9. It may further be objected that the wise man might lose
consciousness, if overwhelmed by disease, or the malice of magic.
Would he still remain happy? Either he will remain virtuous, being
only fallen asleep; in which case he might continue to be happy, since
no one claims he must lose happiness because of sleep, inasmuch as
no reckoning of the time spent in this condition is kept, and as he
is none the less considered happy for life. On the other hand, if
unconsciousness be held to terminate virtue, the question at issue is
given up; for, supposing that he continues to be virtuous, the question
at issue was, whether he remain happy so long as he remains virtuous.
It might indeed still be objected that he cannot be happy if he remain
virtuous without feeling it, without acting in conformity with virtue.
Our answer is that a man would not be any less handsome or healthy for
being so unconsciously. Likewise, he would not be any less wise merely
for lack of consciousness thereof.
THOUGH HAPPINESS IS ACTUALIZED WISDOM WE DO NOT LOSE IT WHEN
UNCONSCIOUS. WE DO NOT LOSE IT BECAUSE WE OURSELVES ARE ACTUALIZATIONS
OF INTELLIGENCE.
Once more it may be objected that it is essential to wisdom to be
self-conscious, for happiness resides only in actualized wisdom. This
objection would hold if reason and wisdom were incidentals. But if
the hypostatic substance of wisdom consist in an essence (being),
or rather, in being itself, and if this being do not perish during
sleep, nor during unconsciousness, if consequently the activity of
being continue to subsist in him; if by its very nature this (being)
ceaselessly watch, then the virtuous man must even in this state (of
sleep or unconsciousness), continue to exercise his activity. Besides,
this activity is ignored only by one part of himself, and not by
himself entirely. Thus during the operation of the actualization of
growth,[12] the perception of its activity is not by his sensibility
transmitted to the rest of the man. If our personality were constituted
by this actualization of growth, we would act simultaneously with
it; but we are not this actualization, but that of the intellectual
principle, and that is why we are active simultaneously with this
(divine intellectual activity).