History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [199]
So much for the pears. Let us now see what the Confessions have to say on some other subjects.
Augustine relates how he learnt Latin, painlessly, at his mother's knee, but hated Greek, which they tried to teach him at school, because he was 'urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments'. To the end of his life, his knowledge of Greek remained slight. One might have supposed that he would go on, from this contrast, to draw a moral in favour of gentle methods in education. What he says, however, is:
'It is quite clear, then, that a free curiosity has more power to make us learn these things than a terrifying obligation. Only this obligation restrains the waverings of that freedom by Thy laws, O my God, Thy laws, from the master's rod to the martyr's trials, for Thy laws have the effect of mingling for us certain wholesome bitters, which recall us to Thee away from that pernicious blithesomeness, by means of which we depart from Thee.'
The schoolmaster's blows, though they failed to make him know Greek, cured him of being perniciously blithesome, and were, on this ground, a desirable part of education. For those who make sin the most important of all human concerns, this view is logical. He goes on to point out that he sinned, not only as a school-boy, when he told lies and stole food, but even earlier; indeed he devotes a whole chapter (Book I, chap. vii) to proving that even infants at the breast are full of sin—gluttony, jealousy, and other horrible vices.
When he reached adolescence, the lusts of the flesh overcame him. 'Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness of lust which hath licence through man's viciousness, though forbidden by Thy laws, took the rule over me, and I resigned myself wholly to it?'13
His father took no pains to prevent this evil, but confined himself to giving help in Augustine's studies. His mother, St Monica, on the contrary, exhorted him to chastity, but in vain. And even she did not, at that time, suggest marriage, 'lest my prospects might be embarrassed by the clog of a wife'.
At the age of sixteen he went to Carthage, 'where there seethed all around me a cauldron of lawless loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and I hated safety…. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness.'14 These words describe his relation to a mistress whom he loved faithfully for many years,15 and by whom he had a son, whom he also loved, and to whom, after his conversion, he gave much care in religious education.
The time came when he and his mother thought he ought to begin to think of marrying. He became engaged to a girl of whom she approved, and it was held necessary that he should break with his mistress. 'My mistress,' he says, 'being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Africa [Augustine was at this time in Milan], vowing unto Thee never to know any other man, leaving with me my son by her.'16 As, however, the marriage could not take place for two years, owing to the girl's youth, he took meanwhile another mistress, less official and less acknowledged. His
conscience increasingly troubled him, and he used to pray: 'Give me chastity and continence, only not yet.'17 At last, before the time had come for his marriage, religion won a complete victory, and he dedicated the rest of his life to celibacy.
To return to an earlier time: in his nineteenth