Chapter XII.—On the Recollection
of Things Mathematical.
19. The memory containeth also the reasons and
innumerable laws of numbers and dimensions, none of which hath any
sense of the body impressed, seeing they have neither colour, nor
sound, nor taste, nor smell, nor sense of touch. I have heard the
sound of the words by which these things are signified when they
are discussed; but the sounds are one thing, the things another.
For the sounds are one thing in Greek, another in Latin; but the
things themselves are neither Greek, nor Latin, nor any other
language. I have seen the lines of the craftsmen, even the finest,
like a spider’s web; but these are of another kind, they are not
the images of those which the eye of my flesh showed me; he knoweth
them who, without any idea whatsoever of a body, perceives them
within himself. I have also observed the numbers of the things with
which we number all the senses of the body; but those by which we
number are of another kind, nor are they the images of these, and
therefore they certainly are. Let him who sees not these things
mock me for saying them; and I will pity him, whilst he mocks
me.