And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so
pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling
to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not that
they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so. Take
even those who, both in their own esteem, and in point of fact, are
utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on
account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed,
and who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute,--if
any one should give these men an immortality, in which their misery
should be deathless, and should offer the alternative, that if they
shrank from existing eternally in the same misery they might be
annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any condition, on the
instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to exist
always, even in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The
well-known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we see
that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than
end it by death, is it not obvious enough how nature shrinks from
annihilation? And, accordingly, when they know that they must die,
they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown them, that they
may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it by
death. And so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they
would accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless
destruction. What! do not even all irrational animals, to whom such
calculations are unknown, from the huge dragons down to the least
worms, all testify that they wish to exist, and therefore shun death
by every movement in their power? Nay, the very plants and shrubs,
which have no such life as enables them to shun destruction by
movements we can see, do not they all seek, in their own fashion,
to conserve their existence, by rooting themselves more and more
deeply in the earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out
healthy branches towards the sky? In fine, even the lifeless bodies,
which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet either seek the
upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an intermediate position,
so that they may protect their existence in that situation where they
can exist in most accordance with their nature.
And how much human nature loves the knowledge of its existence, and
how it shrinks from being deceived, will be sufficiently understood
from this fact, that every man prefers to grieve in a sane mind,
rather than to be glad in madness. And this grand and wonderful
instinct belongs to men alone of all animals; for, though some of
them have keener eyesight than ourselves for this world's light, they
cannot attain to that spiritual light with which our mind is somehow
irradiated, so that we can form right judgments of all things. For
our power to judge is proportioned to our acceptance of this light.
Nevertheless, the irrational animals, though they have not knowledge,
have certainly something resembling knowledge; whereas the other
material things are said to be sensible, not because they have
senses, but because they are the objects of our senses. Yet among
plants, their nourishment and generation have some resemblance to
sensible life. However, both these and all material things have their
causes hidden in their nature; but their outward forms, which lend
beauty to this visible structure of the world, are perceived by our
senses, so that they seem to wish to compensate for their own want
of knowledge by providing us with knowledge. But we perceive them
by our bodily senses in such a way that we do not judge of them by
these senses. For we have another and far superior sense, belonging
to the inner man, by which we perceive what things are just, and what
unjust,--just by means of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of
it. This sense is aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor
by the orifice of the ear, nor by the air-holes of the nostrils, nor
by the palate's taste, nor by any bodily touch. By it I am assured
both that I am, and that I know this; and these two I love, and in
the same manner I am assured that I love them.