lamp, he can forthwith see and can reap the fullest enjoyment of the marvellous treasures of God’s wisdom, both in himself and in the larger world; that is to say, can appreciate the numerical and proportional arrangement of the whole creation. Now, when the internal lamp is not lit, but the torches of strange opinions are carried round without, the effect must be as if lights were carried round a man shut up in a dark dungeon; the rays indeed penetrate the chinks, but the full light is unable to enter. Thus, as Seneca says: “The seeds of all arts are implanted in us, and God the master brings forth intellect from the darkness.”
9. The things to which our minds may be likened teach the same lesson. For the earth (with which the Scriptures often compare our heart) receives seeds of every description. One and the same garden can be sown with herbs, with flowers, and with aromatic plants of every kind, if only the gardener lack not prudence and industry. And the greater the variety, the pleasanter the sight to the eyes, the sweeter the attraction to the nose, and the more potent the refreshment to the heart. Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. And, just as a writer can write or a painter paint whatever he wishes on a bare tablet, if he be not ignorant of his art, thus it is easy for one who is not ignorant of the art of teaching to depict all things on the human mind. If the result be not successful, it is more than certain that this is not the fault of the tablet (unless it have some inherent defect), but arises from ignorance on the part of the writer or painter. There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while, in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.
10. Again, the comparison of our brain, the workshop of thought, to wax which either receives the impress of a seal, or furnishes the material for small images, is an apt one. For just as wax, taking every form, allows itself to be
