1. 1. Augustine: What do you think we are trying to accomplish when we speak?

Adeodatus: As far as I can see at the moment, either to teach or to learn.

Augustine: I see one of these and agree, for it is clear that by speaking we want to teach. But how do we learn?

Adeodatus: How do you suppose, if not when we ask questions?

Augustine: Even then I understand that we want nothing other than to teach. For let me ask you: do you ask a question for any reason other than to teach the one you are questioning what you want?

Adeodatus: What you say is true.

Augustine: Then you see that in speaking we seek nothing other than to teach.

Adeodatus: I do not quite see that. For if speaking is nothing other than uttering words, I notice that we do this when we sing; and since we often do so alone, with no one present to learn, I do not think we want to teach anything.

Augustine: But I think there is a certain kind of teaching by way of reminding—an important kind, as our conversation itself will show. Still, if you do not think that we learn when we remember, or that the one who reminds us teaches, I will not contend with you; and I now lay down two reasons for speaking: either to teach or to remind, whether others or ourselves. This we accomplish even when we sing—or does it not seem so to you?

Adeodatus: Not at all, for it is quite rare that I sing in order to remind myself; I do so only for enjoyment.

Augustine: I see what you mean. But do you not notice that what pleases you in singing is a certain modulation of sound? And since this can be added to words or taken away from them, speaking is one thing and singing another. For music is made on the flute and the lyre, birds sing, and we ourselves sometimes sound out something musical without words—a sound that can be called song but not speech. Is there anything here you would dispute?

Adeodatus: Nothing at all.

1. 2. Augustine: Does it seem to you, then, that speech was instituted for no purpose other than teaching or reminding?

Adeodatus: It would seem so, were I not troubled that when we pray we certainly speak, and yet it is not right to believe that God is taught anything by us or reminded of anything.

Augustine: I think you know that we have been commanded to pray in our closed rooms (Matt 6:6)—a phrase that signifies the inner recesses of the mind—for no other reason than that God, in order to grant us what we desire, does not seek to be reminded or taught by our speech. For one who speaks gives an outward sign of his will by an articulate sound, whereas God is to be sought and entreated in the very secret places of the rational soul, which is called the inner self; for he willed these to be his temple. Have you not read in the Apostle: Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16) and that Christ dwells in the inner self (See Eph 3:16–17)? And have you not noticed in the prophet: Speak in your hearts, and on your beds be pierced with remorse; offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord (Ps 4:4–5 (4:5–6))? Where do you think the sacrifice of righteousness is offered, if not in the temple of the mind and on the beds of the heart? And where one must offer sacrifice, there too one must pray. And so there is no need of speech when we pray—that is, of spoken words—except perhaps as priests do, for the sake of signifying their mind, so that not God but other people may hear, and through being reminded may by a kind of common consent be lifted up to God. Or do you think otherwise?

Adeodatus: I agree completely.

Augustine: Does it not trouble you, then, that the supreme Teacher, when he taught his disciples to pray, taught them certain words (See Matt 6:9–13)—in which he seems to have done nothing other than teach them how they ought to speak when praying?

Adeodatus: That does not trouble me at all. For he taught them not words but the realities themselves by means of words, through which they might remind themselves to whom they should pray, and what they should pray for, when they prayed in the inner recesses of the mind, as has been said.

Augustine: You understand correctly. For at the same time I believe you notice this: even if someone should insist that—although we utter no sound—we nonetheless speak inwardly in the mind, because we think the words themselves, still in this kind of speaking too we do nothing other than call something to mind, since the memory, to which the words cling, by turning them over brings into the mind the very realities of which the words are signs.

Adeodatus: I understand and follow.

2. 3. Augustine: We are agreed, then, that words are signs.

Adeodatus: We are.

Augustine: And can a sign be a sign unless it signifies something?

Adeodatus: It cannot.

Augustine: How many words are there in this verse: Si nihil ex tanta Superis placet urbe relinqui (Virgil, Aeneid 2.659: "If it is the gods' pleasure that nothing be left of so great a city.")?

Adeodatus: Eight.

Augustine: So there are eight signs.

Adeodatus: That is so.

Augustine: I believe you understand this verse.

Adeodatus: Well enough, I think.

Augustine: Tell me what each of the words signifies.

Adeodatus: I do see what "si" ("if") signifies, but I can find no other word by which to explain it.

Augustine: At least you can find this: wherever it is that what is signified by this word exists?

Adeodatus: It seems to me that "si" signifies doubt; and where does doubt exist, if not in the mind?

Augustine: I accept that for now; go on to the rest.

Adeodatus: What does "nihil" ("nothing") signify, other than that which does not exist?

Augustine: Perhaps you are right; but I am held back from agreeing by what you granted earlier—that nothing is a sign unless it signifies something, and that what does not exist can in no way be something. So the second word in this verse is not a sign, since it does not signify anything; and it was wrongly settled between us that all words are signs, or that every sign signifies something.

Adeodatus: You press too hard. Yet when we have nothing to signify, it is utterly foolish to utter any word at all. But you, now, speaking with me—I believe you emit no sound in vain; rather, by everything that issues from your mouth you give me a sign so that I may understand something. And so you ought not to pronounce those two syllables when you speak, if by them you signify nothing. But if you see that their utterance is necessary, and that we are taught or reminded when they strike our ears, then surely you too see what I mean but cannot explain.

Augustine: What, then, shall we do? Shall we say that this word signifies a certain state of mind—when the mind does not see a thing and yet finds that it does not exist, or thinks it has found this—rather than the thing itself, which is nothing?

Adeodatus: That is perhaps the very thing I was struggling to explain.

Augustine: Then let us pass on from here, however the matter stands, lest something quite absurd happen to us.

Adeodatus: And what would that be?

Augustine: That nothing should detain us, and we suffer delay.

Adeodatus: This is ridiculous, and yet somehow I see that it could happen—indeed, I plainly see that it has happened.

2. 4. Augustine: In its proper place we shall understand this kind of contradiction more clearly, if God allows. For now, return to that verse and try, as best you can, to unfold what its other words signify.

Adeodatus: The third word is the preposition "ex" ("from"), for which we can say "de," I think.

Augustine: I am not asking you to replace one very well-known word with another equally well-known word that signifies the same thing—if indeed it does signify the same; but let us grant for the moment that it does. Surely, if this poet had said not "ex tanta urbe" but "de tanta," and I asked you what "de" signifies, you would say "ex"—these being two words, that is, two signs, signifying, as you suppose, some one thing. But it is that very thing, whatever the one thing is that is signified by these two signs, that I am asking about.

Adeodatus: It seems to me to signify a kind of separation from something in which a thing had been, which is said to be "from" it—whether that thing does not remain (as in this verse: though the city did not remain, there could be Trojans "from" it) or whether it does remain (as when we say there are merchants in Africa "from" the city of Rome).

Augustine: Granting that this is so, and without counting how many cases may perhaps be found that fall outside this rule of yours, this at least is easy for you to notice: that you have explained words by words, that is, signs by signs, and very well-known ones by very well-known ones. But I wanted you, if you could, to show me the very things of which these are signs.

3. 5. Adeodatus: I am surprised that you do not know—or rather that you pretend not to know—that what you want simply cannot be done by my answering, since we are conversing, where we cannot answer except with words. And you are asking about things that, whatever they are, are certainly not words; yet you too are asking me about them with words. So first you ask without words, and then I will answer on that same condition.

Augustine: You are within your rights, I admit. But if I were to ask what those three syllables signify when one says "paries" ("wall"), could you not point with your finger, so that I might see the very thing of which this three-syllable word is the sign—you pointing it out, yet uttering no words?

Adeodatus: I grant that this can be done only with nouns that signify bodies, provided those bodies are present.

Augustine: Do we call color a body, or rather a certain quality of a body?

Adeodatus: A quality, certainly.

Augustine: Why, then, can this too be pointed out with a finger? Are you adding to bodies the qualities of bodies as well, so that these too, when present, can be taught without words?

Adeodatus: When I said "bodies," I meant all corporeal things to be understood—that is, everything perceived in bodies.

Augustine: Yet consider whether some things must be excepted even here.

Adeodatus: You advise me well. For I should have said not "all corporeal things" but "all visible things." For I admit that sound, smell, taste, weight, heat, and the other things that pertain to the remaining senses, although they cannot be perceived apart from bodies and are therefore corporeal, still cannot be pointed out with a finger.

Augustine: Have you never seen how people converse with the deaf, as it were, by gesture, and how the deaf themselves, no less by gesture, ask, answer, teach, and indicate either everything they want or at least a great many things? When this happens, surely it is not only visible things that are shown without words, but also sounds and tastes and other things of this kind. For actors too in the theaters often unfold and set forth whole stories by dancing, without any words.

