And of these, the first, allegorized through the first blind man, is
the quality of its own species, which in so far as the degree in which
he finds himself admits, he aspires certainly higher, than he is able to
comprehend.
MIN. Because no natural desire is vain, we are able to assure ourselves
of a more excellent state which is suitable to the soul outside of this
body, in the which it may be possible to unite itself, or to approach
more nearly, to its object.
SEV. Thou sayest well that no natural impulse or power is without strong
reason; it is in fact the same rule of nature which orders things. So
far, it is a thing most true and most certain to well-disposed
intellects, that the human soul, whatever it may show itself while it is
in the body, that same, which it makes manifest in this state, is the
expression of its pilgrim existence in this region; because it aspires
to the truth and to universal good, and is not satisfied with that which
comes on account of and to the profit of its species.
The second, represented by the second blind man, proceeds from some
troubled affection, as in the question of Love and Jealousy, the which
is like a moth, which has the same subject, enemy and father, that is,
it consumes the cloth or wood from which, it is generated.
MIN. This does not seem to me to take place with heroic love.
SEV. True, according to the same reason which is seen in the lower kind
of love; but I mean according to another reason similar to that which
happens to those who love truth and goodness, which shows itself when
they are angry against those who adulterate it, spoil it, or corrupt it,
or who in other ways would treat it with indignity, as has been the case
with those who have brought themselves to suffer death and pains, and to
being ignominiously treated by ignorant peoples and vulgar sects.
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