Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
UNDERSTANDING IS ALWAYS PRESENT IN THE SOUL. [1] But those must not be passed over either who strip the soul, even for some small span of time, of understanding. For in doing this they are simply paving the way to introduce it later — understanding, that is, along with the mind from which, of course, they suppose understanding to arise. [2] They want infancy to be contained by soul alone, so that it merely lives, not that it likewise has wisdom, since not all things that live are wise. After all, trees live and yet, according to Aristotle, do not have wisdom — and if anyone shares the animal substance out across the universe generally, which among us is a private possession in man alone, not merely as God's handiwork (which the rest also is) but as God's own breath, which is this alone, which we say is born complete with its whole equipment. [3] And if we are challenged by the case of trees, let us embrace the example — since even in them, not yet saplings but still mere stems and twigs, freshly sprung from the seed-bed, there is already a soul-power of their own. But it lingers, growing together and maturing along with the plant's own strength, in proportion to time, until age fills out the form which its nature is to fulfill. Or how else do shoots soon graft themselves onto them, and leaves take shape, and buds swell, and little flowers put on their ornament, and saps season themselves, unless the whole equipment of their kind lies dormant within them and grows greater as it is advanced part by part? [4] From this, then, they have wisdom from the very source they have life, with the same peculiar property belonging to living as to being wise — and indeed from infancy, each after its own kind. For I see even a vine, still tender and unripe, nevertheless already understanding its own business and wanting to cling to something, leaning on which and entwined with it, it may thrive. In fact, without waiting for the countryman's training, without a reed or a forked stake, if it touches anything at all it will love it unbidden, and will embrace it more passionately by its own instinct than by your direction. It hurries to make itself secure. [5] I see ivy too — press it down as hard as you like, it strains at once toward the heights and, with no one leading it, hangs suspended, since it would rather invade the walls with its woven foliage than be trampled on the ground by an unwanted injury. And on the other hand, where it fares badly against a building, does it not, as it grows, draw back — does it not flee? You can sense its branches aimed elsewhere, and understand the tree's animation from its divorce from the wall. It is content with the smallness it learned from the very outset of its most provident shrub-nature, fearing even its own collapse. [6] Why should I not claim these as the wisdoms and sciences of trees? Let them live, as the philosophers will have it, let them be wise, as the philosophers will not — let even the infancy of wood understand, all the more the infancy of man, whose soul, like a slip taken from the stock of Adam and drawn down into a cutting and committed to the generative hollows of the woman, has sprouted, complete with its whole equipment, in understanding as much as in sensation. [7] I am lying, if the infant does not, the very moment it greets life with a cry, thereby testify that it has felt and understood the very fact that it has been born — dedicating all its senses there and then together: sight to the light, hearing to sound, taste to moisture, smell to air, touch to earth. So that first cry is wrung out of the first stirrings of the senses and the first throbs of understanding. [8] More than that — some interpret that tearful voice, from its foresight of a life given to weeping, as an augury of coming troubles, on the ground that it must already have foreknowledge from the very entrance into birth, let alone understanding. From then on the infant tests its mother by instinct, examines its nurse by instinct, recognizes its nurse-maid by instinct, shunning strange breasts and refusing unfamiliar cradles, seeking no one except by habit. [9] Where does it get this judgment of the new and the customary, if it has no wisdom? Where does it get being offended and being soothed, if it does not understand? It is remarkable enough that infancy should be naturally spirited without possessing a mind, and naturally affectionate without possessing understanding. But as for Christ pronouncing praise 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings' — that was by way of demonstration, not a verdict that childhood or infancy is dull-witted, since the one, meeting him with acclamation, was able to offer him testimony, and the other, slaughtered on his account, certainly felt the violence.