Adeodatus: I have nothing to object—except that neither I, nor even a dancing actor, could show you without words what "ex" ("from") signifies.

3. 6. Augustine: Perhaps you are right; but let us suppose he could. Surely you do not doubt that whatever bodily movement he uses to try to show me the thing signified by this word would not be the thing itself, but a sign. So here too he will indicate not a word by a word, but nonetheless a sign by a sign—so that both this monosyllable "ex" and that gesture would signify some one thing, which I would want shown to me without being signified.

Adeodatus: How is what you ask possible, I beg you?

Augustine: In the way the wall could be.

Adeodatus: But not even that, as our advancing reasoning has shown, can be shown without a sign. For pointing with the finger is certainly not the wall itself, but a sign is given by which the wall can be seen. So I see nothing that can be shown without signs.

Augustine: What if I asked you what walking is, and you got up and did it? Would you not be teaching me by the thing itself rather than by words or any other signs?

Adeodatus: I admit it is so, and I am ashamed not to have seen something so obvious. From this, too, thousands of things now occur to me that can be shown by themselves, not through signs—such as eating, drinking, sitting, standing, shouting, and countless others.

Augustine: Come now, tell me: if, being wholly ignorant of the meaning of this word, I asked you what walking is while you were walking, how would you teach me?

Adeodatus: I would do the very same thing a little more quickly, so that after your question you would be prompted by something new; and yet nothing else would be done than what had to be shown.

Augustine: Do you know that walking is one thing and hurrying another? For one who walks does not immediately hurry, and one who hurries does not necessarily walk; we speak of hurrying in writing, in reading, and in countless other matters. So, since after my question you would do what you were doing more quickly, I would suppose that walking was nothing other than hurrying—for that is the new element you would have added—and on that account I would be deceived.

Adeodatus: I admit that we cannot show a thing without a sign if we are asked while we are doing it. For if we add nothing, the one who asks will think we are unwilling to show him and, scorning him, are persisting in what we were doing. But if he asks about things we can do, yet does not ask at the time we are doing them, then after his question we can demonstrate what he asks by the thing itself rather than by a sign—unless perhaps he asks me, while I am speaking, what speaking is; for whatever I say in order to teach him, I must necessarily speak. From this I will teach with confidence, until I make plain to him what he wants, neither departing from the very thing he wanted demonstrated, nor seeking signs by which to show it other than itself.

4. 7. Augustine: Most acute. So consider whether we are now agreed that those things can be shown without signs which either we are not doing when asked yet can do at once, or which are themselves signs. For when we speak, we make signs—which is why it is called "signifying."

Adeodatus: Agreed.

Augustine: So when the inquiry concerns certain signs, signs can be shown by signs; but when it concerns things that are not signs, they are shown either by doing them after the question, if they can be done, or by giving signs through which they can be noticed.

Adeodatus: That is so.

Augustine: In this threefold division, then, let us first consider, if you please, the case where signs are shown by signs. For are words the only signs?

Adeodatus: No.

Augustine: It seems to me, then, that in speaking we signify with words either words themselves, or other signs—such as a gesture, when we say "gesture," or a letter; for the things signified by these two words are nonetheless signs—or something else that is not a sign, as when we say "stone"; for this word is a sign, since it signifies something, but what it signifies is not therefore a sign. But this last kind—signifying with words the things that are not signs—does not belong to the part we proposed to discuss. For we undertook to consider the case where signs are shown by signs, and we have found two parts in it: by signs we teach or remind of either the same signs or other signs. Or does it not seem so to you?

Adeodatus: It is clear.

4. 8. Augustine: Then tell me: to which sense do the signs that are words belong?

Adeodatus: To hearing.

Augustine: And a gesture?

Adeodatus: To sight.

Augustine: And when we come upon written words? Are they not words, or are they more truly understood as signs of words?—so that a word is what is uttered with some meaning by an articulate voice, and the voice can be perceived by no sense other than hearing; thus it comes about that when a word is written, a sign is made for the eyes by which what belongs to the ears comes into the mind.

Adeodatus: I agree completely.

Augustine: I think you also agree that when we say "name," we signify something.

Adeodatus: True.

Augustine: What, then, is it?

Adeodatus: That by which each thing is called—such as Romulus, Rome, virtue, river, and countless others.

Augustine: Do these four names signify no things?

Adeodatus: On the contrary, they signify some.

Augustine: Is there no difference between these names and the things signified by them?

Adeodatus: On the contrary, a very great difference.

Augustine: I would like to hear from you what it is.

Adeodatus: This above all: that these are signs, while those are not.

Augustine: Would you agree that we call "signifiable" those things that can be signified by signs and are not themselves signs—just as we call "visible" those that can be seen—so that we may discuss them more conveniently hereafter?

Adeodatus: I agree indeed.

Augustine: Well then, those four signs you pronounced a little while ago—are they signified by no other sign?

Adeodatus: I am surprised you think it has already slipped my mind that we found written things to be signs of the things uttered by the voice—signs of signs.

Augustine: Tell me, what is the difference between them?

Adeodatus: That those are visible, these audible. For why would you not admit this term too, since we admitted "signifiables"?

Augustine: I fully admit it, and welcome it. But again I ask: can these four signs be signified by no other audible sign—as you recalled was the case with visible things?

Adeodatus: This too I recall having said more recently. For I had answered that "name" signifies something, and had placed these four under that signification; and both that word and these four, since they are uttered by the voice, I recognize to be audible.

Augustine: What, then, is the difference between an audible sign and audible signified things that are themselves again signs?

Adeodatus: Between what we call "name" and these four that we placed under its signification, I see this difference: that the former is an audible sign of audible signs, whereas these are indeed audible signs, yet not of signs but of things—partly visible, like Romulus, Rome, river; partly intelligible, like virtue.

4. 9. Augustine: I accept and approve. But do you know that all things uttered by an articulate voice with some meaning are called "words"?

Adeodatus: I know.

Augustine: Then a name too is a word, since we see it uttered by an articulate voice with some meaning. And when we say that an eloquent man uses good words, he certainly uses names as well; and when, in Terence, the slave said to his aged master, Good words, please (Terence, Andria 204), he had spoken many names too.

Adeodatus: I agree.

Augustine: You grant, then, that by the two syllables we utter when we say "word," a name too is signified, and that for this reason the former is a sign of the latter.

Adeodatus: I grant it.

Augustine: I would like you to answer this too. Since "word" is a sign of "name," and "name" is a sign of "river," and "river" is a sign of the thing that can now be seen—so that, just as you said what the difference is between this thing and "river" (that is, its sign), and between this sign and the "name" that is the sign of this sign—what do you think is the difference between the sign of "name," which we found to be "word," and "name" itself, of which it is the sign?

Adeodatus: I understand the difference to be this: that the things signified by "name" are also signified by "word"—for just as a name is a word, so "river" too is a word; but not all things signified by "word" are signified by "name." For both that "si" ("if") at the head of the verse you set before me, and this "ex," in dealing with which we have come so far by the guidance of reason, are words, yet not names; and many such are found. Therefore, since all names are words but not all words are names, I think it is clear what the difference is between "word" and "name": that is, between the sign of that sign which signifies no other signs, and the sign of that sign which in turn signifies others.

Augustine: Do you grant that every horse is an animal, yet not every animal a horse?

Adeodatus: Who would doubt it?

Augustine: So the relation between "name" and "word" is the same as between horse and animal—unless perhaps you are kept from agreeing by the fact that we also use "word" in another sense, namely for those that are inflected through tenses, such as "scribo" / "scripsi" ("I write" / "I wrote") and "lego" / "legi" ("I read" / "I have read"), which are clearly not names.

Adeodatus: You have said exactly what was making me hesitate.

Augustine: Do not let that trouble you. For we also call "signs," universally, all things that signify anything—among which we find words to be included. We likewise speak of military standards, which are now properly called "signs," to which words do not belong. And yet if I were to tell you that, just as every horse is an animal but not every animal a horse, so every word is a sign but not every sign a word, you would, I think, have no doubt.

Adeodatus: Now I understand, and I fully agree that there is the same difference between that universal "word" and "name" as between animal and horse.

4. 10. Augustine: Do you also know that when we say "animal," this trisyllabic name uttered by the voice is one thing, and what it signifies is another?

Adeodatus: I already granted this above concerning all signs and signifiables.

Augustine: Do all signs seem to you to signify something other than what they are—just as this trisyllable, when we say "animal," in no way signifies the same thing that it itself is?

Adeodatus: Not at all. For when we say "sign," it signifies not only all the other signs, whatever they are, but also itself; for it is a word, and certainly all words are signs.

