Page:Margoliouth-BookAppleAscribed-1892.pdf/52

238 the fact that the soul is departed from it? — : If ignorance be blindness to one’s own concerns, then the ignorance and blindness of the body before death are even more evident than its ignorance after death. — : Though the ignorance of blindness may be in the body after death, the ignorance of:folly is not there assuredly. — of blindness and the ignorance of folly? — : Wherein is the identity? — : The two are identical in that they both afflict people of understanding. As for the ignorance of folly, it is like badness and evil-doing and evil-speaking; and as for the ignorance of blindness, it is like an evil smell and the fetid matter whence it proceeds. — : I only know of the existence of foulness and sensuality while the soul is in the body: can it be that this foulness proceeds from the soul and not from the body? — soul, while the soul was abstracted from accidental states, this foulness would appear in every soul, and no soul would be without it; how then could we have learned that the philosopher’s soul is free from foulness, and uncleanness? Whereas we have learned and know well that the purity of their souls has gained the upper hand over lust and overcome desire and passion. They have subdued these inclinations and harmonized lust with reason. — : If then between lust and the soul there be so great a difference, how comes it that passion and the soul part together from the body? — : The soul is a flame, and when some one of the humours of the body prevails, it kindles the body as fire kindles fuel, and causes the light of the soul to issue from the body even as a fire brings brightness and heat out of wood. And passion is as a fire that brings the brigl1tness of the soul out of the body. — : Can it be that brightness itself comes from warmth? — : If brightness varied with heat, a summer night should be brighter than a winter day, even as a summer night. is warmer than a winter day. — When the dialogue had reached this point, said: You have enlivened my mind,
 * What is the difference between the ignorance
 * If foul habits were of the original essence of the