Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/235

 knowest that sight and hearing and feeling perceive a man's body and yet do not apprehend it alike. The ears perceive what they hear, and yet do not altogethe apprehend the body as it really is; touch may grope and feel that it is a body, but it cannot feel if it be black or white, fair or foul. But the sight, in the first moment that the eyes look up it, takes in the whole form of the body. But I would show thee yet another argument, that thou mayest know what thou didst marvel at.'

'What is it?' I said.

Then said she, 'It is this, that a man perceives separately what he discerns in another man; he perceives him separately with the eyes, separately with the ears, and separately by his imagination, reason, and intuition. There are many living creatures without motion, such as shell-fish, that nevertheless have a certain measure of reason, for they could not live if they had no jot of it. Some are able to see, some to hear, others to smell. But moving creatures are more like unto men, for they all have not only that which creatures without movement have, but more to boot; they are like men in loving what they love, hating what they hate, shunning what they abhor, and seeking what they love. Now men have all that we have said, and in addition the mighty gift of reason, while angels have unerring intelligence (intuition). Creatures are thus made to the end that those without movement may not exalt themselves above those that move, nor strive with them; and that