Augustine: And when we say "word," this disyllable—does not something similar happen? For if everything uttered by an articulate voice with some meaning is signified by this disyllable, then it too is included in the class.

Adeodatus: That is so.

Augustine: And does not "name" behave similarly? For it signifies names of every gender, and "name" itself is a name of the neuter gender. Or, if I asked you what part of speech "name" is, could you answer me correctly except with "name"? In Latin grammar nomen denotes the noun, so the term names its own part of speech; the self-reference, exact in the Latin, is only approximate in English.

Adeodatus: What you say is true.

Augustine: There are signs, then, that among the other things they signify also signify themselves.

Adeodatus: There are.

Augustine: Does this four-syllable sign seem such to you, when we say "conjunction"?

Adeodatus: By no means. For the things it signifies are not names, whereas this is a name.

5. 11. Augustine: You have attended well. Now see whether signs are found that signify one another, so that just as the one is signified by the other, so the other by the one. For this four-syllable word, when we say "conjunction," and those signified by it—when we say "si," "vel," "nam," "namque," "nisi," "ergo," "quoniam," and the like—are not so related to each other; for these are signified by that one word, but that one four-syllable word is signified by none of these.

Adeodatus: I see, and I desire to know which signs signify one another.

Augustine: Do you not know, then, that when we say "name" and "word," we are saying two words?

Adeodatus: I know.

Augustine: And do you not know that when we say "name" and "word," we are saying two names?

Adeodatus: That too I know.

Augustine: You know, then, that "name" is signified by "word" just as "word" is signified by "name."

Adeodatus: I agree.

Augustine: Can you say, apart from the fact that they are written and sound differently, how they differ from each other?

Adeodatus: Perhaps I can; for I see that it is what I said a little earlier. For when we say "words," we signify everything uttered by an articulate voice with some meaning; hence every name—including "name" itself, when we say it—is a word. But not every word is a name, although "word" itself is a name, when we say it.

5. 12. Augustine: What if someone were to affirm and prove to you that, just as every name is a word, so every word is a name? Would you be able to find how they differ, apart from the different sound of their letters?

Adeodatus: I would not, and I think there is no difference at all.

Augustine: What if all things uttered by an articulate voice with some meaning are indeed both words and names, but are words for one reason and names for another? Will there then be no difference between "name" and "word"?

Adeodatus: I do not understand how that could be.

Augustine: At least you understand this: that everything colored is visible, and everything visible colored, although these two words signify distinctly and differently.

Adeodatus: I understand.

Augustine: What, then, if in the same way every word is a name and every name a word, although these very two names—or two words—that is, "name" and "word," have a different signification?

Adeodatus: I now see that this can happen; but how it happens I wait for you to show.

Augustine: Everything that bursts forth by an articulate voice with some meaning, you notice, I suppose, both strikes the ear, so as to be perceived, and is committed to memory, so as to be known.

Adeodatus: I notice it.

Augustine: So two things happen when we utter something by such a voice.

Adeodatus: That is so.

Augustine: What, then, if from one of these two, words (verba) were so called, and from the other, names (nomina)—words from "striking" (verberare), since they strike the ear, and names from "making known" (noscere), since they make a thing known to the mind—so that the first deserved its appellation from the ears, the second from the mind?

5. 13. Adeodatus: I will grant it, when you have shown how we can rightly call all words names.

Augustine: That is easy. For I believe you have learned and hold that what is called a pronoun is so called because it stands in for the noun itself, yet denotes the thing with a less full signification than the noun. For, as I suppose, the grammarian to whom you recited your lessons defined it thus: A pronoun is a part of speech which, put in place of the noun itself, signifies the same thing, though less fully.

Adeodatus: I recall it and approve.

Augustine: You see, then, that by this definition pronouns serve none but nouns and can be put in place of these alone—as when we say "this man," "the king himself," "the same woman," "this gold," "that silver": "this," "himself," "the same," "this," "that" are pronouns; "man," "king," "woman," "gold," "silver" are nouns, by which the things are signified more fully than by those pronouns.

Adeodatus: I see and agree.

Augustine: Now, then, name me any few conjunctions you like.

Adeodatus: "et" (and), "-que" (and), "at" (but), "atque" (and also).

Augustine: Do not all these that you said seem to you to be names?

Adeodatus: Not at all.

Augustine: At least do I seem to you to have spoken correctly when I said, "all these that you said"?

Adeodatus: Quite correctly; and now I understand how wonderfully you have shown that I uttered names: for otherwise it could not rightly have been said of them, "all these." But I am still afraid that you seem to me to have spoken correctly only because I do not deny that these four conjunctions are also words—so that "all these" could rightly be said of them because "all these words" is rightly said. But if you ask me what part of speech "words" is, I will answer nothing other than "name." (That is, a noun (nomen); see the note at 4.10 on Augustine's use of nomen for the grammatical noun) And so perhaps a pronoun was joined to this noun, which made your expression correct.

5. 14. Augustine: You are cleverly mistaken; but, that you may cease to be mistaken, attend more cleverly to what I shall say—if only I can say it as I wish. For to treat of words by words is as tangled as interlocking the fingers and rubbing them, where one can scarcely tell, except by the very person doing it, which fingers itch and which are helping the ones that itch.

Adeodatus: Here I am, all attention, for that comparison has made me most intent.

Augustine: Words, certainly, consist of sound and letters.

Adeodatus: That is so.

Augustine: Therefore, to use above all the authority dearest to us: when the apostle Paul says, There was not in Christ Yes and No, but Yes was in him (2 Cor 1:19), we must not, I think, suppose that the three letters we utter when we say "est"—the Latin word for "is," used here for "Yes"—were in Christ, but rather what is signified by those three letters.

Adeodatus: What you say is true.

Augustine: You understand, then, that one who says Est was in him said nothing other than that what was in him is called "Est"—just as, had he said "Virtue was in him," it would be taken to mean nothing other than that what was in him is called "virtue"; lest we should suppose that the two syllables we utter when we say "virtus" ("virtue"), and not what those two syllables signify, were in him.

Adeodatus: I understand and follow.

Augustine: And do you not also understand that it makes no difference whether someone says it "is called virtue" or it "is named virtue"?

Adeodatus: It is clear.

Augustine: So it is equally clear that it makes no difference whether one says that what was in him "is called Est" or "is named Est."

Adeodatus: I see that here too there is no difference.

Augustine: Do you now also see what I want to show?

Adeodatus: Not yet, I confess.

Augustine: Do you really not see that a name is that by which something is named?

Adeodatus: I see nothing more certain than this.

Augustine: You see, then, that "Est" is a name, since what was in him is named "Est."

Adeodatus: I cannot deny it.

Augustine: But if I were to ask you what part of speech "Est" is, I think you would say not a name but a verb, even though reason has taught that it is a name as well.

Adeodatus: It is exactly as you say.

Augustine: Do you still doubt that the other parts of speech too are names, in the same way we have shown?

Adeodatus: I do not doubt it, since I grant that they signify something. But if you ask what the things themselves that they signify are each called—that is, named—I can answer nothing other than those very parts of speech which we do not call names but which, as I see, we are forced to call so.

5. 15. Augustine: Does it not trouble you at all that someone might arise to shake this argument of ours by saying that authority is to be granted to the apostles not for their words but for the things they teach—and so that the foundation of this conviction is not so firm as we suppose? For it could be that Paul, though he lived and taught most rightly, nonetheless spoke less correctly when he said Est was in him—especially since he himself confesses that he is untrained in speech (See 2 Cor 11:6). How, then, do you think such a person is to be refuted?

Adeodatus: I have nothing to say against him, and I beg you to find someone among those to whom the highest mastery of words is granted, by whose authority you may rather accomplish what you wish.

Augustine: Does reason itself, then, seem to you less adequate, with the authorities set aside—reason by which it is shown that something is signified by every part of speech, and from that it is called something; and if called, then named; and if named, named of course by a name? This is most easily judged in different languages. For who does not see that, if you ask what the Greeks name what we name "Quis" ("who"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Volo" ("I wish"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Bene" ("well"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Scriptum" ("written"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Et" ("and"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Ab" ("from"), an answer is given; what the Greeks name what we name "Heu" ("alas"), an answer is given; and that in all these parts of speech which I have just listed, the one who asks in this way speaks correctly—which could not happen unless they were names? Since, then, by this reasoning we can establish, with the authorities of all the eloquent set aside, that the apostle Paul spoke correctly, what need is there to seek some person on whose standing our position may rest?

