Pagina 294 de 1391

'Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am

willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see

that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.' I

am an exception, then; astronomy as studied at present appears to

me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is

just looking up at the ceiling-no better; a man may lie on his

back on land or on water-he may look up or look down, but there

is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak

is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the

magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which

falls far short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about

the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like

the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other

great artist, which may be used for illustration, but no

mathematician would seek to obtain from them true conceptions of

equality or numerical relations.