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| To Hermogenianus
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Letter I.
(a.d. 386.)
To Hermogenianus1437
| 1437 Hermogenianus was one of the earliest and most
intimate friends of Augustin, and his associate in literary and
philosophical studies. | Augustin Sends
Greeting.
1. I Would not
presume, even in playful discussion, to attack the philosophers of
the Academy;1438
| 1438 [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 Augustin in 386.—P. S.] | for when
could the authority of such eminent men fail to move me, did I not
believe their views to be widely different from those commonly
ascribed to them? Instead of confuting them, which is beyond my
power, I have rather imitated them to the best of my ability. For
it seems to me to have been suitable enough to the times in which
they flourished, that whatever issued pure from the fountainhead of
Platonic philosophy should be rather conducted into dark and thorny
thickets for the refreshment of a very few men, than left to
flow in open meadow-land, where it would be impossible to keep it
clear and 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 truth1439
| 1439 We follow the reading “tegendi
veri.” | 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, 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 sceptical
philosophers from a position which he had supposed to be
impregnable, set himself to seek some other in its stead, with a
perseverance and caution corresponding to the greater industry
which was characteristic of the men of that time, and the strength
of the persuasion then prevailing, that truth, though deep and hard
to be deciphered, does lie hidden in the nature of things and of
the human mind. Now, however, such is the indisposition to
strenuous exertion, and the indifference to the liberal arts, that
so soon as it is noised abroad that, in the opinion of the most
acute philosophers, truth is unattainable, men send their minds to
sleep, and cover them up for ever. For they presume not, forsooth,
to imagine themselves to be so superior in discernment to those
great men, that they shall find out what, during his singularly
long life, Carneades,1440
| 1440 [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.] | 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,1441
| 1441 Augustin’s work, De Academicis, b. iii.
c. 20. | 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 [the
books against the Academicians], what I most rejoice in is, not
that I have vanquished the Academicians, as you express it (using
the language rather of friendly partiality than of truth), but that
I have broken and cast away from me the odious bonds by which I was
kept back from the nourishing breasts of philosophy, through
despair of attaining that truth which is the food of the soul.
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