5. 16. But lest someone slower or more shameless still not yield, and insist that he will in no way yield except to those authors to whom by everyone's consent the laws of words are assigned—what can be found in the Latin language more excellent than Cicero? Yet in those most celebrated orations of his which are called the Verrines, he called "coram" ("before"), a preposition—or in that passage perhaps an adverb—a name. But since it may be that I understand that passage less well, and it might be explained otherwise, either by me or by another, there is something to which I think nothing can be answered. For the most distinguished masters of disputation hand down that a complete sentence, one that can be affirmed and denied, consists of a noun and a verb—a kind of thing that Cicero himself in one place calls a "proposition" (pronuntiatum). And they say that, when the verb is in the third person, the name with it ought to be in the nominative case; and they say so rightly. Consider this with me: when we say "Homo sedet" ("A man sits"), "Equus currit" ("A horse runs"), you recognize, I suppose, that there are two propositions.

Adeodatus: I recognize it.

Augustine: Do you see that in each there is a single name—in the one "homo" ("man"), in the other "equus" ("horse")—and a single verb, in the one "sedet" ("sits"), in the other "currit" ("runs")?

Adeodatus: I see it.

Augustine: So if I were to say only "sits" or only "runs," you would rightly ask me who or what, that I might answer "a man," or "a horse," or "an animal," or anything else by which a name supplied to the verb could complete the proposition—that is, the sentence which can be affirmed and denied.

Adeodatus: I understand.

Augustine: Now attend to the rest. Suppose we see something far off and are uncertain whether it is an animal or a stone or something else, and I say to you, "Because it is a man, it is an animal"—would I not be speaking rashly?

Adeodatus: Quite rashly. But you would plainly not be speaking rashly if you said, "If it is a man, it is an animal."

Augustine: You are right. And so in your sentence "If" pleases me; it pleases you too. But in mine "Because" displeases us both.

Adeodatus: I agree.

Augustine: Now see whether these two sentences are complete propositions: "'If' pleases," "'Because' displeases."

Adeodatus: Complete indeed.

Augustine: Come now, tell me which there are the verbs and which the names.

Adeodatus: I see that the verbs there are "pleases" and "displeases"; and the names—what else but "if" and "because"?

Augustine: It has therefore been sufficiently proved that these two conjunctions too are names.

Adeodatus: Sufficiently indeed.

Augustine: Can you, by yourself, teach this same thing of the other parts of speech by the same rule?

Adeodatus: I can.

6. 17. Augustine: Then let us pass on from here, and now tell me: just as we have found that all verbs are names and all names verbs, do all names also seem to you to be appellations (vocabula), and all appellations names?

Adeodatus: I plainly see no difference between them except the different sound of the syllables.

Augustine: For now I do not resist this, though there are those who distinguish the two even in meaning; but there is no need to consider their view just now. At any rate you notice that we have already arrived at signs that signify one another, differing in nothing but sound, and that signify themselves along with all the other parts of speech.

Adeodatus: I do not understand.

Augustine: Do you not understand, then, that "name" is signified by "appellation" and "appellation" by "name," so that, as far as the general sense of "name" is concerned, there is no difference but the sound of the letters? For we also speak of "name" in a special sense, namely as it is one of the eight parts of speech, in such a way that it does not contain the other seven.

Adeodatus: I understand.

Augustine: But this is what I said—that "appellation" and "name" signify each other.

6. 18. Adeodatus: I have that; but I ask what you meant when you said, "They also signify themselves along with the other parts of speech."

Augustine: Did not the earlier reasoning teach us that all parts of speech can be called both names and appellations—that is, can be signified both by "name" and by "appellation"?

Adeodatus: It is so.

Augustine: And what of "name" itself—that is, this sound expressed in two syllables: if I ask you what you call it, will you not rightly answer me, "a name"?

Adeodatus: Rightly so.

Augustine: But does this sign which we utter in four syllables when we say "conjunction" signify itself in this way? For this name cannot be counted among those it signifies.

Adeodatus: I take your point rightly.

Augustine: That is what was meant by saying that "name" signifies itself along with the other things it signifies; and you may understand the same of "appellation" by yourself.

Adeodatus: That is easy now. But this now occurs to me: "name" is used both generally and specially, whereas "appellation" is not reckoned among the eight parts of speech. So I think these two also differ from each other in something beyond their different sound.

Augustine: And what of "name" and "ónoma"? Do you think they differ in anything beyond the sound by which Latin and Greek are distinguished?

Adeodatus: Here indeed I see nothing else.

Augustine: We have arrived, then, at signs that signify themselves, and one of which is signified mutually by the other, and that signify whatever the one signifies the other also signifies, and that differ from each other in nothing but sound. For this fourth feature we have just now found; the three earlier ones are understood of "name" and "verb" as well.

Adeodatus: We have certainly arrived there.

7. 19. Augustine: Now I should like you to review what we have found by our conversing.

Adeodatus: I will do so as best I can. First of all, I recall that for some while we inquired why we speak, and we found that we speak for the sake of teaching or of calling something to mind, since even when we ask a question we do nothing else than that the one questioned may learn what we wish to hear; and in singing, which we seem to do for pleasure's sake, this is not proper to speech; and in praying to God, whom we cannot suppose to be taught or reminded, words have this power: that we ourselves are reminded, or that others are reminded or taught through us. Next, when it had been sufficiently settled that words are nothing other than signs, and that things which signify nothing cannot be signs, you set before me a verse whose individual words I was to try to show what they signify; the verse was: Si nihil ex tanta Superis placet urbe relinqui (Virgil, Aeneid 2.659: "If it is the gods' pleasure that nothing be left of so great a city."). Its second word, though most familiar and most plain, we nevertheless could not find what it signified. And when it seemed to me that we do not insert it in speech to no purpose, but that by it we teach the hearer something—namely, the very disposition of mind, when one finds that the thing he is looking for is not there, or thinks he has found it, this perhaps being indicated by this word—you indeed answered, but, evading by a joke some depth of the question I know not, you put off its clearing up to another time; and do not think I have forgotten what you owe me here. Then, when I was busy explaining the third word in the verse, you pressed me to show not another word of the same value but rather the thing itself which is signified by the words. And when I had said that this could not be done while we were conversing, we came to the things that are pointed out with the finger to those who ask. These I supposed were all corporeal, but we found only visible ones. From there we came, I know not how, to the deaf and to actors, who by gesture without voice signify not only things that can be seen but many besides, indeed almost everything we say; yet we found that these gestures too are signs. Then again we began to ask how we might show, without any signs, the very things that are signified by signs, since even that wall, and color, and every visible thing pointed out by the intention of the finger, was shown to be pointed out by a certain sign. Here, going astray, when I had said that nothing of the kind could be found, we at last agreed between us that those things can be demonstrated without a sign which, when asked of us, we are not doing and can do after the inquiry; speech, however, is not of that kind, since it was sufficiently apparent that even while speaking, when we are asked what speech is, it is easy to demonstrate it through itself.

7. 20. By this we were brought to see that either signs are shown by signs, or by signs other things that are not signs, or even that, without a sign, things are shown which we can do after the question is asked; and of these three we undertook to consider and discuss the first more carefully. By that discussion it was made clear that some signs cannot in turn be signified by the signs they signify—as is the case with this four-syllable word when we say "conjunction"—while others can, as when we say "sign," we also signify "word," and when we say "word," we also signify "sign"; for "sign" and "word" are both two signs and two words. But within this kind, in which signs signify one another, it was shown that some signs do not have equal value, some do, and some are even equivalent. For this disyllable, which sounds when we say "sign," signifies absolutely everything by which anything is signified; but when we say "word," it is not the sign of all signs, but only of those that are uttered in articulate voice. Hence it is plain that, although both "word" is signified by "sign" and "sign" by "word"—that is, both these two syllables by those, and those by these—"sign" nonetheless has greater value than "word"; that is, more things are signified by those two syllables than by these. But the general "verb" and the general "name" have equal value. For reason taught that all parts of speech are also names, since pronouns can be added to them, and of all of them it can be said that they name something, and there is none of them that cannot, with a verb joined, complete a proposition. But although "name" and "verb" have equal value—because everything that is a verb is also a name—they are nonetheless not equivalent. For it was argued with sufficient probability that they are called verbs for one reason and names for another, since the one of these was found to mark the striking of the ears, the other the reminding of the mind. This can be understood even from the fact that in speaking we most rightly say, "What is the name of this thing?" when we wish to commit it to memory; but we are not accustomed to say, "What is the word of this thing?" As for those that not only have equal value but are also altogether equivalent, and between which there is no difference but the sound of the letters—we found "name" and "ónoma." One thing had indeed slipped my mind: whether, in this kind in which signs signify one another, we have found any sign that does not, among the other things it signifies, also signify itself. This much I have recalled as well as I could. Now you must see—for I think you have said nothing in this conversation except as one who knows and is certain—whether I have set these things out well and in order.

