Forty days, ten strings, a hundred and fifty-three fish: Augustine will not let a reader shrug at numbers as decoration. They are one of the keys that open figures—and music is another, even if the nine Muses were only three artists and three kinds of sound. The Confessions then names the three acts by which the mind handles what is not there: it expects, it considers, it remembers. A long future is a long expectation. A long past is a long memory. Aquinas divides a life the same way he divides an intellect. Some men are given to seeing the truth. Some are given to doing what ought to be done. The life of pleasure is not the second of those.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 16–17 (Sections 25–27)

Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 28 (Section 37)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 179 (The Active and Contemplative Lives)

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