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The Third Treatise - CHAPTER III
Not without cause do I say that this Love was at work in my mind; but
it is said reasonably, in order to explain what this Love is, by the
place in which it works. Wherefore, it is to be known that each thing,
as is said above, for the reason shown above, has its especial Love,
as the simple bodies have Love, innate, each in its proper place.
Therefore the Earth always descends to the centre, the fire to the
circumference above near the Heaven of the Moon, and always ascends
towards that. The bodies first composed, such as are the minerals,
have love for the place where their generation is ordained, and in
which they increase, and from which they have vigour and power.
Wherefore, we see the loadstone always receive power from the place of
its generation. Each of the plants which are first animated, that is,
first animated with a vegetative soul has most evident love for a
particular place, according as its nature may require; and therefore
we see certain plants almost always grow by the side of the streams,
and certain others upon the mountain tops, and certain others grow by
the sea-shore, or at the foot of hills, which, if they are
transplanted, either die entirely or live a sad life, as it were, like
a being separated from his friend. The brute beasts have a most
evident love, not only for places, but we see also their love towards
each other. Men have their own love for things perfect and excellent;
and since Man, although his Soul is one substance alone, because of
his nobility, partakes of the nature of each of these things, he can
possess all these affections, and he does possess them all. By his
part in the nature of the simple body, as earth, naturally it tends
downwards; therefore, when he moves his body upwards, he becomes more
weary.
Because of the second nature, of the mixed body, it loves the place of
its generation, and even the time; and therefore each one naturally is
of more power in his own place and in his own time than in any other.
Wherefore, one reads in the History of Hercules, and in the greater
Ovid, and in Lucan, and in other Poets, that when fighting with the
Giant who was named Antaeus, every time that the Giant was weary, and
laid his body down on the earth at full length, either by the will or
strength of Hercules, new strength and vigour then surged up in him,
drawn wholly from the Earth, in which and from which he was produced;
Hercules, perceiving this, at last seized him, and having compressed
and raised him above the Earth, he held him so tightly, without
allowing him to touch the Earth again, that he conquered Antaeus by
excess of strength, and killed him. According to the testimony of the
books, this battle took place in Africa.
And because of the third nature, that is, of the plants, Man has a
love for a certain food, not inasmuch as it affects the senses, but in
so much as it is nutritious; and that particular food does the work of
that most perfect Nature, while certain other food, dissimilar, acts
but imperfectly. And therefore we see that certain food will make men
handsome, and strong-limbed, and very brightly coloured, and certain
other food will do the opposite of this.
And by the fourth nature, of the animals, that is, the sensitive, Man
has the other love, by which he loves according to the sensible
appearance, like the beasts; and this love in Man especially has need
of control, because of its excessive operation in the delights given,
especially through sight and touch.
And because of the fifth and last nature, which is the true Human
Nature, and, to use a better phrase, the Angelic, namely, the
Rational, Man has by it the Love of Truth and Virtue; and from this
Love is born true and perfect friendship from the honest intercourse
of which the Philosopher speaks in the eighth book of the Ethics, when
he treats of Friendship.
Wherefore, since this nature is termed Mind, as is proved above, I
spoke of Love as discoursing in my Mind in order to explain that this
Love was the Friendship which is born of that most noble nature, that
is, of Truth and Virtue, and to exclude each false opinion, by which
my Love might be suspected to spring from pleasure of the Senses.
I then say, "With constant pleasure," to make people understand its
continuance and its fervour. And I say that it often whispers "Things
over which the intellect may stray." And I speak truth, because my
thoughts, when reasoning of her, often sought to draw conclusions of
her, which I could not comprehend, and I was alarmed, so that I seemed
almost like one dazed, even as he who, looking with the eye along a
direct line, sees first the nearest things clearly; then, proceeding,
it sees them less clearly; then, further on, doubtfully; then,
proceeding an immense way, the sight is divided from the object, and
sees nothing. And this is one unspeakable thing of that which I have
taken for a theme; and consequently I relate the other when I say:
His words make music of so sweet a kind
That the Soul hears and feels, and cries, Ah, me,
That I want power to tell what thus I see!
And because I know not how to tell it, I say that my soul laments,
saying, "Ah, me, that I want power." And this is the other unspeakable
thing, that the tongue is not a complete and perfect follower of all
that the intellect sees. And I say, "That the Soul hears and feels;"
hearing, as to the words, and feeling, as to the sweetness of the
sound. _
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