8. 21. Augustine: You have recalled everything I wished, and indeed accurately; and, to confess it to you, these distinctions now seem to me much clearer than when we were both digging them out of some hidden recesses by inquiry and discussion. But it is hard to say at this point to what end I am laboring, through such roundabout ways, to arrive with you. For perhaps you think either that we are playing and turning the mind away from serious matters with certain childish little questions, or that we are seeking some small or middling benefit; or, if you suspect that this discussion is bringing something great to birth, you now desire to know, or at least to hear, what it is. But I should like you to believe that I have not undertaken this conversation for the sake of cheap amusements—though perhaps we are at play, yet even this is not to be judged in a childish spirit—nor am I thinking of small or middling goods. And yet, if I were to say that there is a certain blessed life, and that everlasting, to which I desire that we be led, with God as our guide—that is, by Truth itself—by certain steps fitted to our feeble pace, I am afraid I should seem ridiculous, having set out upon so long a road not by way of the things themselves that are signified but by the consideration of signs. You will pardon me, then, if I make this preliminary play with you not for the sake of playing but of exercising the strength and keenness of mind by which we may be able not only to bear but even to love the warmth and light of that region where the blessed life is.

Adeodatus: Go on rather as you have begun; for I would never think contemptible what you have thought worth saying or doing.

8. 22. Augustine: Come, then, let us now consider that part where it is not other signs that are signified by signs, but the things we call signifiable. And first tell me whether a man is a man.

Adeodatus: Now I really do not know whether you are joking.

Augustine: Why so?

Adeodatus: Because you think you should ask me whether a man is anything other than a man.

Augustine: You would think yourself mocked in the same way, I suppose, if I were also to ask whether the first syllable of this name is anything other than "ho," and the second anything other than "mo."

Adeodatus: Just so, entirely.

Augustine: But these two syllables joined together are "homo" ("man"): will you deny it?

Adeodatus: Who would deny it?

Augustine: I ask, then: are you these two joined syllables?

Adeodatus: By no means; but I see where you are heading.

Augustine: Say it, then, lest you think me insulting.

Adeodatus: You think the conclusion is that I am not a man.

Augustine: And do you not think the same yourself, you who grant that all the earlier points from which this is put together are true?

Adeodatus: I will not tell you what I think until I have first heard from you: when you asked whether a man is a man, were you asking me about these two syllables, or about the thing itself which they signify?

Augustine: You answer, rather, in which sense you took my question; for if it is ambiguous, you ought first to have guarded against this, and not to have answered me before you were sure in what way I had asked.

Adeodatus: How would this ambiguity hinder me, since I answered to both? For a man is altogether a man: for these two syllables are nothing other than these two syllables, and what they signify is nothing other than what it is.

Augustine: That is shrewd; but why did you take only this one word that was uttered, "man," in both senses, and not the others we have spoken as well?

Adeodatus: How am I shown that I did not take the others in this way too?

Augustine: To pass over the rest: that very first question of mine, had you taken it wholly in the sense in which the syllables sound, you would have answered me nothing—for I could have seemed to you to be asking nothing at all. But in fact, when I had sounded three words, of which I repeated one in the middle, saying "whether a man is a man," that you took the first and last word not according to the signs themselves but according to what is signified by them is plain from this alone: that you thought you should answer the question at once, with certainty and confidence.

Adeodatus: You are right.

Augustine: Why, then, did you choose to take only the one set in the middle both according to what it sounds and according to what it signifies?

Adeodatus: See, now I take the whole only in the sense in which it is signified; for I agree with you that we cannot converse at all unless, when words are heard, the mind is carried to the things of which they are signs. Show me now, then, how I was deceived by this reasoning by which it is concluded that I am not a man.

Augustine: No, I will ask the same things over again, so that you may yourself find where you slipped.

Adeodatus: You do well.

8. 23. Augustine: That first thing I had asked, since you have already granted it, I will not ask again. Look, then, more carefully: whether the syllable "ho" is anything other than "ho," and whether "mo" is anything other than "mo."

Adeodatus: Here indeed I see nothing else.

Augustine: See also whether, these two being joined, "homo" comes about.

Adeodatus: This I will by no means grant; for we agreed, and rightly agreed, that when a sign is given we attend to what is signified, and from the consideration of it either grant or deny what is said. But those syllables uttered separately, since they sounded without any signification, it was granted that they are what they sounded.

Augustine: You are content, then, and hold it firm in mind, that questions are to be answered only from those things which are signified by the words?

Adeodatus: I do not see why it should displease me, provided they are words.

Augustine: I should like to know how you would withstand that man of whom we are accustomed to hear, in jest, that he concluded a lion had come out of the mouth of the one he was disputing with. For when he had asked whether the things we speak come out of our mouth, and the other could not deny it—which was easy—he so worked on the man that in speaking he named a lion; and once this was done, he began ridiculously to mock and press him: since the other had confessed that whatever we speak goes out of our mouth, and could not deny that he had spoken "lion," the man—though no bad man—seemed to have vomited up so monstrous a beast.

Adeodatus: It would have been not at all hard to withstand this buffoon; for I would not grant that whatever we speak goes out of our mouth. For what we speak, we signify; and it is not the thing signified, but the sign by which it is signified, that goes out of the speaker's mouth—except when the signs themselves are signified, the kind we treated of a little earlier.

8. 24. Augustine: You would indeed be well prepared against him in this way. But what will you answer me when I ask whether "man" is a name?

Adeodatus: What, but that it is a name?

Augustine: And what of this—when I see you, do I see a name?

Adeodatus: No.

Augustine: Do you wish me to say what follows?

Adeodatus: Please do not; for I myself report to myself that I am not a man, since I answered that "man" is a name, when you were asking whether "man" is a name. For we had already agreed that what is said is to be assented to or denied from the thing that is signified.

Augustine: But it seems to me that you did not fall into this answer for no reason; for the very law of reason implanted in our minds overcame your vigilance. For if I were to ask what a man is, you would perhaps answer "an animal"; but if I were to ask what part of speech "man" is, you could in no way answer rightly except "a name." Therefore, since "man" is found to be both a name and an animal, the former is said with respect to that part in which it is a sign, the latter with respect to the thing it signifies. So when someone asks whether "man" is a name, let me answer nothing other than that it is; for he sufficiently signifies that he wishes to hear about it on the side where it is a sign. But if he asks whether it is an animal, I will assent far more readily; for if, saying nothing of either "name" or "animal," he asked only what a man is, the mind would by that settled rule of speaking run to what is signified by the two syllables, and nothing would be answered but "animal," or even the whole definition would be given—that is, "a rational, mortal animal." Does it not seem so to you?

Adeodatus: It seems so entirely. But since we have granted that "man" is a name, how shall we avoid that too-insulting conclusion by which it is made out that we are not men?

Augustine: How do you think, except by teaching that it was not drawn from the side on which we assented to the questioner? Or, if he confesses that he is drawing it from that side, it is in no way to be feared; for why should I dread to confess that "man"—that is, these three syllables—is not me?

Adeodatus: Nothing is truer. Why, then, does it offend the mind when it is said, "You are not, therefore, a man," since, according to what was granted, nothing truer could have been said?

Augustine: Because I cannot but think that the conclusion is referred to what is signified by these two syllables, the moment those words have sounded—namely, by that rule which naturally has the greatest force, that when signs are heard the attention is carried to the things signified.

Adeodatus: I accept what you say.

9. 25. Augustine: Now, then, I want you to understand that the things which are signified are to be valued more highly than the signs. For whatever exists for the sake of something else must be of less worth than that for the sake of which it exists—unless you think otherwise.

Adeodatus: It seems to me that here one must not assent rashly; for when we say "filth" (coenum), I think this name far surpasses the thing it signifies. For what offends us when we hear it does not belong to the sound of the word itself: for "coenum" ("filth"), with one letter changed, is "coelum" ("heaven"); but between the things signified by these names we see how great a distance there is. Therefore I would by no means attribute to this sign what we hate in the thing it signifies; and so I rightly prefer the former to the latter, for we hear it more gladly than we touch the other with any sense.

Augustine: Most vigilant indeed. So it is false that all things are to be valued more highly than their signs.

Adeodatus: So it seems.

Augustine: Tell me, then, what you think those people had in view who gave a name to so foul and contemptible a thing—and whether you approve or disapprove of them.

Adeodatus: For my part, I dare neither approve nor disapprove of them, nor do I know what they had in view.

Augustine: Can you at least know what you yourself have in view when you utter this name?

Adeodatus: This I plainly can: for I wish to signify, so as to teach or remind the one with whom I am speaking about that thing, of which I think he ought to be taught or reminded.

