[Jesus-post] idently that our r

Sun Aug 16 19:51:42 CEST 2009

 does not entirely reply to the question asked above, at least it opens
the way to the reply, which causes us to see that each desire of ours
does not proceed in its expansion in one way alone. But because this
chapter is somewhat prolonged, we will reply in a new chapter to the
question, wherein may be ended the whole disputation which it is our
intention to make against riches. CHAPTER XIII. In reply to the
question, I say that it is not possible to affirm properly that the
desire for knowledge does increase, although, as has been said, it does
expand in a certain way. For that which properly increases is always
one; the desire for knowledge is not always one, but is many; and one
desire fulfilled, another comes; so that, properly speaking, its
expansion is not its increase, but it is advance of a succession of
smaller things into great things. For if I desire to know the principles
of natural things, as soon as I know these, that desire is satisfied and
there is an end of it. If I then desire to know the why and the
wherefore of each one of these principles, this is a new desire
altogether. Nor by the advent of that new desire am I deprived of the
perfection to which the other might lead me. Such an expansion as that
is not the cause of imperfection, but of new perfection. That expansion
of riches, however, is properly increased which is always one, so that
no succession is seen therein, and therefore no end and no perfection.
And if the adversary would say, that if the desire to know the first
principles of natural things is one thing, and the desire to know what
they are is another, so is the desire for a hundred marks one thing, and
the desire for a thousand marks is another, I reply that it is not true;
for the hundred is part of the thousand and is related to it, as part of
a line to the whole of the line along which one proceeds by one impulse
alone; and there is no succession there, nor completion of m
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