Letter 4: 1. It is very wonderful how completely I was taken by surprise, when, on searching to discover which of your letters still remained unanswered, I found only one which held me as your debtor — that, namely, in which you request me to tell you how far in this my leisure, which you suppose to be great, and which you desire to share with me, I am ma...

Letter 4 (387 AD) To Nebridius — Augustine sends greetings. 1. I was genuinely surprised when, searching through your letters to see which ones I still owed replies to, I found only one that I had not answered — the one where you ask how far I am making progress, in this leisure of mine (which you imagine to be abundant, and which you wish you could share), in learning to distinguish things perceived by the senses from things grasped by the understanding. But I expect you already know that if someone becomes more and more steeped in false ideas the more deeply they engage with them, then the corresponding effect is produced even more easily in the mind by contact with truth. Still, my progress, like physical growth, is so gradual that it is hard to mark out the distinct stages — just as there is a vast difference between a boy and a young man, yet if you asked someone every day from childhood onward, they could never point to the exact day when they stopped being a boy and became a young man. 2. Do not take this comparison to mean that I have arrived at the beginning of the soul's adulthood, in the prime of some more powerful understanding. I am still a boy — though perhaps, as we say, a promising one rather than a lost cause. The eyes of my mind are usually clouded and weighed down by the distractions that sensory experience inflicts on them. Yet they revive and lift themselves up again through this brief chain of reasoning: the mind and intelligence are superior to the eyes and ordinary sight. And this could only be the case if the things we perceive through intelligence are more real than the things we perceive through sight. Please help me examine whether any solid objection can be raised against this reasoning. For now, it restores and refreshes me. And when, after calling on God for help, I begin to rise toward him and toward those things that are real in the highest sense, I am sometimes so deeply satisfied by my grasp and enjoyment of eternal things that I marvel at ever needing such an argument to convince me of their reality — things that are as truly present to my soul as I am to myself. Please check through your own letters to make sure I have not accidentally left any unanswered. I find it hard to believe I have paid off so quickly what I used to consider such a mountain of debts — though at the same time, I am sure you have received letters from me that you have not yet replied to either.

Letter 4 (A.D. 387) To Nebridius Augustine Sends Greeting. 1. It is very wonderful how completely I was taken by surprise, when, on searching to discover which of your letters still remained unanswered, I found only one which held me as your debtor — that, namely, in which you request me to tell you how far in this my leisure, which you suppose to be great, and which you desire to share with me, I am making progress in learning to discriminate those things in nature with which the senses are conversant, from those about which the understanding is employed. But I suppose it is not unknown to you, that if one becomes more and more fully imbued with false opinions, the more fully and intimately one exercises himself in them, the corresponding effect is still more easily produced in the mind by contact with truth. Nevertheless my progress, like our physical development, is so gradual, that it is difficult to define its steps distinctly, just as though there is a very great difference between a boy and a young man, no one, if daily questioned from his boyhood onward, could at any one date say that now he was no more a boy, but a young man. 2. I would not have you, however, so to apply this illustration as to suppose that, in the vigour of a more powerful understanding, I have arrived as it were at the beginning of the soul's manhood. For I am yet but a boy, though perhaps, as we say, a promising boy, rather than a good-for-nothing. For although the eyes of my mind are for the most part perturbed and oppressed by the distractions produced by blows inflicted through things sensible, they are revived and raised up again by that brief process of reasoning: The mind and intelligence are superior to the eyes and the common faculty of sight; which could not be the case unless the things which we perceive by intelligence were more real than the things which we perceive by the faculty of sight. I pray you to help me in examining whether any valid objection can be brought against this reasoning. By it, meanwhile, I find myself restored and refreshed; and when, after calling upon God for help, I begin to rise to Him, and to those things which are in the highest sense real, I am at times satisfied with such a grasp and enjoyment of the things which eternally abide, that I sometimes wonder at my requiring any such reasoning as I have above given to persuade me of the reality of those things which in my soul are as truly present to me as I am to myself. Please look over your letters yourself, for I own that you will be in this matter at greater pains than I, in order to make sure that I am not perchance unwittingly still owing an answer to any of them: for I can hardly believe that I have so soon got from under the burden of debts which I used to reckon as so numerous; albeit, at the same time, I cannot doubt that you have had some letters from me to which I have as yet received no reply.

EPISTOLA 4 Scripta post superiorem. A. Nebridio significans quantum profecerit in secessu contemplatione rerum aeternarum (n. 1), confiteturque mentem esse meliorem sensibus (n. 2).   Nebridio Augustinus Rerum intellegibilium contemplatio. 1. Mirum admodum est, quam mihi praeter spem evenerit, quod cum requiro quibus epistolis tuis mihi respondendum remanserit, unam tantum inveni quae me adhuc debitorem teneret, qua petis ut tanto nostro otio, quantum esse arbitraria tecum, aut nobiscum cupis, indicemus tibi quid in sensibilis atque intellegibilis naturae discernentia profecerimus. Sed non arbitror occultum tibi esse, si falsis opinionibus tanto quisque inseritur magis, quanto magis in eis familiariusque volutatur, multo id facilius in rebus veris animo accidere. Ita tamen paulatim ut per aetatem proficimus. Quippe cum plurimum inter puerum et iuvenem distet, nemo a pueritia quotidie interrogatus se aliquando iuvenem dicet. Mens sensibus melior. 2. Quod nolo in eam partem accipias, ut nos in his rebus quasi ad quamdam mentis iuventutem firmioris intellegentiae robore pervenisse existimes. Pueri enim sumus, sed, ut dici assolet, forsitan belli, et non mali. Nam plerumque perturbatos et sensibilium plagarum curis refertos mentis oculos illa tibi notissima ratiuncula in respirationem levat, mentem atque intellegentiam oculis et hoc vulgari aspectu esse meliorem: quod non ita esset, nisi magis essent illa quae intellegimus, quam ista quae cernimus. Cui ratiocinationi utrum nihil valide inimicum sit, peto mecum consideres. Hac ego interim recreatus, cum Deo in auxilium deprecato, et in ipsum, et in ea quae verissime vera sunt attolli coepero, tanta nonnumquam rerum manentium praesumptione compleor, ut mirer interdum illa mihi opus esse ratiocinatione, ut haec esse credam, quae tanta insunt praesentia, quanta sibi quisque sit praesens. Recole tu quoque; nam te fateor huius rei esse diligentiorem, ne quid forte nesciens rescriptis adhuc debeam. Nam mihi non facit fidem tam multorum onerum, quae aliquando numeraveram, tam repentina depositio: quamvis te accepisse litteras meas non dubitem, quarum rescripta non habeo.