For us Wisdom also is a whole; it is common to all of us, because it
is not different in different places; it would, indeed, be ridiculous
for it to need existence in some locality. Besides, wisdom does not
resemble whiteness; for (whiteness is the quality of a body, while)
Wisdom does not at all belong to the body. If we really participate
in Wisdom, we necessarily aspire to some thing single and identical,
which exists in itself, as a whole, simultaneously. When we participate
in this Wisdom, we do not receive it in fragments, but entire; and
the Wisdom which you possess entire is not different from that which
I myself possess. We find an image of this unity of Wisdom in the
assemblies and meetings of men, where all those present seem to help in
making up a single Wisdom. It seems that each one, isolated from the
others, would be powerless to find wisdom; but when the same person
is in a meeting, where all the minds agree together, in applying
themselves to a single object, he would produce, or rather discover,
Wisdom. What indeed hinders different minds from being united within
one same and single Intelligence? Although Intelligence be common to
us and to other men, we do not notice this community. It is as if,
touching a single object with several fingers, one should later imagine
having touched several objects; or as if one had struck a single
chord of the lyre without seeing it (and thinking that one had struck
different chords).
BY THE INTELLIGIBLE PARTS OF THEIR BEING, ALL MEN SHARE THE SAME
INTELLIGIBLE.
Let us return to our subject. We were seeking how we might attain the
Good with our souls. The Good that you attain is not different from
the one that I myself attain; it is the same. And when I say that it
is the same, I do not mean that from the Good descended upon us both
different things, so that the Good would remain somewhere on high,
while His gifts descended down here; on the contrary, I mean that He
who gives is present to those who receive, so that these may veritably
receive; I mean besides that He gives His gifts to beings who are
intimately united with Him, and not to beings who might be foreign to
Him; for intellectual gifts cannot be communicated in a local manner.
One even sees different bodies, in spite of the distance that separates
them, receiving the same gifts, because the gift granted, and the
effect produced tend to the same result; much more, all the actions
and passions which produce themselves in the body of the universe are
contained within it, and nothing comes to it from without. Now if a
body, which by its nature as it were scatters itself (because it is
in a perpetual flowing wastage), nevertheless, receives nothing from
without, how would a being that has no extension retain nothing from
without, how would a being that has no extension retain something
from without? Consequently, as all are contained in one and the
same Principle, we see the good, and we altogether touch it by the
intelligible part of our nature.