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Works Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Epistulae (CCEL) Letters of St. Augustin
First Division
Letter XIII.

3.

Perhaps you may here reply: "Although bodies cannot be perceived by the understanding, we can perceive with the understanding many things concerning material objects; e.g. we know that matter exists. For who will deny this, or affirm that in this we have to do with the probable rather than the true? Thus, though matter itself lies among things probable, it is a most indisputable truth that something like it exists in nature. Matter itself is therefore pronounced to be an object cognisable by the senses; but the assertion of its existence is pronounced to be a truth cognisable by the intellect, for it cannot be perceived otherwise. And so this unknown body, about which we inquire, upon which the soul depends for its power to move from place to place, may possibly be cognisable by senses more powerful than we possess, though not by ours; and at all events, the question whether it exists is one which may be solved by our understandings."

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Letters of St. Augustin
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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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