Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/208

 the understanding might gain fresh objects of knowledge.

So unlimited is the capacity of the mind that in the process of perception it resembles an abyss. The body is enclosed by small boundaries; the voice roams within wider limits; the sight is bounded only by the vault of heaven; but for the mind, neither in heaven nor anywhere outside heaven, can a boundary be fixed. It ascends as far over the heavens above as below the depths beneath, and would do so if they were even a thousand times more vast than they are; for it penetrates through space with incredible speed. Shall we then deny that it can fathom and grasp all things?

5. Philosophers have called man a Microcosm or Epitome of the Universe, since he inwardly comprehends all the elements that are spread far and wide through the Macrocosm, or world at large; a statement the truth of which is shown elsewhere. The mind, therefore, of a man who enters this world is very justly compared to a seed or to a kernel in which the plant or tree really does exist, although its image cannot actually be seen. This is evident; since the seed, if placed in the ground, puts forth roots beneath it and shoots above it, and these, later on, by their innate force, spread into branches and leaves, are covered with foliage, and adorned with flowers and fruit. It is not necessary, therefore, that anything be brought to a man from without, but only that that which he possesses rolled up within himself be unfolded and disclosed, and that stress be laid on each separate element. Thus Pythagoras used to say that was so natural for a man to be possessed of all knowledge, that a boy of seven years old, if prudently questioned on all the problems of philosophy, ought to be able to give a correct answer to each interrogation; since the light of Reason is a sufficient standard and measure of all things. Still it is true that, since the Fall, Reason has become obscure and involved, and does not know how to set itself free; while those who ought to have done so have rather entangled it the more.