those great men, that they shall find out what, during his singularly long life, Carneades, with all his diligence, talents, and leisure, besides his extensive and varied learning, failed to discover. And if, contending somewhat against indolence, they rouse themselves so far as to read those books in which it is, as it were,. proved that the perception of truth is denied to man, they relapse into lethargy so profound, that not even by the heavenly trumpet can they be aroused. 3. Wherefore, although I accept with the greatest pleasure your candid estimate of my brief treatise, and esteem you so much as to rely not less on the sagacity of your judgment than on the sincerity of your friendship, I beg you to give more particular attention to one point, and to write me again concerning it, namely, whether you approve of that which, in the end of the third book, I have given as my opinion, in a tone perhaps of hesitation rather than of certainty, but in statements, as I think, more likely to be found useful than to be rejected as incredible. But whatever be the value of those treatises 4 [Carneades of Cyrene (B.C. 214-129), the founder of the third Academic school, who came to Rome B.C. 155, went further in the direction of scepticism than Arcesilas, and taught that certain knowledge was impossible. See Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, i. 133, 136 (transl. of Morris).-P. S.] 5 Augustin's work, De Academicis, b. iii. c. 20. |