Augustine: And this very teaching or reminding—or being taught or reminded—which you suitably bring about by this name, or which is brought about for you: is it not to be held dearer than the name itself?

Adeodatus: I grant that the knowledge itself, which comes about through this sign, is to be set before the sign; but I do not therefore think the same of the thing itself.

9. 26. Augustine: Therefore, although in that statement of ours it is false that all things ought to be set before their signs, it is nonetheless not false that everything which exists for the sake of something else is of less worth than that for the sake of which it exists. For the knowledge of filth, on account of which this name was instituted, is to be held of more worth than the name itself, which we found is to be set before the filth. For this knowledge has been preferred to the sign we are speaking of for no other reason than that the latter is shown to exist for the sake of the former, not the former for the sake of the latter. So, when a certain glutton and—as the apostle says—worshiper of his belly (See Phil 3:19) said that he lived in order to eat, a frugal man who heard him would not bear it, and said, "How much better to eat in order to live?" Yet each spoke by this same rule. For the one displeased for no other reason than that he valued his life so cheaply as to reckon it of less worth than the pleasure of the gullet, saying that he lived for the sake of feasting; and the other is rightly praised for no other reason than that, understanding which of these two was for the sake of which—that is, which was subordinate to which—he warned that we should eat in order to live rather than live in order to eat. In the same way, perhaps you too, and anyone who does not weigh things unskillfully, would answer some chatterer and lover of words who said, "I teach in order to speak": "Man, why do you not rather speak in order to teach?" And if these things are true, as you know they are, you surely see how much less words are to be valued than that for the sake of which we use words; since the very use of words is already to be set before the words: for words exist that we may use them, and we use them for teaching. By as much, then, as it is better to teach than to speak, by so much is speech better than words. By much, therefore, is teaching better than words. But I am eager to hear what you may think should be objected.

9. 27. Adeodatus: I agree indeed that teaching is better than words; but whether there is nothing that can be objected against this rule by which it is said that everything which exists for the sake of something else is inferior to that for the sake of which it exists, I do not know.

Augustine: We shall treat this at another, more fitting time and more carefully; for now, what you grant is enough for what I am trying to establish. For you grant that the knowledge of things is dearer than the signs of things. Therefore the knowledge of the things that are signified is to be preferred to the knowledge of the signs. Or does it not seem so to you?

Adeodatus: Did I grant that the knowledge of things is more excellent than the knowledge of signs, and not rather than the signs themselves? And so I am afraid I cannot assent to you here. For what if, just as the name "filth" is better than the thing it signifies, so too the knowledge of this name is to be set before the knowledge of that thing, even though the name itself is inferior to that knowledge? For there are four things: the name, the thing, the knowledge of the name, and the knowledge of the thing. Therefore, just as the first surpasses the second, why should not the third also surpass the fourth? But granted that it does not surpass it—must it for that reason be subordinated to it?

9. 28. Augustine: I see, quite remarkably, that you have both held on to what you granted and unfolded what you meant. But you understand, I suppose, that this three-syllable name which sounds when we say "vice" (vitium) is better than what it signifies, even though the knowledge of the name itself is much inferior to the knowledge of vices. So you may set up and consider these four as well—the name and the thing, the knowledge of the name and the knowledge of the thing; the first we rightly set before the second. For this name, placed in a poem, when Persius says, but here he is stupefied by vice (Persius, Satires 3.32), not only made no vice in the verse but even gave it some adornment; whereas the thing itself which is signified by this name, in whatever it is present, forces it to be vicious. But it is not so with the third and fourth: rather we see the fourth excel the third. For the knowledge of this name is cheap beside the knowledge of vices.

Adeodatus: Do you think it is to be preferred even when this knowledge makes men more wretched? For the same Persius sets this one thing above all the punishments that the cruelty of tyrants has devised or their greed paid out: the torment by which those men are racked who are forced to recognize vices they cannot avoid.

Augustine: In this way you can deny that even the knowledge of virtues is to be preferred to the knowledge of this name; for to see virtue and not to hold it is a punishment—the very one by which that same satirist wished tyrants to be punished.

Adeodatus: God avert this madness. For now I understand that it is not those kinds of knowledge themselves, with which the best of all disciplines imbues the mind, that are to be blamed, but that those men are to be judged the most wretched of all—as I think Persius too judged—who are afflicted with such a disease that not even so great a medicine can come to their aid.

Augustine: You understand well. But however the saying of Persius stands, what is that to us? For we are not subject to the authority of such men in matters of this kind. And besides, whether one kind of knowledge is to be preferred to another is not easy to unfold here. I am content with what has been accomplished: that the knowledge of the things that are signified, though not greater than the knowledge of signs, is yet of more worth than the signs themselves. And so let us now examine more and more what kind of things they are which we said could be shown without signs, through themselves—such as speaking, walking, sitting, lying down, and the rest of this kind.

Adeodatus: Now I recall what you mean.

10. 29. Augustine: Do all the things that we can do at once when asked seem to you able to be shown without a sign? Or do you make any exception?

Adeodatus: Considering this whole class again and again, I still find nothing that can be taught without a sign, except perhaps speech, and—if someone should happen to ask it—the very thing of what it is to teach. For I see that, whatever I do after his question so that he may learn, I do not depart from the very thing he wishes to be shown him. For if, while I am idle, as was said, or doing something else, someone asks me what it is to walk, and I at once try, by walking, to teach him without a sign what he asked, how shall I guard against his supposing that to walk is only as much as I have walked? And if he supposes this, he will be deceived: for whoever walks more or less than I have walked, this man he will not think to have walked. And what I have said of this one word passes over into all the things I had agreed could be shown without a sign, except those two we excepted.

10. 30. Augustine: I accept that. But does it not seem to you that to speak is one thing and to teach another?

Adeodatus: It does indeed seem so; for if they were the same, no one would teach except by speaking; but since we teach many things by signs other than words, who could doubt this difference?

Augustine: And what of to teach and to signify—is there no difference, or do they differ in something?

Adeodatus: I think they are the same.

Augustine: Does not he speak rightly who says that we signify in order to teach?

Adeodatus: Quite rightly.

Augustine: But what if another should say that we teach in order to signify? Is he not easily refuted by the earlier statement?

Adeodatus: He is.

Augustine: If, then, we signify in order to teach, and do not teach in order to signify, to teach is one thing and to signify another.

Adeodatus: You are right, and I answered wrongly that the two are the same.

Augustine: Now answer this: does he who teaches what it is to teach do so by signifying, or in some other way?

Adeodatus: I do not see how he could do it otherwise.

Augustine: It is false, then, what you said a little earlier—that a thing can be taught without signs when it is asked what teaching itself is; since we see that not even this can be done without signifying, once you have granted that to signify is one thing and to teach another. For if they are different, as is apparent, and the one is shown only through the other, then it is surely not shown through itself, as you had supposed. And so nothing has yet been found that can be shown through itself, except speech, which signifies, among other things, itself as well; yet since speech too is itself a sign, there is as yet absolutely nothing that seems able to be taught without signs.

Adeodatus: I have nothing to keep me from assenting.

10. 31. Augustine: It has been established, then, both that nothing is taught without signs, and that the knowledge itself ought to be dearer to us than the signs by which we come to know—although not all things that are signified can be of more worth than their signs.

Adeodatus: So it seems.

Augustine: Do you remember, I ask, by how great a circuit so small a matter has been accomplished? For ever since we began to hurl words at one another—which we have done so long—it has been labored at to find these three things: whether nothing can be taught without signs; and whether there are certain signs to be preferred to the things they signify; and whether the knowledge of things themselves is better than signs. But there is a fourth thing I should like to learn from you briefly: whether you think these findings so settled that you can no longer doubt them.

Adeodatus: I could wish indeed that, through such roundabout windings and turnings, we had come to certainty; but this very question of yours somehow makes me uneasy and deters me from assenting. For you seem to me not to have been going to ask this of me unless you had something to object; and the very intricacy of the matter does not let me look the whole through and answer with confidence, since I fear that something may lie hidden in such great wrappings which the keenness of my mind cannot survey.

Augustine: I am not unwilling to accept your hesitation; for it signifies a mind by no means rash, and that is the greatest safeguard of tranquillity. For it is altogether most difficult not to be disturbed when the things we held with a ready and easy approval are shaken by contrary arguments and, as it were, wrenched out of our hands. Therefore, just as it is fair to yield to reasons well considered and clearly seen, so it is dangerous to hold things unknown as known. For the fear is that, when the things we presume will stand and abide most firmly are often undermined, we may fall into such hatred or dread of reason that we think no trust should be placed even in plain truth itself.

