Of existence, and knowledge of it, and the love of both explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• True Worship and the One God

  Augustine contrasts the love of existence and knowledge with the higher spiritual light that enables judgment, pointing toward the divine source of truth.

• Morality and Virtue vs. Pagan Corruption

  The chapter emphasizes the inner sense of justice and injustice, distinct from bodily senses, as a foundation for moral judgment.

Characters to notice

• Augustine

  Author and narrator, reflecting on the natural desire for existence and knowledge.

Key passages

• “And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so.”

  The mere state of being is so inherently delightful that even miserable people prefer to continue existing in their misery rather than cease to exist entirely.

  Augustine argues that the love of existence is a fundamental, universal instinct.

• “For we have another and far superior sense, belonging to the inner man, by which we perceive what things are just, and what unjust—just by means of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of it.”

  Humans possess an inner, non-physical sense that allows them to discern justice and injustice through intellectual understanding, not through bodily senses.

  Augustine distinguishes between sensory perception and the rational, spiritual capacity for moral judgment.