Discourses - Book I   

of it? None at all. Well, suppose that He had made both, but had not
made light? In that case, also, they would have been of no use. Who is
it, then, who has fitted this to that and that to this? And who is
it that has fitted the knife to the case and the case to the knife? Is
it no one? And, indeed, from the very structure of things which have
attained their completion, we are accustomed to show that the work
is certainly the act of some artificer, and that it has not been
constructed without a purpose. Does then each of these things
demonstrate the workman, and do not visible things and the faculty
of seeing and light demonstrate Him? And the existence of male and
female, and the desire of each for conjunction, and the power of using
the parts which are constructed, do not even these declare the
workman? If they do not, let us consider the constitution of our
understanding according to which, when we meet with sensible
objects, we simply receive impressions from them, but we also select
something from them, and subtract something, and add, and compound
by means of them these things or those, and, in fact, pass from some
to other things which, in a manner, resemble them: is not even this
sufficient to move some men, and to induce them not to forget the
workman? If not so, let them explain to us what it is that makes
each several thing, or how it is possible that things so wonderful and
like the contrivances of art should exist by chance and from their own
proper motion?
What, then, are these things done in us only. Many, indeed, in us
only, of which the rational animal had peculiar need; but you will
find many common to us with irrational animals. Do they them
understand what is done? By no means. For use is one thing, and
understanding is another: God had need of irrational animals to make
use of appearances, but of us to understand the use of appearances. It
is therefore enough for them to eat and to drink, and to sleep and
to copulate, and to do all the other things which they severally do.
But for us, to whom He has given also the faculty, these things are
not sufficient; for unless we act in a proper and orderly manner,
and conformably to the nature and constitution of each thing, we shall
never attain our true end. For where the constitutions of living
beings are different, there also the acts and the ends are
different. In those animals, then, whose constitution is adapted
only to use, use alone is enough: but in an animal which has also
the power of understanding the use, unless there be the due exercise
of the understanding, he will never attain his proper end. Well then
God constitutes every animal, one to be eaten, another to serve for
agriculture, another to supply cheese, and another for some like
use; for which purposes what need is there to understand appearances
and to be able to distinguish them? But God has introduced man to be a
spectator of God and of His works; and not only a spectator of them,
but an interpreter. For this reason it is shameful for man to begin
and to end where irrational animals do, but rather he ought to begin
where they begin, and to end where nature ends in us; and nature
ends in contemplation and understanding, in a way of life
conformable to nature. Take care then not to die without having been