_R._ _Thou graspest it well enough in speech, and well enough thou understandest it._ But I can say to thee that I am the faculty of Reason, which argueth with thee--the discursive faculty whose province it is to explain to thee in such wise that thou mayest see God with thy mind's eyes as clearly as thou now seest the sun with the eyes of the body. _A._ _Almighty God reward thee! I am truly grateful for thy promise to teach it to me so clearly. Although I was ignorant, yet I emerge from this condition to a clearer vision of Him_, if I come to see Him as I now see the sun. _Howbeit I do not see the sun so clearly as I would like to. I know very little better what the sun is, though I look on it every day. Still it seemed good to me that I might thus clearly see God._ _R._ _Now consider very earnestly what I formerly said to thee._ _A._ _I will, so much as possible._ _R._ First know of a truth that the mind is the eye of the soul; secondly, thou must know that it is needful for one to see what one looketh at; the fourth is what one would see. For every one having eyes first looketh at that which he would see till he hath beheld it. When he hath beheld it then he truly seeth it. But thou must know that I who now speak with thee am Reason, and I am to every human mind what looking is to the eyes. Three things it behooveth the eyes of every human body to have; the fourth is what it seeketh and would draw to them. One is that thou hast and usest and lovest that which thou formerly didst hope for. [Sidenote: 27.13--29.13] _A._ _Alas! Shall I ever come to that which I hope for, or shall that ever come to me which I desire?_ _R._ Add now love as a third besides faith and hope; for the eyes of no soul are entirely sound--especially to see God with--if lacking these three. Seeing, then, is knowing. _A._ If then there be sound eyes, that is, perfect understanding, what is then wanting to it, or what is more needful? _R._ The soul's vision is _Reason and Contemplation_. But many souls look with these, and yet see not what they desire, because they have not entirely sound eyes. But he who wisheth to see God must have the eyes of his mind whole; that is, he must have an abiding faith and a just hope and a full love. When he hath all these, then hath he life blessed and eternal. The vision which we shall catch of God is knowledge. That knowledge is between two things--between that which understandeth and that which is understood--and is fastened on both _even as love is between the lover and the one loved. On both it is fastened, as we said before concerning the anchor-cable that the one end was fast to the ship, and the other to the land._ _A._ _Then if it ever again happeneth that I can see God as thou now teachest me that I should behold Him, would I need all three of the things that thou formerly spakest about, namely: faith and hope and love?_ [Sidenote: 29.13--30.27]