From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Sat Jan 20 2001 - 08:48:45 MST
>> Seneca wrote:
>> "Multa sunt quae esse concedimus.
>> Qualia sunt? Ignoramus"
>> (Naturales Quaestiones, VII, 25)
> Could someone please translate this for me?
> I really whish I knew what it is saying.
> Brent Allsop
"Many are the things whose existence we admit.
What are their qualities? We do not know."
Seneca was asking: What is the mind? How can our
mind comprehend the universe (or the motion of comets,
because at that time they knew the motion of
5 planets)? Is the mind a soul ("spirit")? An armony
("concentum")? Divine power ('vim divinam")?
Pure potentiality ("incorporalem potentiam")?
Si quis hoc loco me interrogaverit:
"quare ergo non, quemadmodum quinque stellarum,
ita harum observatus est cursus?" - huic ego
respondebo: "multa sunt quae esse concedimus,
qualia sunt? Ignoramus". Habere nos animum,
cuius imperio et impellimur et revocamur,
omnes fatebuntur. Quid tamen sit animus
ille rector dominusque nostri, non magis
tibi quisquam expediet quam ubi sit.
Alius illum dicet spiritum esse, alius
concentum quendam, alius vim divinam et
dei partem, alius tenuissimum animae,
alius incorporalem potentiam ; non deerit
qui sanguinem dicat, qui calorem.
Adeo animo non potest liquere de ceteris
rebus ut adhuc ipse se quaerat.
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