Thus much at least, I can say about
all writers, past or future, who say they know the things to which I
devote myself, whether by hearing the teaching of me or of others,
or by their own discoveries-that according to my view it is not
possible for them to have any real skill in the matter. There
neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For
it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge;
but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived
together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a
flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.
Yet this much I know-that if the things were written or put into
words, it would be done best by me, and that, if they were written
badly, I should be the person most pained. Again, if they had appeared
to me to admit adequately of writing and exposition, what task in life
could I have performed nobler than this, to write what is of great
service to mankind and to bring the nature of things into the light
for all to see? But I do not think it a good thing for men that
there should be a disquisition, as it is called, on this
topic-except for some few, who are able with a little teaching to find
it out for themselves. As for the rest, it would fill some of them
quite illogically with a mistaken feeling of contempt, and others with
lofty and vain-glorious expectations, as though they had learnt
something high and mighty.
On this point I intend to speak a little more at length; for
perhaps, when I have done so, things will be clearer with regard to my
present subject.
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