10. 32. But come, let us now go back over more readily whether you have rightly thought these things should be doubted. I ask you: if someone ignorant of the way birds are tricked—the snaring done with reeds and birdlime—were to meet a fowler equipped with his gear yet not fowling but going along the road, and on seeing him slowed his step and, wondering to himself as one does, pondered and asked what that man's outfit meant; and if the fowler, seeing himself watched, out of a wish to show off got his reeds ready and, with his pipe and his hawk, struck down, brought low, and caught some little bird he had noticed nearby—would he not be teaching his onlooker, not by any sign but by the thing itself, what the man wished to know?

Adeodatus: I fear there may be something here like what I said of the man who asks what it is to walk. For here too I do not see that the whole of fowling has been shown.

Augustine: It is easy to rid you of this worry; for I add: if he were so intelligent that, from what he saw, he recognized the whole class of that art. For it is enough for the point that some men can be taught about some things, though not all, without a sign.

Adeodatus: This too I can add to that: for if he were intelligent, then, walking having been shown for a few steps, he would know the whole of what it is to walk.

Augustine: You may do so as far as I am concerned; and not only do I not resist, I even favor it. For you see that it is brought about by us both that certain things can be taught by certain people without signs, and that what seemed true to us a little earlier is false—that there is nothing at all that can be shown without signs. For now not one or two but thousands of things come to mind that are shown through themselves, with no sign given. For—to pass over the innumerable spectacles of men who exhibit things by the things themselves, without a sign, in all the theaters—does not God, and does not nature, exhibit and show through themselves, to those who behold, this very sun and the light that bathes and clothes all these things, the moon and the other heavenly bodies, the lands and the seas, and the countless things begotten in them?

10. 33. But if we consider more carefully, perhaps you will find nothing that is learned through its own signs. For when a sign is given me, if it finds me not knowing of what thing it is a sign, it can teach me nothing; but if it finds me knowing, what do I learn through the sign? For the word does not show me the thing it signifies when I read, and their mantles were not changed Dan 3:94 (Vg) [Dan 3:27]. The word is the Aramaic loanword sarabarae, "trousers" or "mantles.". For if certain coverings of the head are called by this name, did I, on hearing it, learn either what a head is or what coverings are? These I knew before; and the knowledge of them was made mine not when they were named by others but when they were seen by me. For when these two syllables, "head," first struck my ears, I knew as little what they signified as I did when I first heard or read "sarabarae." But when "head" was often said, noting and observing when it was said, I found it to be the word for a thing that was already most familiar to me by sight. Before I found this out, this word was to me a mere sound; but I learned that it was a sign when I found of what thing it was the sign—which thing, as I said, I had learned not by signifying but by seeing. And so the sign is learned through the known thing, rather than the thing itself through the given sign.

10. 34. That you may understand this more plainly, suppose we now hear for the first time the word "head," and, not knowing whether this utterance is merely a sound or also signifies something, ask what a head is (remember that we wish to have the knowledge not of the thing signified but of the sign itself, which we surely lack so long as we do not know of what it is the sign): if, then, to us asking thus, the thing itself were shown with the finger, on seeing it we learn the sign which we had only heard, not yet known. But since in this sign there are two things, sound and signification, we certainly perceive the sound not through a sign but by the ear being itself struck by it; and we perceive the signification by the thing that is signified being seen. For that intention of the finger can signify nothing other than that toward which the finger is directed; and it was directed not toward the sign but toward the member that is called the head. And so through that I can come to know neither the thing, which I already knew, nor the sign, toward which the finger was not directed. But about the intention of the finger I am not much concerned; for it seems to me rather a sign of the demonstration itself than of any of the things that are demonstrated—like the adverb that we call "behold" (ecce); for with this adverb too we are accustomed to point the finger, lest one sign of demonstrating not be enough. And what I am chiefly striving to persuade you of, if I can, is this: that through these signs which are called words we learn nothing; for rather, as I said, we learn the force of the word—that is, the signification that lies hidden in the sound—once the thing itself that is signified is known, rather than perceive that thing by such a signification.

10. 35. And what I have said of "head," I would say also of "coverings" and of countless other things; yet though I now know these, I still do not to this day know those "sarabarae." If someone were to signify them to me by gesture, or paint them, or show me something they are like, I will not say that he would not teach me—which I could easily maintain, if I were willing to argue a little more at length; but I say what is nearest at hand: he would not teach me by words. And if, when I happen to catch sight of them while he is present, he reminds me, saying, "Behold, sarabarae," I shall learn the thing I did not know—not through the words that were said, but through the sight of it, by which it came about that I also knew and held what that name signified. For when I learned the thing itself, I did not trust the words of another, but my own eyes; though perhaps I trusted them so far as to pay attention—that is, to seek with my sight what I should see.

11. 36. Thus far words have prevailed; and to grant them the most I can, they only prompt us to look for things, they do not exhibit them for us to know. But he teaches me something who sets before my eyes, or any sense of the body, or even the mind itself, the things I wish to know. By words, then, we learn nothing but words—rather, the sound and noise of words; for if things that are not signs cannot be words, then even when a word has been heard, I still do not know it to be a word until I know what it signifies. Once things are known, therefore, the knowledge of words too is completed; but when words are heard, not even the words are learned. For we do not learn the words we know; and the words we do not know we cannot confess to have learned, unless their signification has been perceived—which comes about not by the hearing of the utterances sent forth, but by the knowledge of the things signified. For it is most true reasoning, and most truly said, that when words are uttered we either know what they signify or we do not: if we know, we are reminded rather than taught; but if we do not know, we are not even reminded, but perhaps prompted to inquire.

11. 37. But if you should say that those head-coverings, whose name we hold by sound only, we cannot come to know except by seeing them, nor know the name itself more fully except once they are known—yet what we have heard about those very boys, that by faith and devotion they overcame the king and the flames, what praises they sang to God, what honors they earned even from their enemy (See Dan 3): did we learn this in any way but through words? I will answer that all the things signified by those words were already in our knowledge. For what three boys are, what a furnace is, what fire is, what a king is, and in short what unharmed by fire means, and all the rest that those words signify, I already held. But Ananias, Azarias, and Misael are as unknown to me as those sarabarae; nor did these names help me at all, or could now help me, toward knowing them. As for all the things that are read in that history, that they happened at that time just as they were written, I confess that I rather believe than know; nor were the very men whom we believe unaware of this difference. For the prophet says, unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa 7:9 (Old Latin)); which he surely would not have said had he judged there to be no difference. What I understand, therefore, I also believe; but not everything I believe do I also understand. And everything I understand, I know; not everything I believe do I know. Nor for that reason am I unaware how useful it is to believe also many things that I do not know; and to this usefulness I add this history of the three boys as well. And so, though I cannot know most things, I yet know with how great a usefulness they are believed.

11. 38. But concerning all the things we understand, we consult not a speaker who sounds outside us, but the Truth that presides within over the mind itself—prompted, perhaps, by words to consult it. And he who is consulted teaches: he who is said to dwell in the inner man, Christ (See Eph 3:16-17)—that is, the unchangeable Power of God and everlasting Wisdom (See 1 Cor 1:24)—which indeed every rational soul consults, but is opened to each only so far as he is able to receive it, according to his own will, whether good or bad. And if it is ever deceived, this happens not by the fault of the Truth consulted, just as it is no fault of this outer light that the eyes of the body are often deceived—a light that we confess we consult about visible things, that it may show them to us as far as we have the power to see.

12. 39. But if it is light that we consult about colors, and the elements of this world and the bodies themselves that we sense, and the very senses which the mind uses as interpreters for coming to know such things, about the things we perceive through the body; while about the things that are understood we consult the inner Truth by reason—what can be said to make it clear that we learn anything by words beyond the sound itself that strikes the ears? For all the things we perceive, we perceive either by a sense of the body or by the mind. The former we name sensible, the latter intelligible; or, to speak in the manner of our own authors, we name the former carnal, the latter spiritual. When we are asked about the former, we answer if the things we sense are at hand—as when we are asked, while gazing at the new moon, what it is like or where it is. Here the one who asks, if he does not see, believes the words, and often does not believe; but he in no way learns unless he himself sees what is spoken of—where now he learns not by words but by the things themselves and the senses. For the same words sound to one who sees as sounded also to one who did not see. But when the question is not about things we sense before us but about things we once sensed, we speak no longer of the things themselves but of images impressed by them and committed to memory; and how we can call these true at all, when we are gazing on false ones, I do not know—unless it is that we tell not that we see and sense them, but that we have seen and sensed them. Thus we carry those images in the inner recesses of memory as certain records of things sensed before, and contemplating them in mind with a good conscience we do not lie when we speak; but to us these are records: for he who hears, if he has sensed them and was present, does not learn by my words but recognizes them by the images carried away with himself as well; but if he has not sensed them, who does not see that he rather believes the words than learns?

