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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XII.--On the Recollection of Things Mathematical.

19. The memory containeth also the reasons and innumerable laws of numbers and dimensions, none of which hath any sense of the body impressed, seeing they have neither colour, nor sound, nor taste, nor smell, nor sense of touch. I have heard the sound of the words by which these things are signified when they are discussed; but the sounds are one thing, the things another. For the sounds are one thing in Greek, another in Latin; but the things themselves are neither Greek, nor Latin, nor any other language. I have seen the lines of the craftsmen, even the finest, like a spider's web; but these are of another kind, they are not the images of those which the eye of my flesh showed me; he knoweth them who, without any idea whatsoever of a body, perceives them within himself. I have also observed the numbers of the things with which we number all the senses of the body; but those by which we number are of another kind, nor are they the images of these, and therefore they certainly are. Let him who sees not these things mock me for saying them; and I will pity him, whilst he mocks me.

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Confessiones

Caput 12

Item continet memoria numerorum dimensionumque rationes et leges innumerabiles, quarum nullam corporis sensus inpressit, quia nec ipsae coloratae sunt aut sonant aut olent aut gustatae aut contrectatae sunt. audivi sonos verborum, quibus significantur, cum de his disseritur, sed illi alii, istae autem aliae sunt. nam illi aliter graece, aliter latine sonant, istae vero nec graecae nec latinae sunt nec aliud eloquiorum genus. vidi lineas fabrorum vel etiam tenuissimas, sicut filum araneae; sed illae aliae sunt, non sunt imagines earum, quas mihi nuntiavit carnis oculus: novit eas quisquis sine ulla cogitatione qualiscumque corporis sensibus, quos numeramus; sed illi alii sunt, quibus numeramus, nec imagines istorum sunt et ideo valde sunt. rideat me ista dicentem, qui non eos videt, et ego doleam ridentem me.