_R._ _Thou sayest that thou lovest naught but God and thy soul; if that is true_, lovest thou then no other friend? _A._ Why, if I love a soul, do I not love my friend? Hath not he a soul? _R._ _If thou lovest thy friend because he hath a soul, why, then, lovest thou not every thing that hath a soul?_ Why dost thou not love _mice_ and _fleas_? _A._ I love them not, because they are carnal animals, not men. _R._ Have not thy friends likewise _bodies_, even as beasts have? _A._ Yet it is not on this account I love them, but because they are men, and have reason in their minds--that quality I love even in _slaves_. Those that I hate, I hate because they turn the good of reason into evil, _since I am allowed both to love the good and to hate the evil_. Therefore I love all my friends, some less, some more; and him whom I love more than another, I love him so much more than the other as I perceive that he hath a better will than the other, and the desire to make his reason more serviceable. _R._ Thou understandest it well enough, and rightly enough. But if any one should now say to thee that he could teach thee how thou mightest know God as well as thou knowest Alypius thy servant, would that seem enough to thee, or how much wouldst thou thank him for it? _A._ I should thank him, but nevertheless I would not answer 'enough.' _R._ Why? _A._ Alypius is better known to me than God, yet even him I know not so well as I would. [Sidenote: 17.9--19.2] _R._ Look to it now that thy desire be not beyond measure, now that thou _comparest them together. Wouldst thou know God just as thou dost Alypius?_ _A._ Nay; nor do I make them the more alike, albeit I name them together. But I say that one often knoweth more about higher than about lowlier things. I know now about the _moon, how it will move to-morrow and other nights_; but, I know not what I shall eat to-morrow, which is a baser matter. _R._ Then wouldst thou know enough about God, if He should be as well known to thee as the _motion of the moon_--in what constellation it now is, or into which it is going next? _A._ Nay; I wish that He were better known to me than the moon which I see with mine eyes. Yet I do not know but that God may, for some secret reasons, which we know not, change it in another wise; then should I be perplexed in what I now imagine I know about it. _But I would have such knowledge about God, in my reason and in my understanding, that nothing could disturb me, nor bring me into any doubt._ _R._ Dost thou believe, therefore, that I can make thee _wiser about God than thou now art about the moon_? _A._ _Yea_; I believe it, but I should prefer to know it, for we believe all that we know, and we are ignorant of many things which we believe. _R._ Methinks that thou dost not trust the external senses--_eyes, ears, smell, taste, and touch--as a means of clearly understanding what thou wouldst, unless thou comprehend it in the mind by the reason_.