12. 40. But when the matter concerns things we behold with the mind—that is, by the understanding and by reason—we speak indeed of things we look upon as present in that inner light of Truth by which the one who is called the inner man is illumined and made glad. But there too our hearer, if he himself also sees those things with a secret and simple eye, knows what I say by his own contemplation, not by my words. Therefore not even him do I teach, though I say true things while he beholds true things; for he is taught not by my words but by the things themselves made manifest by God disclosing them within. And so, even about these things, were he asked, he could answer. But what is more absurd than to think that he is taught by my speaking, who could, before I spoke, expound those very things if asked? For it often happens that someone, asked something, denies it, and is pressed by further questions to confess it; this comes about by the weakness of the one who sees, who cannot consult that light about the whole matter—a thing he is prompted to do part by part, when he is questioned about these very parts of which that whole is composed, the whole he was not strong enough to behold. And if he is led to this by the words of the one questioning, still the words do not teach but inquire in such a way as the one questioned is fit to learn within; just as, if I were to ask you about this very thing we are dealing with—whether nothing can be taught by words—and at first it seemed absurd to you because you could not see the whole: I had so to ask, as your powers of hearing that inner Teacher stood, that I might say, "The things you confess to be true while I speak, and of which you are certain, and which you affirm that you know—from whom did you learn them?" You would perhaps answer that I had taught them. Then I would add: "And what if I said I had seen a man flying—would my words make you as certain as if you heard that wise men are better than fools?" You would surely deny it and answer that you do not believe the former, or, even if you believed it, did not know it, but that you most certainly know the latter. From this, doubtless, you would now understand that you had learned nothing by my words—neither in the thing you did not know while I affirmed it, nor in the thing you knew perfectly well—since, asked about each, you would swear that the one was unknown and the other known to you. Then indeed you would confess the whole thing you had denied, when you came to know that the things of which it consists are clear and certain: namely, that of all that we speak, the hearer either does not know whether it is true, or knows that it is false, or knows that it is true. In the first of these three he either believes, or supposes, or doubts; in the second he opposes and refuses; in the third he bears witness—nowhere does he learn. For both he who, after our words, does not know the thing, and he who knows he has heard false things, and he who, if asked, could answer the same things that were said, are shown to have learned nothing by my words.

13. 41. Therefore, even in the things that are discerned by the mind, whoever cannot discern them hears in vain the words of one who does discern them—except that, so long as such things are unknown, it is useful to believe them. But whoever can discern them is within a disciple of the Truth, and without a judge of the speaker, or rather of the speech itself. For very often he knows the things that have been said, even when the one who said them does not know what he said—as if someone, believing the Epicureans and thinking the soul mortal, were to set forth the reasonings about its immortality that have been handled by wiser men, while one who can behold spiritual things hears him: this hearer judges that he speaks true things, but the speaker does not know whether he speaks truly—indeed, thinks them utterly false. Is he, then, to be supposed to teach things he does not know? And yet he uses the very same words that one who knew could also use.

13. 42. Therefore not even this is left to words: that by them at least the mind of the speaker is shown—since it is uncertain whether he knows the things he says. Add liars and deceivers, by whom you may easily understand that the mind is not only not opened but even hidden by words. For I in no way doubt that the words of truthful men try, and in a manner profess, to make the speaker's mind appear; and they would achieve this, by everyone's consent, if liars were not permitted to speak. Although we have often experienced, both in ourselves and in others, that words are uttered which are not of the things being thought—which I see can happen in two ways: either when a discourse committed to memory and often run through pours from the mouth while we are thinking of other things, as often happens to us when we sing a hymn; or when, against our will, some words leap out for others by a slip of the very tongue—for here too what is heard is not the signs of the things we have in mind. For liars, indeed, do think about the things they speak, so that, although we do not know whether they speak the truth, we do at least know that they have in mind what they say, unless one of those two things I mentioned happens to them; and if anyone contends both that these things do sometimes happen, and that, when they happen, it shows—though it is often hidden, and has often deceived me as I listened—I do not resist.

13. 43. But to these there is added another kind, very widespread, and the seed of countless disagreements and contentions: when the one who speaks does indeed signify the same things he thinks, but for the most part only to himself and to certain others; while to the one to whom he speaks, and likewise to some others, he does not signify the same. For suppose someone said, in our hearing, that man is surpassed in virtue by certain beasts; we at once cannot bear it, and refute this so false and pernicious opinion with great earnestness—when perhaps by "virtue" he means bodily strength, and by this name expresses what he had in mind, neither lying nor erring about the things, nor, with something else turning in his mind, weaving together words committed to memory, nor sounding by a slip of the tongue something other than what he was turning over; but only calling the thing he is thinking of by a name other than ours—a thing with which we would at once agree if we could inspect his thought, which, though his sentence is already uttered and explained, he was not yet able to open to us. They say that definitions can cure this error, so that in this question, if one defined what virtue is, it would, they say, become clear that the controversy is not about the thing but about the word; and granting that this is so, how many good definers can be found? And besides, many things have been argued against the discipline of defining—things which it is not fitting to treat here, and which I do not in every respect approve.

13. 44. I pass over the fact that we often mishear many things, and contend long and much about what we have, as it were, heard—as you recently, when I had said "mercy" (misericordia), said you had heard from those better acquainted with the Punic tongue that by some Punic word "piety" (pietas) is signified; but I, resisting, asserted that you had altogether forgotten what you had heard, for you seemed to me to have said not "piety" but "faith," though you sat very close to me, and these two names in no way deceive the ear by likeness of sound. Yet for a long time I supposed that you did not know what had been said to you, when it was I who did not know what you had said; for had I heard you well, it would have seemed to me by no means absurd that piety and mercy should be called by one word in Punic. These things often happen; but let us, as I said, pass them over, lest I seem to bring a quibbling charge against words on account of the hearer's carelessness, or even of men's deafness: the things I enumerated above press more, where, when words have been most clearly perceived by the ear, and Latin words at that, we are not able—being of the same language—to know the thoughts of those who speak.

13. 45. But see, I now relent and grant that, when the words of a speaker have been received by one to whom they are known, it can be known to him that the speaker had been thinking about the things they signify: but does he therefore also learn the thing that is now in question—whether the speaker has spoken truly?

14. 45. Do teachers profess this—that it is their thoughts that are perceived and held, and not the very disciplines which they suppose they are handing on by speaking? For who is so foolishly curious as to send his son to school that he may learn what the master thinks? But when they have unfolded in words all those disciplines which they profess to teach, even of virtue itself and of wisdom, then those who are called pupils consider within themselves whether true things have been said—gazing, that is, on that inner Truth according to their powers. Then, therefore, they learn; and when they have found within that true things have been said, they praise, not knowing that they are praising not so much teachers as the taught—if indeed the teachers too know what they speak. But men are deceived, so that they call those "masters" who are not, because for the most part no interval is interposed between the time of speaking and the time of knowing; and because they quickly learn within, after the prompting of the speaker, they think they have learned without, from the one who prompted them.

14. 46. But about the whole usefulness of words—which, if well considered, is not small—we shall inquire at another time, if God allows. For now I have warned you not to attribute to them more than we ought; so that we should now not merely believe but also begin to understand how truly it is written, on divine authority, that we should not call anyone our teacher on earth, since one is the teacher of all, who is in heaven (See Matt 23:8-10). But what it is to be "in heaven" he himself will teach, he by whom we are prompted, through men, by signs and outwardly, that, turned inward to him, we may be instructed—he whom to love and to know is the blessed life, which all proclaim they are seeking, though few there are who rejoice that they have truly found it. But now I should like you to tell me what you think of this whole discourse of mine. For if you know that the things which have been said are true, then, asked about each of the propositions, you would have said that you knew them: you see, therefore, from whom you learned them; not from me, to whom you would answer all my questions. But if you do not know that they are true, neither I nor he has taught you—not I, because I can never teach; not he, because you are not yet able to learn.

Adeodatus: For my part, I have learned, by the prompting of your words, that words do nothing but prompt a man to learn, and that it is very little that some thought of the speaker appears through speech; but whether the things said are true, he alone teaches who, when he was speaking outwardly, prompted us that he dwells within—whom now, with his own favor, I shall love the more ardently the more I advance in learning. Nevertheless, for this discourse of yours, which you have carried on unbroken, I am especially grateful, because it forestalled and dissolved everything I was prepared to object; and nothing at all was left out by you that troubled me with doubt, about which that hidden oracle did not answer me just as it was being asserted by your words.