These words signify that nature is a soul begotten by a superior Soul
that possesses a more potent life, and contains her contemplation
silently within herself, without inclining towards that which is higher
or lower. Abiding within her own essence ("being") that is, within her
own rest and self-consciousness, having discovered, so far as it was
possible for her, what was below her, without going out of her way to
seek it, nature produced an agreeable and brilliant object. If it is
desired to attribute some sort of cognition or sensation to nature,
these will resemble true cognition and sensation only as those of a man
who is awake resemble those of a man who is asleep.[182] For nature
peaceably contemplates her object, which was born in her as effect of
nature's abiding within and with herself, of herself being an object of
contemplation, and herself being a silent, if weak contemplation. There
is, indeed, another power that contemplates more strongly; the nature
which is the image of another contemplation. Consequently, what she has
produced is very weak, because a weakened contemplation can beget a
weak object only.
IT IS MEN WHO ARE TOO WEAK FOR CONTEMPLATION THAT SEEK A REFUGE IN
ACTION.
Likewise it is men too weak for speculation who, in action, seek a
shadow of speculation and reason. Not being capable of rising to
speculation, and because of their soul-weakness not being able to grasp
that which in itself is intelligible, and to fill themselves therewith,
though however desiring to contemplate it, these men seek, by action,
to achieve that which they could not obtain by thought alone. Thus we
find that action is a weakness or result of contemplation, when we act,
or desire to see, or to contemplate, or to grasp the intelligible,
or try to get others to grasp it, or propose to act to the extent of
our ability. It is a weakness, for, after having acted, we possess
nothing of what we have done; and a consequence, because we contemplate
something better than we ourselves have made. What man indeed who
could contemplate truth would go and contemplate its image? This
is the explanation of the taste for manual arts, and for physical
activity[183] (as thought Aristotle).