Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/194

 5. All our actions and affections in this life show that we do not attain our ultimate end here, but that everything connected with us, as well as we ourselves, has another destination. For whatever we are, do, think, speak, contrive, acquire, or possess, contains a principle of gradation, and, though we mount perpetually and attain higher grades, we still continue to advance and never reach the highest.

For in the beginning a man is nothing, and has been non-existent from eternity. It is from his mother’s womb that he takes his origin. What then is a man in the beginning? Nothing but an unformed mass endowed with vitality. This soon assumes the outlines of a human body, but has, as yet, neither sense nor movement.

Later on it begins to move and by a natural process bursts forth into the world. Gradually the eyes, ears, and other organs of sense appear. In course of time the internal senses develope and the child perceives that he sees, hears, and feels. Then the intellect comes into existence by cognising the differences between objects; while, finally, the will assumes the office of a guiding principle by displaying desire for certain objects and aversion for others.

6. But in all these individual points of progress we find nothing but succession. For the intelligence that underlies matter makes itself seen by degrees, like a ray of dawn shining through the darkness of night, and, as long as life remains, there is a continual access of light, unless a man become utterly brutish. Thus our actions are at first weak, unformed and confused; then the virtues of the mind unfold themselves proportionately to the forces of the body, so that as long as we live (unless the greatest lethargy take possession of us and bury us alive) we are continually exercising our faculties.

In a worthy mind all these functions tend to a higher development, nor can we find any end of the things that we desire or wish to accomplish.

7. In whatever direction a man turns he may perceive