And thus by degrees I passed from bodies to the soul, which through
the bodily senses perceives; and thence to its inward faculty, to
which the bodily senses represent things external, whitherto reach the
faculties of beasts; and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to
which what is received from the senses of the body is referred to be
judged. Which finding itself also to be in me a thing variable, raised
itself up to its own understanding, and drew away my thoughts from the
power of habit, withdrawing itself from those troops of
contradictory phantasms; that so it might find what that light was
whereby it was bedewed, when, without all doubting, it cried out,
"That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable";
whence also it knew That Unchangeable, which, unless it had in some
way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable.
And thus with the flash of one trembling glance it arrived at THAT
WHICH IS. And then I saw Thy invisible things understood by the things
which are made. But I could not fix my gaze thereon; and my
infirmity being struck back, I was thrown again on my wonted habits,
carrying along with me only a loving memory thereof, and a longing for
what I had, as it were, perceived the odour of, but was not yet able
to feed on.
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