On the question, Who is the Heir of Divine Things (71-75)

But, O mind! take confidence, and explain to us how you depart and emigrate from those former things, you who utter things perceptible only by the intellect to those who have been taught to hear rightly, always saying, I emigrated from my sojourn in the body when I learnt to despise the flesh, and I emigrated from the outward sense when I learnt to look upon the objects of outward sense as things which had no existence in reality—condemning its judicial faculties as spurious and corrupted, and full of false opinion, and also condemning the objects submitted to that judgment as speciously devised to allure and to deceive, and to snatch the truth from out of the middle of nature. Again, I departed from speech when I convicted it of great unreasonableness, although it talked of sublime subjects and puffed itself up;

for it dared a not inconsiderable deed of daring, namely, to show me bodies through the medium of shadows, and things by means of words, which was impossible; therefore it kept stumbling about over repeated obstacles, and kept on talking vainly, being unable by common expressions to give a clear representation and understanding of the peculiar properties of the subjects with which it was dealing.

But I, learning by experience, like an infant and untaught child, decided that it was better to depart from all these things, and to attribute the powers of each to God, who makes and consolidates [*]

and in the same manner in which you have departed from the other things, now rise up and emigrate from thyself. But what is the meaning of this expression? Do not treasure up in thyself the faculties of perceiving, and thinking, and comprehending, but offer and dedicate these things to him who is the cause of thinking accurately, and of comprehending without being deceived.

But it is the holier of the all-sacred places in the temple which receives this offering; for it appears that there are two; the one discernible only by the intellect, and the other perceptible by the outward senses. Now, of these creatures which are perceptible by the outward senses, this world is the receptacle; but of those things which are truly invisible, the world, which is discernible only by the intellect, is the magazine: